 
HARDCHANGE

By Rane Haverton

Copyright 2014 Rane Haverton

Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support!

WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT - ADULTS 18+ ONLY:

This book contains explicit adult subject matter and is not intended for readers under the age of eighteen. The text contains strong language and deals with issues of rape, behavior modification, slavery, torture, racism and addiction. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

Hardchange is a work of dystopian, speculative fiction peopled by ruthless, violent characters who are dealing with many of the hard societal issues that confront us today.

It is also a story of remarkable courage, compassion, poetry, dark humor and a smear of Rock 'n Roll. If you enjoy depth, a bit of mystery, psychological suspense and complex characters entwined in complex relationships, you might be in for a treat.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the one who first encouraged the writing of this story, and to the one who next took up the standard and carries it to this day. You both know who you are and, without either one of you, this never would have happened.

And I remember all the beautiful people along the way, friends and acquaintances, who sat down and read this story and believed in it.

You all know who you are and you have my deepest, deepest gratitude.

What Some Readers Had To Say About Hardchange

This is one of the most beautifully written and well conceived works that I have had the pleasure to review. The quality of the writing, the metaphor, language, conversation and character development are excellent. In addition, Hardchange has a compelling, albeit bleak look into the future. The work delves deeply into the psychological drama of Carlen's life, grasping at a variety of emotions and moods that are interesting to follow as they unfold.

\- Paula Hatton

Loved the book. Sat up until 4 A.M. reading. Could not put it down! Best new author I have read in a long time.

\- Sandra Sabine

Hardchange grips you from the opening chapter and never loosens its hold until the end of the last paragraph. Even after you've finished, the story will haunt you beyond the pages. You'll want to know what happens next to the acid-tested but still vulnerable Carlen. Well, I'll tell you. Carlen comes so alive you're not surprised at all to find her walking through your front door.

\- William Larson

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE ~ THE COMPANY OF WOMEN

Chapter 1 - Transfer

Chapter 2 - Newblood

Chapter 3 - Strange Bedfellows

Chapter 4 - Pickings of the City

Chapter 5 - Museum

Chapter 6 - Shouts and Whispers

Chapter 7 - The Checkerboard

Chapter 8 - Impasse

PART TWO ~ THE CHAIN OF COMMAND

Chapter 9 - Spiked

Chapter 10 - The Keeper of the Keys

Chapter 11 - Presentation

Chapter 12 - Sour Revenge

Chapter 13 - Induction

Chapter 14 - The Workshop

Chapter 15 - Jaim

Chapter 16 - In the Circle

Chapter 17 - Threewayed

Chapter 18 - Betrayal

Chapter 19 - The Cold Room

Chapter 20 - Questions and Lies

Chapter 21 - Personal Touch

Chapter 22 - Tilt

Chapter 23 - Interlude

Chapter 24 - Truth or Consequences

Chapter 25 - Reincarnation

Chapter 26 - Report

Chapter 27 - Books and Parades

Chapter 28 - Strokes

Chapter 29 - Banished

Chapter 30 - The Master

Chapter 31 - Heat and Ice

Chapter 32 - Floor Game

Chapter 33 - Darkening of the Light

Chapter 34 - To Kill a King

Chapter 35 - Berserk

Chapter 36 - Overtaken

Chapter 37 - Submissions

Chapter 38 - Quietism

Chapter 39 - Life at the Top

Chapter 40 - The Wager

Chapter 41 - All the Sterling Horses

Chapter 42 - The Exchange

PART THREE ~ THE DOMAIN OF MEN

Chapter 43 - Transportation

Chapter 44 - Jump Start

Chapter 45 - Goings On

Chapter 46 - The Great Pretender

Chapter 47 - Requests

Chapter 48 - The Dealer's Grace

Chapter 49 - Disclosures

Chapter 50 - Miscarriage

Chapter 51 - The Hook and the Hypo

Chapter 52 - Humanities

Chapter 53 - Feet of Clay

Chapter 54 - Etiene

Chapter 55 - Ruthless

Chapter 56 - Maena

Chapter 57 - May Dance

Chapter 58 - Unseated

Chapter 59 - Runaway

Chapter 60 - Priorities

Chapter 61 - Moreau Street

Chapter 62 - Hit

Chapter 63 - Old Time Man

Chapter 64 - Return to Blacktown

PART FOUR ~ HARDCHANGE

Chapter 65 - Shelta

Chapter 66 - Heart of Stone

Chapter 67 - Shadow Boxing

Chapter 68 - Myths and Legends

Chapter 69 - Prelim

Chapter 70 - End Game

Chapter 71 - Terms

Epilogue

Mother Earth

Speak louder mother, the guns are sounding

and I'm finding it hard to hear you.

Yes, you told me that the earth was once green

and that the skies were once blue.

Yes, you told me there were skies,

I can see them now.

And there were birds in the skies,

I can hear them now...

Life was simple when I was younger

and there was room to grow.

Life was the ticket to a magical world

with so much to learn and know.

And there was freedom then,

I remember now.

Before they turned us in

to the here and now...

We all breathe much softer now

as the nights lay waste to our souls.

We change disguises like the look in our eyes

as we re-rehearse our roles.

And there were whispers in our minds,

I can hear them now –

echoing the shouts in the alleys

and I run somehow...

CLOUDBURST

CIRCA: Year 3 / Pre-Control

Song By Sebastian

PART ONE ~ THE COMPANY OF WOMEN

CHAPTER 1 \- TRANSFER

Not every situation can be controlled completely, but choices do present themselves and, in most situations, the choices we make influence the outcome. She was thinking of this on the night of her transfer. She reflected on choices she'd made in the past, the outcome they'd brought her to, and speculated on how many choices might be left in a life already so excessively spent.

The transfer into Newcity penitentiary was an English tea party compared to the carnival the night of her arrest \- a scene that couldn't have been staged better if she'd scripted it herself. She could have gotten away. They never would have caught her if she'd chosen to run - just as she'd run from everything for the past decade.

Choices.

She'd surrendered herself into custody without protest, and made her confession in open court for anyone with an ear to listen, remotely amazed at how simple it had been.

Of course by then there'd been nothing left to feel. Fear, guilt, nor even anger. It was a beautiful respite but it didn't last. Over the last seventy-two hours the feeling had gradually seeped back, like a putrid toxin bleeding deep into the subatomic levels of the consciousness.

Fear, from which there was no remission - beyond catatonia or death. Liquid fear, peppered with guilt and sweetened by burning rage. Full restoration of the malignant emotional nutrients of the daily diet. North, south, east, west, a contagion that infected an entire population, eradicating innocence. Oh yeah. They were all guilty now. In one way or another, all guilty.

And what of loss? To hell with loss. It was much too late for that. Like everyone else, she just wanted to go home. That mythical place that ceased to exist over fifteen years ago.

Her footsteps sounded in the yellow gloom, moving her from shadow to shadow in the slow, measured march of the condemned. There was no hurry now as she traversed the last few yards down this gritty, ill-lit thoroughfare.

She knew she didn't belong here, of all places, but had she thrown herself on the mercy of the court? Protested her innocence? Hell no. She was as culpable as every other son of a bitch they'd siphoned down this avenue of the damned.

It's a time-tunnel, honey. Gonna steal your time...

The guards' footsteps echoed her own. State Guards. Heavily booted, heavily armed. Three of them assigned to conduct her lone self down to the other end. A slow day, maybe.

It had been ten years since the city was evacuated and turned over to the State for use as a prison. It seemed like fifty. Things had become very rough. So had prison sentences. This was supposed to be the worst place on earth. That was the word and it might be true, although she suspected there probably were places worse.

The advice of an intermediate cell mate sounded in her head: "Whatever you do, don't stop in the tunnel. And don't turn around. The guards'll shoot."

So she didn't stop and she didn't turn, but moved steadily on, listening to the hollow, disembodied sound of their footfalls behind her. She'd been told the guards sometimes conducted body searches before they released Transfers on the other side. She hoped to God it wasn't true.

The fear gnawed. Nothing new there, except maybe the quality of the feeling. She had entered many cities. All over the world. She had entered. She had made exits. Always. Now destiny pulled her toward one last frontier. An entrapment that would last until the end of her life.

She'd carved a proud and lucrative career from her talent for slipping away, but in the outside world one could always blend with the mob. This was going to be a different prospect. She already knew the present population of the prison was puny compared to conditions outside. She also knew vaguely how it was laid out, at least as far as State involvement went. Some help. Not much. Without prior knowledge of the city, nothing. She wasn't overly concerned about it. She was speculating more about the species of beings inside.

Wits in gear here, dear.

About the best advice there was.

The end of the tunnel was now in view. Its black mouth offered a cold, welcoming grin with teeth suggested by the steel bars of a double gate, one side of which seemed off kilter. An illusion, she supposed.

Then she realized - hers were the only steps reverberating in the tunnel. She slowed undiscernibly, but heard no other sound of life. The guards were definitely not there.

She nearly laughed aloud - then stopped stone still, her forehead beading out in a prickly sweat.

That wasn't it. Certainly they were there. Three guards assigned? They wouldn't leave her in mid-escort. It was something else. They'd stopped, taken aim and were only waiting for her to turn then, pop! Extermination.

There wasn't any prison. No prisoners. It was a ruse, a secret detour, like the death camps of the 1940's. Nothing lay beyond. Nothing but one huge graveyard. The Greatest on Earth.

It occurred to her then that the gates ahead actually were rusted. One was, in fact, off its hinge and no semblance of a lock remained.

It struck her odd. The situation was odd. She pivoted slowly and stared back. Emptiness. The guards had apparently dropped off some distance back and were long out of sight.

She experienced a small sense of relief in her sudden, unexpected privacy. Then all her previous feelings came flooding back. Her exhaustion. Her anger. The fear. She shoved the gate with her shoulder and entered the city.

The tunnel exited upon a complex of arterial roads silently interweaving through the assembling night mists. The atmosphere hung with a murky haze. Same as outside, only in here there would be no state-of-the-art air purifiers. The Transfer didn't care. Such so-called purifiers gave her nose bleeds.

It was even darker in the city after the muted light in the tunnel and she had only to travel a few yards before the tunnel mouth was swallowed up by the night shadows.

The city itself looked like a nightmare come to life - by all accounts exactly what it had become. Yet, within the realms of imagination, one could almost glimpse into the proud past of this despoiled, forsaken metropolis.

As she descended one of the curving roads, she passed under a sign boldly stating EAST AND DOWNTOWN. She didn't pause to read it. She'd been delivered to the Women's Sector. If she walked due north, she figured she'd reach her destination within the hour.

A piercing shriek cut through the muffled darkness beneath the elevated roadways. The Transfer could hardly imagine what sort of creature made such a sound, or for what reason. She increased her pace and turned off without so much as a glance at the sign overhead which read CROSS TOWN ONLY.

Beyond lay the city proper, fronted by the river wharves and looming warehouses - huge empty expanses with second story lofts. The Transfer noticed campfires burning in a couple of them.

Next came what had once flourished as the garment district. Then the restaurant, entertainment and artistic center and, finally, the business center, bordered on the north by a residential neighborhood.

A phenomenon in its time and the first of its kind, the city was erected by a force of volunteer workers. People of all classes and professions who migrated by the thousands, leaving the old polluted and crime ridden cities for temporary dwellings on the raw construction site. They came with nothing and worked for nothing but their board, three squares a day and chits for a meager hundred dollars a week, which they were encouraged to save. A fantastic new breed who came, not only to build a city but to inhabit it.

It was decided that many of the buildings in the city would be direct copies of structures in the more antiquated cities around the country, to lend the city an "old world" charm which most modern architecture severely lacked. The resulting effect was truly remarkable.

The creation was named, perhaps unimaginatively, "Newcity", but it would be hard to find a population with more pride in the results of its labors, or more comfortable in its environment.

Then came the trouble.

* * *

The moon, somewhere overhead, cast a bleak blanket of illumination. The haze overhung all - the fallout of a war which refused to settle.

There were a few lights scattered around the city. Cold, four-eyed monsters, towering three stories into the air, their great white, semi-spherical eyes glaring down in voracious inquiry. They cast a cold, damning light over small portions of the city, condemning the majority of it to near total darkness.

According to the information she had, the Transfer's destination lay just south of the business section. She figured on a ten block hike across town to the Women's Barrack.

The darkness made her uneasy. The cities she'd been in - those that still lived and breathed - were all glaringly well lit and, in this country, they stayed that way all the time. Especially since everything came "under control". This darkness and silence, although not perfect, seemed unnatural.

The click of a heel resounded on the pavement a few yards behind. The Transfer didn't turn her head or alter her gait and she made no attempt to disguise the clumping of her own boots. She knew someone was there and following, for whatever reason. She'd known it from the first. What surprised her was the fact that one was all there was.

At last she spotted a halo of yellow light crowning the buildings between her and its source. As she approached, her exhausted, aching limbs drew near as though in response to a call from eternal heaven, but to the eyes, ears and nose of the Transfer it looked, sounded and smelled a lot like hell. This was it.

CHAPTER 2 \- NEWBLOOD

Upon first sight, the barrack was a vision of every midsummer's night ghetto scene she'd ever encountered. Morbidly institutional buildings, obviously State built on a site which had been leveled for them, the barracks had stoops out the front, and stairs, and practically every inch of them was occupied.

It was well past midnight, but every light in all four blocks was on, and the gathering of people on the stairs was highly animated. The sudden appearance of a stranger in the circle of light stirred immediate interest.

"Wellohwell! Fresh rat up from the waterfront."

"I've got a taste for some fresh meat..."

"Hey, Newblood! Come sit by me. I've got something pretty to show you!"

The Transfer looked them over without comment. A motley bunch, ragged, dirty, but pretty well fed. Not so different to the scurvy lot back in County Hold. Certainly they were dangerous, tough, but only front stairs tough, the Transfer thought. Get them away from their turf or catch one alone and they were nothing.

"Now, now! Settle back," the ringleader soothed, a fat, one-handed creature with a ring through her nose. "Whadayasay, Newblood?"

"I'm looking for a bed."

"Bed-huh?"

"This is the Barrack?"

"This is it!" the fat girl's lieutenant sniggered.

"Are there beds inside?"

More laughter.

"Sure! Beds inside!"

"Help yourself," the fat one said with a wave of her one hand.

The Transfer knew there was never an invitation so perfect for refusal, but she was bone tired and the only other option she could see was to walk the open streets all night.

The stair people cleared a grudging path which closed up behind her with discomforting speed as she ascended the steps. When at last her hand achieved the handle of the front door, she took pause. All she really wanted was...

Here now. Might as well have a look inside. Maybe there'd be a crowd she could disappear into.

The door opened into an explosion of sound, a roar of humanity within which was totally incongruent with the listening silence outside. What windows there were had been sealed shut, and mattresses were nailed to the front doors, presumably to soundproof the din from outside.

Little more than crude scaffolds, a jam of bunk towers lined the walls, left and right, four deep from floor to ceiling. They jutted into the room, forming an aisle barely six feet wide that seemed to stretch into infinity.

From an annex on the left there exuded the noxious odor of backed up sewers. As the transfer progressed, the nauseating stench persisted, augmented by the litter of graffiti etched in blood and human excrement across narrow strips of wall visible between the bunk towers.

The Transfer's eardrums vibrated under a barrage of shouts and babble that penetrated to the bone, a sound as suffocating as the fetid air. An erector set jungle teeming with screeching wildlife. And wildlife they were. A study in human regression.

On one of the lower bunks, a weasel featured girl in the shredded remains of a soiled Tee-shirt was skinning a rat. She glanced up with hungry eyes, murky pools of paranoia, as though there was a genuine threat this interloper might move in on her exquisite catch.

Further along, a mournful humming threaded through the cacophony from another tattered soul on a second tier bunk. The only music in this madhouse, silenced as the arm of an upstairs bunk mate swung down to cuff her lice ridden head.

There was a lot of gambling going on - cards, dice, even an intense game of makeshift pick up sticks in the cramped floor space between two tiers.

There was no linen on the beds, no uniforms on the inmates, in fact, no uniformity of any kind. Further, there didn't seem to be enough beds to go around, let alone any spares.

The Transfer had seen plenty in her travels and her stay in County Hold. Nothing was pretty these days, but this was the saddest concentration of human degradation she'd seen so far. And yet...

One measured step at a time, she passed like a specter from another dimension, recording every detail with the cool, detached eye of a documentarian's camera. There was no compassion in her, no empathy, only a mild revulsion, underpinned by the urgent knowledge that she must get out.

Despite the chaos in the dormitory, the arrival of a stranger did not go unnoticed. The level of noise had diminished and a small group of the curious had shuffled into the wake of the newcomer who, by now, had advanced more than halfway into the barrack.

She stopped to catch a look behind her. As she turned, the movement of the crowd ceased, and in that instant she saw her predicament. She was the focus of every eye, and it was apparent some of these demented creatures were intent on coming in for a closer look... or something more. With the frozen amazement of the sleepwalker she wondered at the temporary insanity that had brought her so far into this den of bedlam.

Dreaming of a bed, a meal.

Perhaps this lapse into illusion was indicative of an even deeper level of capitulation. Or perhaps the illusion was a reality of sorts. A reality she could step into. Surrender to sleep in such a place was open invitation to death...

Without reasoning it out on a conscious level, she decided that self-deception actually would do for the moment. A notion that she wanted to survive - another day or two at least. If there was no better place to live, then there had to be a better place to die.

The million dollar question was, could she get out again?

It was too late for the front door. Too far now, and it was blocked by the stoop people who'd crammed the portal to take in the scene. Their voices crackled in the unnatural silence. No more than indistinct taunts to the Transfer, their remarks were clearly intended to encourage the others.

The mob was moving again. So was the Transfer. Deeper into the pit. Toward a back door she'd spotted when she came in. She hoped to hell it wasn't locked.

The comments from the front door were louder, and a murmuring rumbled within the crowd, which had doubled in size. More voices joined in and the murmur took on the cadence of a chant, ultimately swelling into two booming syllables the stranger could distinguish.

NEW BLOOD

Newblood. Right. New girl. New fish. New meat. Her status obvious enough by the clean navy blue work shirt and pants she wore. State issue, like the work boots. Like the rotten chop job on her newly shorn head. Newblood. In a nest of vampires. Well done.

It was too soon to break for the door. Still too far. Be a mistake to create a rush behind her, then to find the door would not open.

One stealthy, precarious step backwards at a time, she inched on down the narrow passageway, pulses coursing.

Rat Girl had pushed to the forefront of the contracting circle, her bloody, half-skinned snack dangling from the curl of her hand. The Transfer reckoned it would take only a few seconds to end up looking like that rat. With a crowd like this, only a few seconds. It would be easy to surrender to the blood lust of this homicidal mob - so much easier than anything had been in a long time.

But the survival instinct prevailed, just as indisputable and pointless as it had been for the last fifteen years. The adrenalin jolt, a rush now as familiar and euphoric as the most exotic drug on the black market. The only high that was still free from financial or political censure and, as ashamed as she might be to admit it, she was as much an addict as anyone still left alive.

Without a glimmer of conscious judgment, she allowed the switchblade concealed up her left sleeve to drop into her palm in a reflex that had become as natural as sweating. The blade snapped smoothly open and for a few seconds the only thing moving in the room was that blade. Shiny bright in the light.

The Transfer didn't break the sudden silence with empty threats. Poised on the balls of her feet, she continued backing down the passageway, crouched in an unmistakable invitation to combat. She slashed at close comers and backed a few others off with terrible shouts. The silence undermined the courage and ferocity of the crowd, but the stranger was braced for anything.

They stalked her like some wild, rare animal but none came on and when at last she sensed the door close behind, she coiled up and sprang.

The door gave way smoothly, ejecting her with a force that nearly toppled her over the stair railing outside. She caught one last glimpse of the mob through the narrowing crack of the closing door as she skipped down the stairs and into the street. As she suspected, none dared follow her out beyond the embrace of the light into the shadows.

CHAPTER 3 \- STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

The Transfer folded the switchblade and slid it back up her sleeve. She'd have to find another place to spend the night.

"Welcome to Utopia!"

Pivoting, the Transfer spotted a lone figure, cloaked in shadow, perched on the stoop of a building across the street.

"What do you think of the barracks-huh?"

"Fucking asylum," the Transfer replied darkly.

The figure laughed and jumped down to the pavement. "No kidding."

The hard stacked heels of her boots clicked as she swaggered across the street. A diminutive figure, five two or three, and bald but for a few random tufts of fine woolly hair. She was dressed in an eclectic conglomeration of combat gear, complete with an alice belt jangling with an assortment of odd tools. On her right arm was a tattoo with a seemingly random pattern of lines enclosed in a circle. "Just come down the tunnel tonight?"

"Could be."

"Never mind. I can tell."

"You mean you followed me up here."

"Sharp, very sharp."

"What do you want?"

"I make a point of greeting all the Newbloods. A kind of one woman welcoming committee." The stranger smiled broadly, revealing the absence of two teeth. "Dalroy," she said, smiling still and offering her hand. The smile faded slightly when the gesture was not reciprocated. "At your service."

The Transfer hesitated. "Carlen."

"Glad to make your acquaintance. You have a touch of an accent, I notice."

Carlen skirted the girl and stepped off the curb. "Everyone has an accent," she said.

Carlen didn't sense any immediate danger from this character but it seemed prudent to avoid closer contact. Her new acquaintance had other ideas. Dalroy hopped off the curb and fell into step.

"I'd say you're from England or you spent a lot of time there. Am I right?"

"I don't know. Are you?"

Dalroy chuckled. "Cagey-huh? Look, I know. You're tired. Hungry, maybe? I got food sources."

"You do, huh?"

"Real food, too. I'll take you to dinner!"

"Why's that?"

"Hey, we all have a period of adjustment, you know? I'll leave you alone, if you want, but things get rugged around here at night. I could be of help to you."

Carlen stopped and faced the girl. "And what's the exchange rate?"

Dalroy shrugged, flashing the most appealing smile she could muster. "Companionship. A little intelligent conversation."

Carlen doubted the intelligence of the creature, doubted more the quality of her companionship, but her innards were grinding away emptily and this, at least, was contact with someone who seemed to know her way around. Perhaps she would be useful, until Carlen got a footing.

"Where's this food?"

Dalroy beamed. "Now you're talking!" she said, already moving. "You know, this city's full of good stuff and I know where everything is."

They set off in a southerly direction down Bendix Street, then traveled west for six blocks before Dalroy abruptly disappeared through a darkened doorway under a battered sign that read "Mildren's Cafe". Carlen hesitated on the pavement.

"Come on," Dalroy urged from the black interior.

Carlen cautiously stepped through the jimmied door, broken glass crunching underfoot. At first she could not see Dalroy in the darkness, then she spotted a movement behind the counter as the girl popped up, candles and matches in hand. The meager flames made little impression on the darkness but they added a momentary warmth and reality to the scene. Carlen took a stool at the counter as Dalroy disappeared behind it again in search of the promised banquet.

Seated at last after her succession of walks, Carlen felt the exhaustion at work on her again. From somewhere she would have to find the energy to stay alert. Her hostess seemed eager enough to please but there was always room for caution. Everyone in this world had an angle. This was no time to slip up, but even the light from the candles seemed to be operating on her, causing her eyelids to droop, playing tricks with the shadows.

She nearly jumped off the stool when Dalroy popped up again and tossed an archaic, manual can opener on the counter in front of her.

"Know how to use one of those?" Dalroy asked, unloading an armful of canned goods.

Carlen picked up the opener. "I imagine so."

"Good. You start hacking these open. I'll get some spoons."

Carlen studied the labels on the cans. Baked Beans, Spaghetti and Meat Sauce, Corn Niblets, more beans. State of the art - pre-Control.

"Some good eats-huh?" Dalroy beamed, returning with two spoons.

"Are you sure this stuff is still alright?"

"Sure. This kind of packaging was made to last!" Dalroy said, banging a can on the counter as if to demonstrate. "Just don't open any that look swollen, and if they hiss when you puncture them, throw them away. Eat a bad one you die fast. I've seen it happen. Good dining for your enemies," she said with a wink.

Carlen went to work with the can opener.

As predicted, the contents of the cans were "some good eats".

"Anything to drink?" Carlen asked between mouthfuls.

"Water here's pretty good."

"I mean a real drink."

Dalroy paused a second then smiled. "I get you. Not here but I know where. Water do for now?"

"Fine."

Dalroy fetched tap water in two antiquated cafeteria mugs with broken handles. They dined a while longer without conversation, each making an outward show of concentrated eating, each mentally sizing the other up.

When she'd had her fill, Carlen wiped her mouth on her sleeve and was about to toss the empty can. Dalroy arrested her hand in mid-air.

"I'll dispose of that," she said, taking the can. "I like to keep the place clean. Rats, you know."

Clean was a joke. The place was trash central, but Carlen helped clear up the leavings. For all she knew, it was the tidiest place in town.

Dalroy hid the can opener, spoons, cups, and took one final look around. "Okay. We'll get that drink now, but then we get off the streets for the night."

She extinguished the candles, stowed them and led the way outside.

"Where does a person sleep around here?" Carlen asked as they started down the block.

"Where do you want to sleep?"

The question surprised Carlen but her reply surprised her more. "A hotel would be fine."

Quick as a flash, Dalroy asked, "Three, Four or Five Star?"

Despite herself, a small laugh escaped Carlen. It felt just a little too good. "What the hell! Might as well shoot the moon!"

"Might as well," Dalroy concurred. "Wait here," she said and disappeared again, this time into what looked to be an old wine and spirits shop.

She was gone a long time and Carlen was beginning to wonder how to proceed when Dalroy reappeared, a large bottle of spirits under her arm.

"Let's go."

They started out again in an westerly direction.

"I'd have thought all these places would be picked clean by now," Carlen observed, secretly impressed with the latest booty.

"They pretty well are, believe me. You just have to know where to look."

"Well, you certainly seem to-"

"Shhh!"

Dalroy's hand gripped Carlen's arm and, before she could take another step, Dalroy had pulled her into a darkened doorway with an additional urgent indication to silence.

It was a few moments before Carlen could discern the sound of footsteps approaching. She wondered what had alerted Dalroy to it so quickly.

As they waited, Carlen could just make out the shapes of three beings as they passed by. It was impossible to make out their gender. In the dark of night they hardly seemed human. A rancid odor carried on the slip-stream of their passage assaulted Carlen's senses, dizzying her with a storm of unwelcome memories. She turned her head away quickly, sending urgent messages to her discomforted stomach.

Dalroy peered out cautiously, then signaled Carlen to follow her and to hurry. Her step had taken on a definite urgency and her features were set in a hard determination that was visible even in the dark. Carlen urged her reluctant legs to keep pace.

"Who were they? Or should I say, what?"

"Veterans."

"What?"

"Renegades, really. No good for the Legion. So they stick them in here. Think they own these fucking streets. That vermin will strip you of everything you got. Strip you to the bone."

"Cannibals?"

"In a manner of speaking. Hurry. It's late."

The blocks melded into one long stretch as Dalroy zigzagged south and west until they were traveling along what was once one of the busiest streets in the city - Broadway. Hell, Carlen thought. Was there one city in the entire Western Civilization that did not have a Broadway? She honestly doubted it.

Dalroy nodded ahead and said, "It'll have to be Three Star tonight."

Carlen only nodded. The boots she'd been issued with her uniform were destroying her feet.

Dalroy picked the Haverton. Not a bad choice, really, but entering the darkened hotel was like walking into a wall of black corduroy. Carlen inched her way by half steps across the lobby, cut adrift from even the sound of Dalroy's footsteps by the muffling carpet.

She crept on, anticipating the inevitable collision with either Dalroy or any manner of furnishings, when a sudden stab of light nearly caused her to duck for cover.

"Dalroy?" she called softly.

"Over here."

Dalroy was already rooting around behind the reception desk and Carlen used the erratic sweeps of the tiny beam as a beacon to get herself over there.

"What are you looking for?"

"A key."

Carlen chuckled. "What for?"

"You want a vacant room, don't you?"

Perhaps Carlen was too tired to see the necessity for such caution, but it was a comfort to know that even Dalroy's amazing night scopes required light for some things.

"Besides," she added. "They're all locked."

Of course they are, Carlen thought. Of course.

Dalroy located a key and led the way to the stairs, opening the door for Carlen with the nonchalance of an individual in the home of her upbringing. Predictably, the stairwell was pitch black. Dalroy's flashlight was small, but powerful enough to guide them up two floors, and down the equally dark corridor to the room number that matched the number on Dalroy's key.

Dalroy pressed her ear to the door and listened. "This looks okay," she said and slid the key into the lock, finessing her way past the resistance in the old mechanism, and the door swung open. A cold blanket of light from the street illuminated the area dully and Carlen could make out Dalroy's toothless grin as she passed into the room. "This one's never been opened yet," Dalroy observed. "It's fresh!"

Fresh was strictly a matter of outlook. Every surface was coated with dust and one had the feeling of things crawling around in the corners. Things that were small to the eye but humongous in the imagination.

Carlen threw back the coverlet on the bed to check the condition of the sheets, while Dalroy ferreted around in every cupboard and drawer for who knew what this time. The girl was an innate scavenger.

Carlen plopped on the bed, back against the headboard, legs stretched and crossed in front of her. The bed wasn't too bad.

"Where's that bottle?"

Dalroy straightened up and tossed it to her, muttering. "There must be something here."

"Anything in particular?" Carlen asked, and tore at the seal of the bottle with her teeth.

"Light sticks. Candles. Something."

"What makes you think there are any here?"

"The hotels had to supply them, during the blackouts. By law. Where you been for fifteen years?"

That was a very involved question which Carlen didn't so much ignore as slide away from. There was an ancient, ghostly recollection tickling at the back of her memory and for a moment nothing existed. Not the hotel room, Dalroy, the creepies in the shadows... nothing but the desolate sigh of the city, an echo of the life flow which had deserted it.

"What's the matter? Is the whiskey bad?"

Carlen looked up to find Dalroy seated on the bed near her feet. Two candles burned solemnly from the dresser.

"It's bourbon and it's very good."

"Then let's have some!"

Carlen handed over the bottle, out of which she had already taken three good swigs. She watched Dalroy pour healthy doses into two hotel tumblers she'd dug up - but not before she'd thoroughly wiped the lip of the bottle with a rag she pulled from her pocket.

"Afraid I might have diseases?"

Dalroy glanced up, quite intent. "You might have."

"Yeah," Carlen said. "Cheers!"

They clinked glasses and drank. Two gulps. Three. A short silence fell. Dalroy broke it.

"I thought you were going to pass out a minute ago."

Carlen raised a mental eyebrow. "It's been a long day."

"Yeah. Sure it has," Dalroy said, pouring another round.

She watched in silence as Carlen tossed back half her fill, then reached over to top the glass again.

"You trying to get me blasted?"

"Aren't you?" Dalroy countered.

"It seems like a good idea," Carlen conceded. "What a fuck of a day."

Dalroy took a slug from her own glass. They'd already killed off a third of the bottle.

"Whatever made you decide to go to the Women's Barracks?"

"Do you ask everyone that question?"

"Not everyone makes it that far."

Carlen shrugged. "It seemed as good a starting point as any. I was only looking for a bed. Besides, I heard that's the only food drop in the Women's Sector."

Dalroy exploded with raw laughter. "Food-huh? You know what they drop those poor demented bitches? A steady diet of flom and litkin."

"That's animal food!"

"What kind of company you think you're in?"

Carlen made no reply.

"So, what's it like on the outside these days?"

"Crowded."

"What was your line out there?"

"I was a courier."

"Courier-huh? Then you have moved around a bit. What sort of stuff?"

"All sorts."

"Why'd they toss you in here?"

"Long, dull story. Give us some more of that."

Another refill.

"So, what's the layout here?" Carlen asked.

"What do you mean?"

"How are things drawn up?"

"Oh, Women's Sector, Men's Sector... Women's Barracks-"

"Men's Barracks," Carlen chipped in for her.

Their eyes met and the next thing they were both rolling with laughter.

Dalroy was gasping. "What a circus!"

"What a zoo!" Carlen howled.

Dalroy's breath caught sharply. "Whoa! The whiskey's spilling!"

As suddenly as the laughter had sprung out of them it shored itself up again. The mood was somehow dampened. Carlen wasn't sure why.

She held her glass out and Dalroy refilled it. The bottle was half dead. On with the game.

"So, it's just 'them' and 'us' and never the twain shall meet? There's got to be more to it than that."

"Oh sure. Sure there is. There's different neighborhoods and stuff. The Cavell district; Cross Street; the Canyon, where the dykes hang out; Blacktown. That'd be the biggest."

"The biggest?"

"Yeah. Well, it's over in the Men's Sector. Pretty heavy."

"I imagine so."

Carlen wasn't getting anywhere near the information she was after. Dalroy didn't have to make another evasion to prove she would not answer more direct questions. It wasn't particularly surprising. Everyone played the game in one form or another.

From what Carlen could deduce so far, no one was safe anywhere in this man made hell which, of course, was impossible. There had to be a seat of power, and Dalroy's evasiveness only served to convince Carlen that Dalroy might be close to it. She was a little too free. Too confident. Carlen didn't see her as an independent. She was more the sort to be somebody's hired lackey. She was dangerous, Carlen was sure, and she had to use her and get rid of her as fast as possible.

"How long have you been in here?" she asked, as they went to work on the second half of the bottle.

"About four years."

"Yeah. You seem to know your way about."

Dalroy shrugged. "You learn." Again the false modesty.

"About how many people are in here now, do you think?"

"Oh, ten thou, I guess."

"Phew. That's nothing."

"Well, they consider it careful. You have to be pretty heavy duty to be put away here."

"You have to be pretty heavy duty to get on in here at all, the picture you paint."

"Seriously," Dalroy said in earnest. "Life or death, mate - the English say that, don't they? 'Mate'?"

Carlen smiled a little. It was a relief to see the hooch was hitting the girl at last. "Yes. They say that. The Australians, too."

"Yeah. Life or death. Every day. By the way, you got any hardware?"

Slipped in very neatly, Carlen was sober enough to observe.

"You saw the shiv didn't you?"

"Your flick? Yeah. But what I meant was real hardware."

Carlen shook her head. "Couldn't risk too much. Not with the guard and all."

"Yeah," Dalroy concurred sadly. "And I suppose they still sterilize you beforehand-huh?"

Carlen's senses were not too numb to respond to the almost primitive pathos in the question.

"Yes. That too."

Dalroy was settled over on her side at the foot of the bed, the bottle resting against her stomach, the glass unsteady in her hand. She was drunk, alright, and a moment later her head lolled over and she was asleep.

Carlen caught the bottle before the last of the contents could be lost. She took one last swig, recapped it and stood the bottle on the floor, before settling down for the rest she'd craved since the night began. Her subconscious surged restlessly, dancing old memory with new into the centrifugal waltz of nonsensical dream thought.

CHAPTER 4 \- PICKINGS OF THE CITY

Late morning, Carlen came to. Dalroy was already wide awake, seated on the floor next to the bed. She was intently examining Carlen's switchblade which was open and poised, point and butt, between the tips of her forefingers.

Carlen remained motionless, cursing the thumping of her heart and her head and, mostly, cursing the exhaustion that had abandoned her to a sleep that ignored body searches.

Dalroy glanced up. "Good morning!"

"Is it?" Carlen rejoined, sitting up slowly.

"We're alive, aren't we?"

Carlen made a sound in her throat.

"I hope you don't mind," Dalroy said, holding up the knife. "Not often you see a nice piece like this in here."

"That so?" Carlen said, with more attention to the laces of her boots than Dalroy. She loosened them off and rotated her sore ankles a few times, then retied the laces.

"You always sleep with boots on?"

"Do you?"

Dalroy laughed self-consciously. "I guess it was a sudden departure, wasn't it?"

"You were drunk."

"You weren't exactly sober yourself," Dalroy countered, tossing the closed weapon on the bed to Carlen.

Carlen slid it smoothly back up her sleeve. "Is there any plumbing in this building?"

Dalroy gave a sly smile. "You mean a toilet?"

"Right."

"In there."

Carlen entered the small bathroom and closed the door. She made a contribution worthy of the Falls of Niagara. The toilet responded with a flush that rivaled the eruptions of Vesuvius.

Carlen burst from the bathroom like a gun shot. "Jesus Christ!"

Dalroy tipped over on the floor, laughing uproariously.

Carlen cast her a dark look. "I take it the plumbing hasn't been used in a while."

"Oh, years!"

"But you were up. Don't tell me you've been holding on all this time."

"I peed in the sink!" Dalroy confessed, looking fit to pee her pants now, laughing.

"So that when I went in there-"

"Yep!"

"Charming."

"Sorry. Had to. Was worth it!" Dalroy laughed, thrusting out a hand. Carlen helped her up, none too gently.

"What do you say to some breakfast?"

"Sounds alright," Carlen said, cautiously re-entering the bathroom to test the tap water. She had a raging thirst.

"Back to 'Cafe Dalroy'?" she called out, splashing her head with water and telling herself: Next time, drink more - or less.

Dalroy was rummaging through a cloth sack on the dresser when Carlen emerged from the bathroom.

"You been out already?"

"Oh yeah."

"Full of surprises, aren't you?"

"Sure." Dalroy tossed a couple of packages on the bed. "Dig in!"

Carlen tore into one of the packages and was amazed to find soda crackers. She was more amazed to discover they were fresh. Very fresh.

"Where did you get these?"

"Got my sources," Dalroy replied, tossing a jar on the bed near the crackers. Carlen picked it up. Jam!

"Got a knife?"

"What's this? The Ritz? Use your flick."

"Well," Carlen said, unscrewing the jar lid, "you did promise Five Star treatment."

Dalroy stopped dead, then laughed abruptly. "I did, didn't I?" She plopped on the bed and grabbed for the crackers. "You know? You're alright, Carlen. A sense of humor goes a long way in here. It truly does."

When the last cracker had been eaten and the final dollop of jam scraped from the jar, Dalroy looked up and swiped her mouth with her sleeve. "Enough?"

"Fine."

"Feel up to some work?"

Carlen shrugged. "Fair enough."

They left the hotel, taking two sturdy sacks Dalroy had brought back from the deli, and set out on a journey that took them nearly two miles east across town.

"Where are we going!" Carlen finally asked.

"Get some food. Where do you think those goodies come from?"

"I thought you found them in the deli."

"How do you think they got there? You were right about that section of town being picked clean. I have to restock from time to time. Go over to the less populated areas. It's a bit of work but well worth it."

Some of the streets they traveled were hopelessly littered with objects of every description, hauled out through broken store windows by looters during the riots years before. Some more recently. Many stores were completely burnt out. Other streets were clear and clean. It was a little eerie. They were almost too clean. As if someone cared enough to keep them that way.

They didn't see many people, mostly scavengers, picking through heaps of rubbish. Dalroy chatted on in that overly casual manner, but Carlen noticed the razor sharp eye she kept on everything around her - as if danger might spring from any corner. There certainly was an air of tension on these empty battered streets.

At last Dalroy stopped at a small store front. The exterior was in pretty good shape. The windows were intact, although they'd been painted black - from the inside - and no identifying sign remained.

In contrast, the disarray inside was surprising. Everything was everywhere, but nothing of value remained. It was hard to tell what type of goods the store had originally stocked but it hadn't been groceries.

"This is it?"

"This is it."

"There's nothing here."

"Not down here, there isn't."

Dalroy led the way through a back room, to another door that led up a dark stairway at the top of which was yet another door, steel plated. Dalroy fiddled with the hinge for a moment then pushed the door in.

One small window admitted just enough light to see by and, when Carlen got her first look around, she let out a low whistle.

"Something-huh?"

The room was stacked wall to wall, floor to ceiling with canned goods of every description.

"Where did you get all this stuff?"

Dalroy laughed, happy to have fired the light of respect in Carlen's eyes. "Oh, I've been collecting it for a while. What do you think?"

"I'm very impressed."

"This isn't all. I've got another spot for packaged and jarred goods."

"Well, I was right."

"How's that?"

"You do know your way around."

Dalroy smiled. "Come on. Let's get cracking."

They began loading cans into the sacks.

"Do it like this," Dalroy demonstrated. "Lay them end to end, on the bottom first, then stack the rest on top in rows."

"Why bother?"

"You'll see. Make sure you check the weight, so you know you can handle the load."

"Will the sack handle it?" Carlen wanted to know.

"Oh sure."

They humped their booty downstairs and, although Dalroy secured the steel door, Carlen noted she left the street door partly ajar.

"You don't use locks."

"Locks make people curious," Dalroy replied. "But I did paint the windows. Keeps the place dark. People might poke around inside but they don't bother about going upstairs."

By the seventh block on the return journey Carlen began to understand Dalroy's stipulation regarding the packing of the sacks. Even laid in rows, with the rounded sides of the cans resting on her back, the sons-of-bitches were a rotten, awkward load to bear. Carlen could well understand the advantage of a heavily quilted vest like the one Dalroy wore. Carlen was used to carrying stuff but these cans made her loads look like featherweights. Dalroy marched on ahead like she'd been born to this kind of work.

Without breaking pace, she called back. "You alright?"

"Fucking marvelous."

"You want to stop?"

"No," Carlen lied. "Let's get it done."

Carlen shifted her load to the other shoulder, thinking conversation might distract her from the cans which she knew were quietly, viciously increasing in number inside the sack.

"What's it like over in the Men's Sector?"

"Don't know. Same as here, I guess. I never go off-side."

"And the men never come over here?"

"Sure. Some do. Mostly they end up dog meat." She gave a crude little laugh. "Probably more men here than women there, but that's only a guess. You see them around, sometimes."

Dalroy's pace slowed a little, and as Carlen caught up, she noticed someone approaching from the opposite direction. Dalroy's step didn't falter.

"Hey, Dalroy," the other called, but Dalroy gave no response. The trio met up in the middle of the street.

The girl was a rough thing, dressed in a black shirt, black pants, black canvas jungle boots. She was carrying an M-16. Not slung over her shoulder. In her hands. On her head was a black woolen peak cap, pulled way down. Carlen liked the cap.

"How does it go, Dalroy?"

"Just fine."

The girl's eyes traveled over to Carlen.

"This is Carlen," Dalroy said.

The girl gave a slow nod.

"Things okay with you?"

"Oh yeah," the girl said, turning back to Dalroy. "Just fine."

The girl's measured gestures reminded Carlen of a comical spy character in some rare footage she'd seen of an old television series satirizing the Korean war. That guy would do anything to get the job done and Carlen had the same impression of this girl. The trouble was, the character in the show was invariably on the wrong track.

"Take it easy, Dalroy," she said, moving off.

"You too," Dalroy replied.

"Close encounters of the brief kind," Carlen remarked as they resumed their trek.

"Huh?"

"Friend of yours?"

"Not really."

"Well, your 'acquaintance' packs some pretty heavy hardware, albeit a little antiquated."

"Yeah. Well, she's a Jobgirl," Dalroy said.

"What's that?"

"Oh, Freelancer. Someone who does jobs for pay."

"What kind of jobs?"

"Aw, guard work. That kind of thing."

"Who for?"

"Don't ask me."

Carlen was beginning to feel severely overheated. She knew they'd only just passed the halfway point.

"Hang on. I want to rest."

Dalroy stopped willingly.

Carlen dropped her sack, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. "I hate this weather. Everything seems to lie dead. No visibility. No bloody air."

"Yeah," Dalroy agreed. "Funny. I thought the air was supposed to clear once things came under control."

Carlen laughed shortly. "Clear! And go where?"

"I don't know. I just thought once they shut down the factories to-"

"No factories were shut down," Carlen cut in. "The 'progress of the State' is not slowed. Only, everyone who had a job has got one now - for life!"

"But they said-"

"Who said? What? When? Nobody said or did anything."

"They said things would be different-"

"When everything settled down to a nice quiet state of fascism? What's different? Nothing. They didn't shut down shit! They just make different stuff, is all. And nothing's been done about toxic dumping. Pollution's here to stay. What you see is what you get. Honestly, Dalroy, you're so young."

"Well, how old are you?"

"...Twenty-six."

"Well, I'm twenty. That's not much difference."

"I meant in the mind. Young in the mind."

Dalroy shouldered her bag without a word. Carlen took the cue and followed suit. She could see she'd offended Dalroy but she didn't care. Maybe Dalroy knew the score on these streets, and maybe Carlen would have to accept her authority on those terms, but she was damned if she'd kowtow to the runt on an intellectual level. Let her sulk if she wanted to. Nothing in the world depressed Carlen more than bull-headed ignorance. Nothing, except maybe the sight of these torn tattered streets, and the memory of the occurrences that had brought them to such ruin...

Some called it a revolution, some called it a takeover, the media called it "civil turbulence" and dubbed it "The Conflict", but mostly it was called the trouble. It had been bloody civil war, pure and simple. A deliberate, undeclared war that fed on seepage of the insidious disease which had been slowly polluting the subconscious of the comfortable classes. A demonic bile which festered into a carnage that was at once unbelievable and inevitable. Overnight the streets were ablaze and a country lost sight of itself.

The Blacks were good fighters, vicious and especially well equipped for the urban warfare that was waged on their home ground. Still, they were no match for the mechanized White, right wing militias that swarmed down on the cities from secluded, rural camps where fathers had trained sons for more than five generations. They had modern weapons, transport, communications, uniforms, and rations.

Worst of all was their plan. The prime targets of the invading armies were women and children - of Black races. Easy victims in view of the intensive in-fighting amongst the Black races for social status and recognition. Without sufficient weaponry or a cohesive drive, those caught in segregated pockets fell, helpless in the face of the onslaught.

The free-est of the free now turning, brother against brother, class against class, race against race. The land where the greed of the rich had long since eclipsed any chance of a fair harvest and division of the country's depleting resources. Old fears and hatreds lit the fuse.

It became impossible for any individual to remain apolitical. Even if one was not affiliated with one faction or the other, there was always the danger of running afoul of the Police or one of the numerous governmental agencies struggling to regain control.

Disguises were difficult to devise and harder still to interpret in the monochromatic kaleidoscope of the times. Thousands of innocent people were caught in the middle and even the governmental agencies suffered internal upheavals due to the extent of integration within them.

Chaos reigned. Black ghettos were leveled in well organized strikes, enacted simultaneously across the nation, while White and integrated communities were assaulted and looted in retaliation. Everyone was quickly drawn in. Millions died and the Black female population was all but annihilated.

Although Newcity was, in general, well integrated, it was not immune to the trouble. There was a small Black district in the south of town which existed mainly as a haunt for night people and music lovers. Predictably, the initial attack on the city was centered there, but the wholesale violation of Newcity was particularly vehement due to the blatant racial harmony that existed here. Throughout the city there were instances of public whipping, torture, and burning of both Blacks and Whites.

It took five years to bring everything under control - although nothing ever quite was anymore. The course of history was altered, a way of life lost for generations, perhaps forever.

The government recruited and organized the deployment of a new peacekeeping task force: an eclectic combination of surviving Police, Army, Marines, and National Guard, plus volunteers from both warring factions who desperately sought a direction out of the madness. Entitled the New Civic Legion, the force was divided into State governing bodies which assumed full responsibility for putting the lid on and screwing it down.

Federal authorities threw a blanket ban on all materials they considered likely to incite citizens to thought or action against the new ruling forces and the changes they were instituting. Books, films, tapes, and discs were pulled off the market by the millions, the populous placed under constant surveillance, and the curtain came down on personal freedom.

Vast prisons were proposed for the anticipated flood of looters, outlaws and veterans of the Conflict. Whole cities were emptied out, pouring forth a endless stream of humanity destined for Relocation.

Because of its centralized location, Newcity was listed in the proposal. Its greatly diminished population was evacuated and marched to sites to be cleared for rebuilding or other new cities already under construction - in other words, they had to start over. For the Legion, a population kept on the move represented a quick route to national tranquility.

As it was, the warring factions had done more harm to each other than was first estimated. Apart from the antagonism of the Legion and occasional problems with contraband and leftover die-hards, a rickety sort of peace prevailed. The prisons they had prepared stood all but empty. A fiasco.

The weight of the cans snapped Carlen's thoughts back to the present and her anger rekindled. They'd traveled in silence for several blocks, then Dalroy changed direction. She'd been doing this fairly consistently during the return journey, and Carlen wondered if it was an attempt on Dalroy's part to prevent her from remembering the route back to her secret storehouse.

"You certainly believe in taking the long way around."

"You can't be too careful," Dalroy explained. "You never know if you aren't being tail-"

"Christ almighty!" Carlen uttered, stopping dead in her tracks.

Lying in the gutter was a bloody corpse, presumably that of a woman, although at first sight it was difficult to tell. The breasts had been cut away and the genitals hideously mutilated. The hair was scalped from the skull, the ears, gone, and both eyes plucked out. The body was nude but there were no items of clothing in evidence anywhere near it. Nothing, in fact.

Dalroy stopped and turned on her heel. She didn't even lower her sack.

"Vets," she said.

"Men?"

"No. Women."

"They'd do this to their own kind?"

"Sure."

"Why?"

Dalroy shrugged. "Could be lots of reasons. Or none. Maybe her clothes. Or currency. Maybe she had weapons. Or maybe she made some bad moves. Who knows?" Dalroy circled the body casually. "Nothing left. Picked clean."

She stepped back on the curb, coolly taking in Carlen's reaction. "I told you. Come on."

Dalroy moved off and Carlen followed, wondering if she might have to stop again a few yards along to lose breakfast.

"I don't know why you're so shocked," Dalroy said. "Plenty of that kind of stuff went on during the trouble."

"That was a war, for fuck sake."

"Hey, the war goes on," Dalroy said pragmatically. "Especially in the minds of the Vets. Why do you think they stick them in here?"

"It was a racial war, in case you didn't hear."

"Not in the minds of the renegades. They got no prejudice about who they kill. You got something they want, they kill you. Color doesn't enter into it. Besides, the only Blacks in this prison are in the Men's Sector."

"Blacktown, you mean?"

"That's right. And anyone, man, beast, or Vet would have to be stone crazy to walk in there voluntarily, for whatever reason."

"What do you mean 'voluntarily'?"

She could have been wrong but Carlen thought Dalroy faltered for an instant.

"Well, you know. You hear about kidnappings, sometimes."

"Kidnappings?"

"Sure. They come over to get women. Men are men," she said nastily. "No Black women in here, you know, so they just grab whatever they can right off the street. Black or White, a cunt's a cunt."

"Very elegantly put," Carlen observed.

Dalroy said nothing.

"I take it you don't like men very much."

"They have their uses," Dalroy conceded after a moment.

They walked on in silence for a while, then, in an uncharacteristically confidential tone, Dalroy asked, "Are you a Lindy, Carlen?"

Right between the eyes. A highly inflammatory question no White woman would be anxious to answer in uncertain company.

"I didn't take an active part in the Conflict," Carlen said carefully.

"You might have done some fighting, you might not - but that's not what I asked."

"Is it important?"

"I just think it's better we know each other's politics," Dalroy said.

"...Are you?" Carlen asked.

"No. I'm not."

Carlen studied her a moment. Dalroy glanced up.

"Neither am I," Carlen said at last.

Dalroy nodded, took another turn and spotted them - three of the nastiest looking women that ever walked, stopped on the sidewalk a few yards ahead. She jerked Carlen back around the corner so fast the bag was nearly unseated from her shoulder. They quickly backtracked a few yards, ducked through the door of a department store and slid into the shadows. A couple of cans clunked together as Carlen gently lowered her sack to the floor.

"Shh!" Dalroy hissed.

The darkness in the store was not absolute due to the presence of two large display windows overlooking the streets comprising the corner on which the store stood. Although backed well into shadow, Dalroy was vaguely visible across the aisle, her face like a small, pale moon.

Between the ghostly displays, a shard of light sliced through the window with a view of the street from which they'd so hastily retreated. Carlen began to pick her way across to it.

"Carlen?" Dalroy whispered hoarsely. "Carlen! Where the hell you going?"

Carlen ignored her, continuing soundlessly through the displays toward the window. Those outside were undoubtedly the ones who mangled that corpse in the street and Carlen wanted to get a look at them.

Positioned in shadow at the side of the window, she peered outside. The women still stood on the pavement not ten feet away, engrossed in some dark business, apparently unaware of Carlen's observation.

Vets, still attired in remnants of the make-shift uniforms supplied to volunteers for the White Army when the Conflict really took hold. Urban guerilla camouflage shirts and trousers, black, khaki, and gray; gray canvas boots and gray webbed belts. A frightening, ugly uniform supplied only to lower ranking personnel who joined the 'cause' to gain alignment with some force and, in many cases, to secure a license to kill with impunity.

Thousands of these charming types were enlisted as the war gained momentum and, when the organization of the White Army's attacks began to collapse, many of these volunteers turned outlaw, forming small raiding parties that went on unbridled looting and killing sprees. With the formation of the Legion, those who were not absorbed into the new State forces were declared renegades, and those who were caught were invariably tossed into prison. Forever.

These were the real dregs of society and, since their induction, and subsequent 'court-martialing', the word 'Veteran' had taken on a whole new meaning. It wasn't a thing you'd call a person whose trust you were trying to win.

The leader of the group wore an eye patch, made of God knew what. One of the others was missing an arm from the elbow. The shirt of the third immodestly gaped open, revealing a terrifically mutilated breast.

They were armed to the hilt. Machetes, knives, spikes, clubs, and Carlen even spotted a couple of home-fashioned guns. A couple wore ammunition belts over their shoulders like the bandoleers of the Old West. One of them was sporting a Confederate arm patch. Southerners.

It was obvious they had not long ago completed their hideous work, for they were splattered in wet blood and engaged, yet, in the division of booty - their victim's clothing and personal effects. They were high-spirited and self-congratulatory, still glutted from the kill, one of them now stringing a fresh, bloody ear to her belt as an addition to the assortment of dried body parts already dangling there as trophies.

Carlen now understood the repugnant odor that emanated from the trio she and Dalroy had hidden from the night before. Death and decay. No wonder these women reeked of it. No wonder at all.

When the women finally moved off down the block, Carlen left the window in search of her sack.

Dalroy poked her head out of the shadows. "They gone?"

"Yeah."

Dalroy stepped into the aisle more boldly.

"Je-sus, Carlen! Why'd you go over to that window-huh? They might have seen you."

"They were too engrossed to notice me."

"No sense to take the chance! They were-"

"Vets," Carlen finished for her.

"Kill you for the buttons on your pants."

"I know," Carlen said, shouldering her sack. "How much further are we walking with these bloody cans?"

Dalroy started down the aisle. She'd never even put her sack down. "Oh, just a couple more stops."

"A couple?"

Carlen was very much relieved when Dalroy stopped off a few blocks short of the deli to unload some of the cans at another location. A restaurant. She was even more relieved when they reached the deli. When Dalroy wanted to leave the deli immediately after unloading the rest of the cans, Carlen became irked.

"It's nearly sunset and I'm hungry."

"Me too. Let's go," Dalroy said and disappeared out the door.

"Go where?" Carlen called, reluctantly following.

"Dinner."

Carlen bit back her mounting anger and followed Dalroy - back to the restaurant where they'd stopped earlier. After wedging the front door shut with a chair, Dalroy led the way back to the kitchen. While she got out a supply of light sticks, Carlen slid to the floor against the door of a stainless steel refrigerator with a sigh of fatigue. It seemed she'd been under more stress than she thought.

"Hey," Dalroy said.

Carlen glanced up. Dalroy was leaning against the sink, cool as a cucumber.

"You look like hell, mate."

"Flatterer."

"No. I mean it. You look sick."

"She's got no fucking hair, no fucking teeth, a complexion that would stop an elephant dead and she says I look sick! You're a pearl, Dalroy."

Dalroy was quiet a moment. "Are you?"

Carlen smiled slowly and dropped her head. "No."

"Just thought I'd ask."

"Yeah. I know. Actually, I'm a very healthy person."

"Yeah. I thought so."

"I'll be okay in a minute."

"Drink?"

"Yes!"

Dalroy had her own stock of wine, not very good wine but passable, and a selection of three or four spirits stashed around the place.

"Well, you've got a nice little cache here," Carlen said, taking her first jolt of JW, "but we didn't have to come back here for this. So why did we?"

"We came here to eat."

Dalroy was rummaging through the cans, setting them out in orderly rows, the arrangement of which only she could decipher.

"We could have done that at the deli, or anywhere," Carlen pointed out.

"Not like this, we couldn't."

"Like what?"

"I'm going to cook!"

"Cook? You mean hot food?"

"Yeah," Dalroy said, patting the stove with a grin. "This little baby here works!"

Carlen gestured a toast in the air with her glass. "Great. I hope you've got some clean utensils."

"What, are you crazy? Of course I do. I don't serve my dishes out of no mucky stuff, you know."

Carlen nodded and lowered her head to her knees. The drink was beginning to help. Food might do wonders.

After her second jolt, Carlen got up and offered to help. Dalroy assigned her a dish of her own to make - which she promptly botched. Dalroy was appalled.

Carlen was shamefaced. "I suppose I neglected to tell you I can't cook for shit."

"Can't cook? You're a killer!"

"What?"

"You murdered this food," Dalroy said, grabbing a spoon and slopping Carlen's creation around energetically as if to conjure it into something remotely edible.

"Yeah, sorry about that."

"You're sorry. I should make you eat it." Dalroy deserted the debacle like a lost cause, turning back to her own dishes. "Never. Never again will I let you cook! Ah, this is just about ready. You want to open the wine?"

"Sure. Sorry about the other," Carlen apologized again.

"Oh, it's okay," Dalroy said, busily serving up. "There's plenty here."

There was more than plenty. It was a feast.

The food did act as a reviver, but wine on top of the two pre-dinner Scotches made Carlen disinclined to face the night streets in search of hotel accommodations. "I certainly hope you don't expect me to do anymore walking tonight."

"No. We'll stay here," Dalroy said. "You still feeling under the weather?"

"Well, the food was great, no mistake, but this booze has got the better of me. I don't think I could find my way to the bathroom."

Dalroy laughed. "That's okay. I'll give you a pot if you need one."

"Thank you, nurse."

"We aim to please."

"Good. Top me up."

Dalroy poured more wine.

Carlen fell back against the refrigerator with a sigh. "My God, what a day! Do you work like that all the time?"

"Pretty much. Got to keep the supplies up, you know."

"It seems to me it would be a lot simpler to stay down where the food is."

"Ah, well, I don't like it much over that side of town. Too quiet."

"Too quiet! Shit. I suppose a near miss like the one this afternoon is your idea of a little interest in the day."

"That was a piece of bad luck. Honestly, Carlen, what you did was really stupid."

"I wanted to get a look at those people."

"A look? What the hell for? They had guns, you know."

"I know."

"Those were no odds at all. You could have got us killed."

"Some great loss."

"I'll tell you straight, Carlen, you ever do anything like that again and you're on your own. You don't know shit about what goes on in here. If you want to stick with me, you better learn to listen. I haven't stayed alive this long by making fuck-brain moves like you pulled at that window."

"I hear you."

"Just so you do."

"You know, it's a pity we didn't have your chum along with us."

"My chum?"

"Little 'Miss M-16'. She could have fragged that vermin in a New York second."

"Yeah. Well," Dalroy murmured.

"Where do you suppose she got that thing?"

"I don't know. Probably traded for it."

"Traded! Traded what?"

"Who knows? I don't. Don't want to."

"Seems to me a gun could be mighty useful on these streets."

"Guns are bad news."

"But good protection."

"I get by. My wits are plenty good enough. And not as noisy."

"If you say so."

"You're better off without bad shit like that," Dalroy insisted. "Just in and out. In and out. Eyes open, keep your cool out front and your back to the wall."

"Sounds like my old line of work," Carlen remarked.

"Did you carry a gun as a runner?"

Carlen grabbed the bottle and poured another drink. That is, half a drink. The bottle was dead.

"Got any more of this?"

"You want more?"

"Why not? I haven't had a good vomit all day."

Dalroy fetched another bottle. "You open it. I never could work those twisty things."

"Corkscrews."

"Whatever."

Dalroy sat down and Carlen took the bottle.

"Well?" Dalroy asked.

"Well what?" Carlen was having problems. The cork was shot.

"Did you carry a gun?"

"Oh, it wasn't necessary. I always traveled with a flankman. He carried the guns."

The cork popped loose. Just.

"Sorry about that," Carlen apologized. "A few bits broke loose into the bottle."

"I don't care," Dalroy said.

"Just so long as the wine hasn't turned." She gave it a sniff. "Smells alright. More?"

"Yeah. Okay."

Carlen did the honors, a little unsteadily.

"You seem to know a lot about stuff like that," Dalroy remarked.

"Stuff like what?"

"Wine and corks and stuff."

"I suppose I've had my share," Carlen said.

"You must have made some good money on the outside."

"Adequate. Still, I connected with some people who did have money. Oh yeah... Have you ever seen real wealth?"

"Me?" Dalroy chuckled sourly. "No."

Carlen shook her head with a faraway look. "Incredible." She seemed to daze off for a moment. "I went to this guy's house, once. You know, he had a tree growing right in the middle of his living room. I mean a living tree! Went right up through a hole in the roof."

"Come on!"

"It's true! And one wall of the room was a waterfall. An actual, running waterfall that emptied into an enormous pool he'd had constructed right into the living room floor. Another wall was made completely of glass with a view of the ocean. You could lie in the pool with a drink in your hand and watch the waves breaking against the shore. It was really something."

"Aw, you're hanging your tongue out," Dalroy scoffed.

"No, really!" Carlen laughed. "You don't have to believe it."

"Well, I don't."

"That's okay. I could hardly believe it myself when I saw it."

There was a pause.

"Really?"

Carlen gestured. "Cross my heart."

"Wow."

"Yeah. It's a rotten world, but interesting."

"Sounds like you had it pretty good on the outside."

Carlen shrugged. "Sometimes."

"I guess you'll miss that way of life-huh?"

"I guess."

There was another pause.

"You know, you never did tell me what your crime was," Dalroy remarked.

Carlen looked around, eyebrow arched. "You asking?"

"Yeah. I'm asking."

"Why so interested?"

"Well, you could be a murderer, or something."

"That's right," Carlen said slowly. "I could be... and so could you."

"Yeah, well I'm not."

"What then?"

"Oh, I lit some fires. Burned some buildings."

"For profit?"

"Yeah."

"An arsonist."

"Yeah. An arsonist."

Carlen picked up the bottle. Dalroy waited in expectant silence but Carlen didn't speak.

"Well?"

"Some other time," Carlen said. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Shit, Carlen. That's not fair. I told you."

"Maybe you did and maybe you didn't."

Dalroy didn't have a comeback for that. She dropped into broody quietism, pulling her glass out of range as Carlen tried to refill it.

"Oh. You're the sensitive type."

"Fuck it, Carlen. Sometimes you really burn me."

"Sorry. It's not deliberate."

Dalroy was not placated.

"Look, maybe later. It's all just a little close to the bone right now."

Dalroy didn't say anything.

"Come on. Have a drink. It's not important. I'm not going to murder you in your sleep."

"Oh yeah. Like I can be sure of that."

"You can be sure. You know, I need you."

"Well, you got that right."

"Besides, I'm sure there are a lot of things you're not telling me."

Dalroy had no comeback for that, either.

"Come on. Have a drink."

Reluctantly, Dalroy held out her glass. After a moment she said, "I just think, if we're going to be partners, we should be able to trust each other."

Carlen could see it was a put-on but she played along.

"Are we partners?"

"We could be."

Carlen smiled. "Well, partner, you ought to know that trust is a rare commodity these days. What do you say we just give it some time. Okay?" She held up her glass.

At length Dalroy gave a shrug. "Yeah, okay."

She half-heartedly clinked her glass against Carlen's. The wine slopped onto the floor. Both women ignored it.

* * *

The next morning Carlen's back and shoulders ached like blazes but Dalroy was keen to get on with more carrying, so Carlen bit back her objections and went along.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Carlen's stamina improved greatly. Her experience as a courier on the outside proved to be an advantage and, before long, it was Carlen who set the pace on their cross-town hikes.

She was still frustrated by Dalroy's continued evasions on the question of who controlled what in the city, but she was let in on the locations of two more of Dalroy's stash spots. She'd thought Dalroy was into something more than the collection and transfer of foodstuffs but, as time passed, it appeared her theory was a misconception. Dalroy did conduct trades, sometimes, but she never seemed to receive anything in exchange. Carlen refrained from questioning her but it didn't prevent her from wondering about it.

She also wondered where Dalroy went when she disappeared for lengths of time, leaving Carlen to cool her heels in hotel rooms. Carlen toyed with the idea of following her sometime, although she knew Dalroy would be virtually impossible to tail. Besides, Carlen was intent on winning the girl's trust. Getting caught following her would certainly bring the whole thing down.

It was still too soon to risk turning Dalroy's patronage away. So far, Carlen had made no connections worth breaking her alliance with Dalroy for. Dalroy was no genius, to be sure, but she certainly did seem to have her shit together.

More importantly, Dalroy liked Carlen. Maybe more than liked her. Three squares a day, a supply of soap and hotel accommodations with running water, a pair of boots she could walk in, and a protective companion were not things to be thrown away on a fuck-brain move. There were plenty of people with a lot more tenure than Carlen who had one hell of a lot less. If she played it cool, perhaps Dalroy would ultimately come through with more. Maybe a lot more.

CHAPTER 5 \- MUSEUM

Carlen was toweling off after her shower when Dalroy appeared in the bathroom doorway.

"What would you like to do today?" she asked, watching Carlen with an interest that every day was increasingly more difficult to ignore.

"What, no work?"

"You haven't had enough for one week?"

Carlen laughed. "I didn't say that!"

"What about we have a real girls' day?" Dalroy suggested. "Do some shopping, lunch out. I have a surprise for you."

"A surprise?"

"What do you say?"

"Sounds fine."

"Great. Get your gear on."

The 'shopping' was done along one of the less ravaged streets of the city. Since there were no shopkeepers left to object, 'purchases' were made on an in-the-pocket/out-the-door basis.

Twenty years previously it would have been considered 'shoplifting'. Fifteen years previously it would have been 'looting'. Both offenses punishable by law. Since the only present day 'shoppers' were already prison inmates, the only applicable term left for it was 'Self Service'.

The duo roamed through a variety of stores and, since they needed virtually nothing that couldn't be picked up practically anywhere, any time, they actually came away with very little. Mostly they just wandered through stores which interested them, trying on this, sampling that, playing like children cut loose in Santa's workshop.

A store Dalroy passed without a glance was one that caught Carlen's immediate attention.

"Hang on. I want to go in here."

With a disinterested shrug, Dalroy followed Carlen through the smashed doorway of a book store, waiting with repressed impatience as Carlen pored over title after title.

"Great!" Carlen exclaimed, plucking a book off the shelf and moving on. "Oh yes. This is just wonderful."

Dalroy alleviated her growing boredom by idly kicking at books strewn about the floor by previous raiders.

"That's it. That's it!" Carlen said, grabbing yet another title.

"Haven't you got enough?" Dalroy asked, trying to keep the true color of her feelings to herself.

"One more, one more. I just want to see... Ah! Here it is."

Carlen snatched another book off the shelf, staring at the jacket with what Dalroy would define as near reverence. Drawn by Carlen's excitement, she walked over.

"What have you got?"

"Stephen King!"

"Who's he?"

"This guy wrote some great books. Somehow he managed to stay off the Forbidden List. Don't know how. Horror story classification, I suppose. Lucky, lucky me."

She looked up at last, patting the book cover with somber significance. "THIS is a fantastic book."

"What is it?"

"The Stand."

"What's in it?"

"One man's theory of what might have happened."

Carlen looked at the book again, as if to reassure herself it was actually in her hands.

"Well, if you're happy, let's get some lunch." Dalroy started out.

"You didn't find anything you want?" Carlen asked.

"No. I'm not hot for books."

They dined at a small cafe in the neighborhood - a cafe and neighborhood which had once been quite ritzy but were now a little the worse for wear. None-the-less, the cafe wasn't in bad shape. Apparently another of Dalroy's haunts.

Carlen was still buzzing over the books.

"I never saw anyone get so excited over a book before," Dalroy remarked. "You really must be quite the intellectual."

Carlen smiled. "These aren't exactly the food of genius, you know. Mostly just thrillers. I got into reading this kind of thing on the road. I started out transporting paperbacks. I guess that's how I developed a taste for it. A sort of escapism. Actually, there are a couple here you might quite enjoy."

"Yeah? Well, no thanks. I told you."

There was a pause.

"You can't read, can you?"

"Now where was someone like me going to learn something like that-huh? What the fuck. I can't read and you can't cook. Which is more important, anyway?"

Carlen chuckled softly. "Point made."

Dalroy nodded, satisfied with Carlen's concession.

"So - what's this surprise you promised me?"

They tidied up their leavings and headed west six blocks before Dalroy just stopped.

"Something wrong?"

"This is it," Dalroy said.

"What?"

"Well, look, stupid!" Dalroy said with a wave at the building in front of them.

Carlen looked up at the engraved sign overhead.

THE WARREN TAYLOR MATHIE

MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY AND SCIENCE

"Oh God," Carlen breathed.

"What'd you say?"

"I said, let's see it."

Unfortunately, as pointless as it seemed, even the museum had not been spared the attacks of marauding vandals. Not everything was destroyed but the massive hollow hallways echoed with the grizzly crunch of smashed glass underfoot as they toured the wonders within.

The wanton, apparently random destruction of some of the exhibits formed a strange dichotomy to the careful, almost religious organization of the exhibits which were still perfectly intact. This contrast had an almost violent impact on Carlen who was seized by an unreasoning urge to leave almost the instant they walked in. If not for Dalroy's obvious pride and excitement, Carlen would have given in to her impulse and walked right out of there, never stopping to look back or examine the root of the feeling.

Instead, she followed Dalroy around in a sort of trance, pretending to share her enthusiasm. Carlen was well aware of Dalroy's extra efforts all day to please her. It seemed a little callous to now throw a damper on this expedition, particularly since it was evidently intended to be the highlight of their little holiday.

Dalroy may not have been any intellectual giant but she sure burned hot for museums. She led Carlen through the entire place, stopping at every display that remained, like a tour guide who'd made the journey a thousand times and never tired of it. She had names for every exhibit and related as much information as she'd been able to glean from hours of devoted study.

She didn't ask Carlen to read any of the printed material and Carlen didn't offer, but attended the lectures as if Dalroy was the greatest living authority on these exhibits. Some of what she said was obviously relayed straight from her own imagination. Much of what she said Carlen knew to be completely inaccurate, but she never said a word about it. At times, in fact, she was astonished at the correctness of Dalroy's knowledge and especially at her attempted pronunciations of the scientific names for things. It was apparent Dalroy had known someone who could read and dragged her through, pressing her for the information in the printed material - and she'd done her damnedest to memorize it.

Carlen was quite amused by it all but she took particular care to maintain an appropriate air of sobriety in the face of Dalroy's childlike earnestness. This sense of parental amusement helped to dispel Carlen's disquietude, but the sight of the smashed, defaced exhibits put an ache in her heart and she could not combat a growing depression. Dalroy didn't even seem to notice these things and Carlen supposed it was because the museum Dalroy had inherited was already defiled when she discovered it.

Carlen was tremendously relieved when they came to the final area of exploration. It was not the last area in terms of the lay-out of the museum. It was the area Dalroy had saved for last because it was her favorite. "The Hall Of Dinosaurs".

The first thing to hit the eye was a massive platform on which stood a skeletal recreation of the brontosaur - life size. On a second platform was a fantastic reconstruction of not one, but a herd of four woolly mammoths, three adults and a calf. These were fully fleshed out and arranged in such a way as to suggest movement. This particular exhibit was so strikingly realistic that Carlen could not resist the temptation to reach out and stroke the leg of one of the beasts.

Dalroy caught this reaction and beamed. "Terrific-huh?"

"It's something," Carlen admitted.

"Come on down here. I want to show you something."

Carlen lingered a moment with the mammoths, and by the time she reached the end of the hall Dalroy had disappeared.

"Over here!"

Carlen approached, once again disturbed by the grinding of broken glass underfoot.

In the case at the very end was the exhibit of Neanderthal Man. Within the dimensions of a mere six by eight feet, the scene depicted gave an almost unnerving illusion of infinite space, with a panoramic vision of towering glacial mountains and a startlingly blue prehistoric sky.

Near the front of the display stood Neanderthal Man in all his boorish glory - hunched, hairy shoulders; thick matted hair; black, animal eyes, and huge, gnarled hands, one of which clutched a club so large the end of it rested on the snow at his feet.

The window was smashed out of the exhibit and, right there, her arm hooked through that of the Neanderthal, stood Dalroy, a huge shit-eating grin on her face.

"I'll bet no one would mess with us on the street if we had this guy along-huh?"

It was a huge joke, and Carlen was trying to smile, but her face suddenly felt as stiff as ruined leather and her hands had gone numb. She glanced back over her shoulder, down the hall, feeling somehow the gesture was made in slow motion.

There was something alive in there. A presence. Watching, listening... waiting. Something primitive and dreadful. Untouchable, yet compelling and unbelievably dangerous, it passed through Carlen like a cold bolt. She was suddenly swollen with fear.

Of course it was an illusion and, as she turned back to Dalroy, she couldn't understand why the sound of her voice seemed to come from another dimension. "Get down from there."

"What's wrong? Don't you think it's funny?"

"Sure. Sure it is. It just disrupts the illusion. You know."

"Oh, yeah. I understand..."

Dalroy rattled on but Carlen didn't hear one word she said. She couldn't understand why even Dalroy's unintelligent rambling didn't seem to shatter the spell she'd fallen under.

Without telling Dalroy why, Carlen implemented their departure from that dreadful mausoleum just a few minutes later. When she hit the street she gulped the air and was terrifically relieved to find the indefinable fear was fading into just what she knew it to be. A trick of the mind. A phantom.

* * *

Back in the hotel room that night, Carlen took the chair and busied herself with the organization and packing of her few personal belongings into a cloth shoulder bag she'd picked up that day. Dalroy was sitting on the bed, watching her.

"Did you enjoy yourself today?"

"Yes, I did. It was fun."

"How do you like my museum?"

"Your museum?"

Dalroy actually blushed. "Oh, well, I kind of think of it as my special place."

"I could tell."

"You could?"

"Yes. You're a very good tour guide."

"Ah, not really. You know, I sometimes make stuff up."

"Is that so? Well, you were very convincing."

Dalroy tried to suppress her smile but Carlen could tell she was beaming inside. Good timing for a request.

"On our next day off, how about you take me to the park?"

"The park? What do you know about the park?"

The question apparently caught Dalroy off guard. Her brow furrowed and an oddly strained note colored her voice. Carlen pretended not to have noticed.

"Dalroy, every city in the world has a park."

"Oh... yeah. Right."

"You know. Trees? Grass? Playgrounds?"

"Yeah, right," she said again.

"I'd like to go there sometime. Have a picnic."

"Oh - I don't know about that..."

Carlen laughed. "I was joking about the picnic! I'd just like to walk around for a bit."

"Well... maybe."

"Don't you like parks?"

"They're okay, I guess."

"Well, you can give me the grand tour."

"Yeah, sure. Sure."

But she never made good on the promise. In fact, talk about the park made Dalroy distinctly uncomfortable. Carlen couldn't let it lie and her persistence on the subject was the cause of their first serious fight. Their first.

Carlen had finished her rummaging and now sat with a book in each hand, as if trying to decide between the two. Dalroy was a little jealous of those books, although she could not have defined the emotion.

"Well, I'm tired out," she said broadly. "I'm going to bed. How about you?"

"I think I'll sit up and read for a while."

"Well, okay. If you want."

"Will the light disturb you?"

"No. It's okay."

Dalroy paused but Carlen didn't look up. She'd made her choice, settled back and began leafing over to page one. With a small mopey sigh, Dalroy rolled over and went to sleep.

Carlen was tired herself and her interest in the book was only feigned for Dalroy's benefit. She was really thinking of their conversation about the park.

When she was certain Dalroy had dropped off to sleep, she lay down quietly on the opposite side of the queen sized bed and was asleep herself almost immediately.

* * *

Carlen went back to the museum. Alone. She didn't question why.

She walked through the huge, simulated marble corridors like she was meant to be there, her solitary footsteps echoing like the first footsteps sounding on a newly formed planet. There was no crunching of glass underfoot. The floors were empty and clean but she did not stop to ask herself why.

She walked down past the smashed displays along the hallway. Down past the section on Marine Life, the sections on the ancient cultures of North America, South America, Africa and Egypt. Down past the section on Astronomy and Space Science. All the way down and straight through the massive archway with a sign that read 'Hall Of Dinosaurs'. She walked past the mighty brontosaur, past the herd of mastodon, all the way back to the display of Neanderthal Man.

She didn't ask herself why she'd returned - against every instinct that had driven her out of there that afternoon. She didn't even ask herself why the display looked fresh and newly constructed, or why the window of the exhibit should suddenly be perfectly intact. She simply stood, staring in at the Neanderthal Man, standing on his glacier.

Every detail was defined in crystal clarity. His great hairy shoulders, the heavy, matted animal skin draped over one of them; the huge, calloused hands, one holding the club; his great rough head with its thick, tangled hair; the sloping forehead, and those black, penetrating eyes - staring back at her with hideous, yet compelling animal ferocity.

She regarded him with quiet composure, blankly unquestioning, as if she'd been drawn there by some natural and undeniable magnetism. As if, by some force outside them both, she and this man were connected. As if she had been drawn back to him by some vital knowledge only he could impart to her.

And as she looked at him, so he looked at her, and she never once stopped to think that this was not a real man, but merely a model of a man. The model of a man who, even if he had been of living flesh and blood, would have no more idea of how to communicate with her than she would him. They stared at each other, she, as if she expected to learn something from him and he, as if he had known, even expected she would return.

Then, all at once, she found herself standing on the fake snow, on the fake glacier, inside the exhibit on precisely the spot where he had stood. Only... the snow was not fake, and the glacier was not fake, and there was no display case with a painting of black, creviced mountains and a hard blue sky. It was all very real, and it was cold, bitterly cold.

He was beyond, perhaps a hundred yards away across the glacier. He beckoned her - not with a shout or a gesture, but with his heart or his soul or, perhaps, telepathy. She didn't know which and she didn't know why. She only knew that it was so, and that she would follow, as certainly as day follows the night.

The wind burned her cheeks, whining a raw mournful tune in her ears. The snow squeaked underfoot as she began to walk the frozen wastes. She felt the power of the wind, ice, and rocks drawing her across the bleak landscape as though in response to a summons she'd been hearing for years, maybe centuries. The draw of something beyond herself, predestined and uncontrollable.

The man was trudging across the ice and she was following with a blank understanding, as if she had always followed this man. As if she were integrated into the routine of his existence, a partner to him in this barren and unforgiving universe. She followed as though pulled by some invisible, unbreakable thread that connected them as naturally as the bond between God and Nature.

They walked for what seemed like miles, he always the same distance ahead, moving with the steady assurance that she was behind, following in perfect, unquestioning faith. It was cold, but not so cold that she was frozen to stone. She was exhausted, but not so exhausted that she faltered or fell. It was a great distance, but not so far that the clouds or sun moved in the sky. They merely walked as if this was what they had always done.

Then she looked up and she saw a sky of stark radiant blue. A hard blue. Vibrant. The kind of blue that existed only in dreams, or in certain fabrics, or certain objects molded from plastic.

Not the blue of a sky. Not any sky she had ever seen. Not the blue of any sky any child born on earth was ever likely to see again. That sky no longer existed. It was a sky that existed only in the imaginations and dreams of people who had already past the halfway mark of their lives. A sky that would cease to exist altogether once those imaginations died.

Tears of memory clouded her eyes, and mind, and when she once again looked for the man, he was gone. Disappeared over a hill of snow, or down a ravine, or into the black rocks.

She stopped, cursing herself for allowing the foolish dream of blue in the sky to detour her sweet blank acceptance. Now the blue was gone, like the man, and a leaden gray depressed the landscape. She was lost on the glacier. Alone. Vulnerable.

A sudden sound froze her slowing heart to cold stone and she turned to confront the stalking gaze of a snarling wolf. A massive hairy thing, its broad restless paws gripped into the ice. Bared teeth, fit to crack her bones to splinters. Heavy salivating jaws, oozing strings of spittle that scorched the taste buds with anticipation. And the eyes... Not the eyes of any earthly creature. Eyes intent on seeing her suddenly devalued existence ripped to shreds of bloody, edible flesh.

She turned and there was another. Turned again, and there was a third, a fourth. Surrounding her, they circled and snapped, quivering and eager to tear out her heart and reduce her purposeless brain to sliding wet splotches on the cold clean ice.

A swelling, paralyzing panic seized her. She began working her legs as though to run, but her feet found no traction, skittering beneath her in the pathetic dance of the dreamer who runs with supernatural speed and gets nowhere.

The wolves romped, yelping, snarling, striking forward and drawing back, playing their cornered victim in a sadistic ceremony of sacrifice and death.

A scream welled in her throat but the cry never escaped her, and she looked up to see the Neanderthal, reappeared on a nearby hillock. He did not run to her rescue. His club was not raised in primal outrage and she saw that he was not even afraid. He merely stood looking on, his eyes glittering with some dark knowledge.

He was not watching the wolves but her, with his black hideous gaze, judging not the wolves in their evil, killing intent, but her in her pitiful helplessness.

And she realized it was not the wolves who toyed with her, but he. It was his power that somehow prevented them from attacking. The decision of her life or death was his alone to make.

In that moment of recognition, she found she was no longer standing on the glacier - or standing anywhere - but somehow floating, watching herself, outside the broken display window, looking in at the Neanderthal.

Then she was once again standing inside the display case, on the Neanderthal's spot, and he was the one standing outside, looking in at her. Studying her, as though she were the scientific oddity.

As she gazed back at him through the once again unbroken window, his reality began to darken and fade, until he had completely disappeared from sight. She was left in the stark white light, alone on the glacier.

"No, wait... Wait! Don't leave... me... HERE!"

* * *

Carlen sat bolt upright in bed, cold, pearly sweat on her brow, eyes blind like the dreamer who still sleeps.

"Carlen? Carlen!" Dalroy gripped her arm, giving a shake. "Carlen! Wake up. Wake up!"

Carlen came to with a start. "WHAT!"

"You awake?"

"Yes! Of course..."

"Yeah? Well, you sure weren't a minute ago."

"What happened?" Carlen swiped her face, staring in dull amazement at the moisture collected on her fingertips.

"You were shouting in your sleep. Scared the shit out of me."

"Must have been dreaming."

"Well, I'll say! What the hell was that all about, anyway?"

Carlen shook her head. "I don't remember," she said, but it wasn't so. Carlen remembered practically all her dreams and this one was rushing back with a vividness that had her shaking. "Go back to sleep," she told Dalroy.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. Fine now." She got up. "I'm just going to take a pee."

Carlen stood over the sink splashing her face for a long time but couldn't shake off the horror. The power in the nightmare was too real. Still seemed real... just as it had in the museum that afternoon. Like a physical pull. A strong one.

This was not just a dream. It seemed like a warning. A premonition of some unknown danger that could be sensed but in no way avoided.

CHAPTER 6 \- SHOUTS AND WHISPERS

Carlen was unusually subdued over the next few days. Dalroy knew she hadn't come back to bed after the nightmare that night, but sat up until daybreak in the chair by the window. She had not been sleeping well since then and Dalroy wondered if Carlen hadn't lied about not remembering that dream. There seemed to be something preying on her mind.

Figuring a change might snap Carlen out of her doldrums, Dalroy decided one evening to upgrade their sleeping arrangements to a luxury suite in a hotel that met the Five Star standard Carlen had suggested her first night in the city. She also made sure to bring along a very fine bottle of Scotch.

Unfortunately the change of venue didn't help. Carlen was not in the least impressed or enthused about the new situation.

She drank - out drank Dalroy by a third of the bottle, in fact, but she didn't get high. She didn't even seem to get drunk. She just wandered around the room, raving on and on about a lot of things Dalroy couldn't understand. Dalroy sat on the bed watching her, only half listening to what she was saying.

"...So they called it the 'New Civic Legion'. Not a bad name, really. But, of course, it was too long for everyday language so everyone just called it 'The Legion' or 'The NCL'." She gave a terse laugh. "With no periods in between, of course. This bloody habit of initialing everything!

"It's absurd, isn't it? We label everything with such ridiculously long names that they virtually have to be broken down into initials, and then everyone translates all the initials back into names!

"Well, take NCL, for instance. An excellent example. Now NCL is a dirty word on most people's lips these days, so it's translated into something less than polite - 'KNUCKLE'. Very apt! Good old 'Uncle Knuckle'. Still, I think it's a healthy sign for the language, don't you?"

Dalroy wasn't really following. "I don't know," she said disinterestedly.

"Well, why don't you think about it?"

Dalroy said nothing. These intricate analyses of Carlen's were a little out of her league and she didn't care for the note of put down in Carlen's voice.

Carlen was silent for a long time and her next remark was so soft that Dalroy almost didn't hear it.

"Why won't you take me to the park?"

"...I didn't say I wouldn't take you."

"That's right. You said you would. Why haven't you?"

"Why do you keep harping on about the park?" Dalroy said, unable to stifle an almost desperate irritation.

Carlen swung around in a flash of fury. "Damn it, Dalroy! All I want to do is walk through the damned park! Is that so bloody impossible to understand? What in hell is going on over there? World war? What?!"

"Nothing! Nothing's going on. It's just... not safe."

"It's not safe anywhere, Dalroy."

"That's right! It's not! So why take chances-huh? What's so fucking important?"

"I told you, damn it!"

For a second Dalroy thought Carlen might strike her but, as suddenly as it had been revealed, Carlen's anger reversed on itself. She turned to the window, prohibiting Dalroy from seeing her face.

"I just couldn't stand it if there was nothing left but these dead streets," she said with a strangled anxiety that made Dalroy shiver.

Just as abruptly, she switched again, turning with sudden urgency. "There are trees in the park?"

Dalroy was startled by the near panic in the demand. She was also a little relieved. "Yeah," she said with a nervous laugh. "Yeah, there's trees."

Carlen's expression softened slightly but there was still a funny look in her eyes.

"Is that what all this is about? A few lousy trees?"

"What the hell did you think?" Carlen said, flopping tiredly into the chair. All the life seemed to have drained out of her. It made Dalroy more uncomfortable than the rage.

"You must have seen lots of trees in your travels."

"Not really."

"Come on! What about Europe? The Black Forest and all that?"

"The Black Forest died a hundred years ago."

"Oh," Dalroy said lamely. "Well, I don't see what's so important about a few lousy trees."

"You know, I can almost understand that in you," Carlen said, not unsympathetically. "You seem to think a tree is something one can simply go and see and say, 'Well, now I've seen a tree. On to the next.'"

She cocked her head in a way that seemed to seek confirmation. Dalroy only shrugged, feeling totally inadequate.

"Well, it's not like that," Carlen said. "Trees are symbols of LIFE - especially in today's world. And if you're ever in any doubt about it, just ask yourself why you keep going back to that museum."

Their gazes were locked for a moment and, although Dalroy could not get comfortable with it, she did realize it was the closest moment they'd ever shared.

Dalroy broke it off. "I just wish you'd forget about the park, Carlen," she said softly. "If you take my advice, you will."

* * *

As the weeks progressed, Dalroy was encouraged by the amount of work she could accomplish with Carlen as a helpmate. The woman was strong and she had an endurance that was surprising, especially considering her light build and the poor condition she appeared to be in when she first transferred over.

She was also bright. Maybe too bright. She continued her subtle probes for information - information Dalroy was extremely anxious to keep from her, at least for the time being.

She liked Carlen. She was eager to form a permanent alliance with her, but Carlen seemed to be hiding something and her unpredictability was unnerving. Sometimes she was very cool and funny, even friendly. Other times she became irritable and snappish, and the reasons for it were not always clear.

Carlen had a head full of thoughts and angers and resentments, although none of them seemed to involve her imprisonment. She never once complained about being tossed into prison, never vocalized one syllable about the indignity or the injustice or the unendurable permanence of it all. Dalroy didn't expect her to be right out front about her crime, nobody ever was, but Carlen never talked about her trial or the mistreatment by the NCL after her arrest, a complaint every inmate had in common. It just didn't jibe.

Dalroy was disappointed by her inability to win Carlen's trust and was frequently hurt by the cut of her remarks, but she let a lot of it slide. Maybe too much. Maybe she was a little too enamored of Carlen. A little too proud to have this rare beast all to herself. Maybe she placed too much faith in her ability to keep Carlen interested and amused, to keep her off balance - to keep her, period.

* * *

There was one topic that usually flowed smoothly between them and that was talk about conditions beyond the walls of Newcity. Dalroy never tired of hearing about the outside and Carlen supposed it was perfectly natural. Carlen didn't mind talking about it. Sometimes it sparked responses in Dalroy that revealed things about the workings of the city, and it did help to pass the time during the cross town food runs.

"All those years on the road, you must have had more than just a couple of run-ins with the State-huh?" Dalroy remarked leadingly during one of their afternoon runs.

Carlen smiled to herself. Subtlety was not one of Dalroy's qualities.

"Certainly. Been in more dust storms than I'd care to count."

"They came after you in choppers?" Dalroy sounded impressed.

"Oh yes. Smuggling is taken extremely seriously."

"Shit. Who the hell were you running for?"

"The Cultural Underground," Carlen answered after a pause.

"You were a Provocateur?"

"That's the line I was in."

"How the hell did you get out from under State choppers?"

"Zen."

"What?"

"I learned to disappear quick."

"You must have."

Carlen had noticed two women approaching from the opposite direction. They didn't appear by their attire or demeanor to be Vets. None-the-less, Carlen's instincts signaled trouble. She wondered how Dalroy would react but Dalroy didn't react. She just kept walking as if they didn't exist.

The gap was closing fast, but Carlen could see the others were not going to step aside - and neither was Dalroy. When they met and passed, there was a minor scuffle as both couples tried to claim right-of-way on the sidewalk. One of them nudged Dalroy with her shoulder while the other thrust out her foot in an attempt to trip Carlen.

"Watch it!" she laughed nastily.

Carlen maintained her footing but the sack nearly came off her shoulder.

"Clumsy bitch! Get off the pavement!"

"Scavs like you should be made to walk in the street!"

Dalroy hadn't stopped, although her pace had slowed, but this last comment brought her up short and Carlen could see she did not intend to pocket the insult.

"Call me a scav, you bitch, and I'll stop your fucking clock," Dalroy said without turning.

Brassy laughter. "I'd love to see you try, runt!"

There was a tiny pause, then very quietly Dalroy said, "Put the bag down, Carlen."

Carlen would have preferred to move on. She was sure the others wouldn't follow but it was too late now. Things would only be made worse if she didn't back Dalroy's play.

Very slowly she lowered the bag to the ground, allowing the switchblade to drop into her hand as she did. She turned smoothly around just as Dalroy eased the sack off her shoulder. Carlen assumed an authoritative stance, but the knife remained concealed in the loose curl of her left fist.

Once the others glimpsed Carlen at full height, the set of her features, all the fun evaporated and they began to square off. Maybe they thought they'd take Carlen first, before Dalroy could turn, but they thought about it just a little too long.

Dalroy didn't hurry it but she did turn and straighten simultaneously. By that time, she'd drawn a hunting knife with her right hand and a stiletto with her left. Carlen's switch snapped open.

"You two defects want to fuck? Let's go to bed!"

Dalroy's tone and intent couldn't have been more serious but Carlen noticed a sudden change in the attitudes of the others. Something had spooked them. Badly.

"Christ!" one of them cried with a tremulous laugh. "What the hell we got here? Fuckin' Royalty!"

The other's eyes flicked over to her companion with uncertainty.

"Well," said the first. "I guess we may have mistaken you ladies for somebody else." She took a step back. "We're real sorry to have bothered you."

Her companion backed off also. "Real sorry."

They turned and started down the block.

"Fuckin' Spiker!" Carlen heard one of them mutter as they hurried off.

"I'll remember you two!" Dalroy called out.

Their pace quickened and in another second they disappeared around the corner. Carlen released an inaudible sigh but she didn't move until Dalroy slid her weapons back into her belt and turned to pick up her sack.

"Come on. Let's go."

"Why in hell did you do that?" Carlen demanded.

Dalroy stood up, loaded, ready to go. "I knew we could take them," she replied coolly. "Get your sack."

Carlen slid her knife away, picked up her bag and followed Dalroy. "Well, I'm beginning to think that tattoo of yours could take on an army."

"What are you talking about?"

"I've seen the kind of notice it gets on the street. And what was that crack about 'Royalty'?"

"Oh look, Carlen! Why are you always trying to make something out of nothing-huh?"

"Nothing. Fine. You're into something. You're not saying. Fine with me."

"Look, what I'm into is none of your fucking business."

"It's not hard to see why you have no friends," Carlen needled.

"Who says I don't?"

"It's bloody obvious, 'mate'. You're just the same with everyone. Me included."

"Oh yeah? And how's that?"

"Strange. Bloody strange. Pretty peculiar attitude for someone who claims her line is PR."

"PR? What's that?"

Ignorant bitch. "Public Relations. 'One woman welcoming committee'?"

"Oh."

"I'm not the only rat to come down the pike. I know they sent two down the tunnel the week before me. And what about since? Or is that where you go when you disappear? To pick up Newbloods at the tunnel?"

"No! ...no."

"Oh?"

"Ah, that 'welcome committee' thing was just a line. To make you feel comfortable."

"Really. Why me, Dalroy?"

"You seemed to have something going for yourself. And I was right about that. You were really great back there."

"How the hell do you know? Nothing happened. That mark on your arm did all the work for us."

"Alright! Alright. If you must know, I arrange things. Set up introductions."

That was too big a word. It sounded to Carlen like another line. Somebody else's line.

"What kind of introductions?"

"Oh, people who want to make trades. You know."

"What kind of trades?"

"Food and stuff. You know that."

"That still doesn't explain their reaction to the tattoo."

"Who says it was the tattoo?"

"I do. I'm not blind, Dalroy."

Dalroy was fuming. "Okay! Sometimes I deal a little information."

"So?"

"So, maybe those bitches got something to hide. They probably recognized me. That's all."

That's all. Right. Dalroy, dealer in information. To whom? Certainly not Carlen. And, despite Dalroy's claim to being an 'agent of introductions', Carlen was starkly aware of the fact that Dalroy had introduced her to a number of people but had never once introduced one of them in return. Dalroy didn't trust her yet and that was okay. The feeling was absolutely mutual.

Dalroy had answers for everything, even if she didn't seem comfortable with them all the time. Her explanation did not satisfy Carlen. There was a marked difference in Dalroy's response to these women and the Vets they'd encountered. She ran from the Vets, scared out of her skin. These women were prepared to fight, possibly even kill them, - but only up to a point. Any information Dalroy had on them could certainly not be imparted to anyone by a corpse. So that was insufficient reason to spare her from attack.

It was something visual that scared them the moment Dalroy turned around. Carlen was sure it was the tattoo. And what the hell was a 'Spiker'?

"Okay," Dalroy said, jolting Carlen out of her reverie. "Since we're on the subject of questions, when are you going to tell me about your crime?"

Carlen could see she wasn't going to be put off this time. She didn't know what Dalroy might do if she tried to stall again but she didn't want to test it. Dalroy's mood was fouled and Carlen knew she was responsible.

"It's quite simple, really. I got caught."

"Caught at what?"

"Trafficking illegal materials, of course. I was a courier. You know that."

"What illegal materials?"

"Books, discs... films."

"Real films?" She sounded impressed.

"Oh yes."

Dalroy scoffed. "That's what you've been so anxious to hide from me? It sure isn't much."

"Smuggling materials on the Forbidden List is a Federal felony, you know."

"Why wouldn't you talk about it before?"

"Well, they gave me a pretty rough time. It's not an experience I like to recount."

"I thought you traveled with a flankman."

Once again Carlen was forced to recognize that this little girl, though no great genius, was nobody's fool and she certainly had a memory for details.

"It was more than just a piece of bad luck. We were very tightly set up. My flankman wasn't as lucky as I was. He was shot before either of us knew what was happening."

Dalroy didn't say anything for a minute.

"I can have it checked out, you know."

"Certainly you can," Carlen countered.

"Sarcastic bitch!"

"Everybody knows they don't keep records anymore. Too much overflow. You haven't been in so long you don't know that."

"Maybe not, but there might be other ways to find out."

There was a pause.

"You don't believe me."

"You're a pretty fancy dancer, Carlen."

"And you play with a stacked deck, my friend."

Carlen didn't really believe there was any way Dalroy could check her story. It was a bluff, just another of Dalroy's little games. Yet, Carlen was reasonably sure Dalroy bought the story. It was plausible enough. Fairly damned obvious, in fact.

At any rate, it didn't seem to matter. Dalroy let it lie after that, so Carlen assumed she was satisfied, and it did go a long way toward creating a temporary peace between them.

* * *

"We'd better find another hotel tonight," Dalroy said as they left the deli after a drop one afternoon.

"To tell the truth, I'm really sick of hotels," Carlen said.

"Well, there isn't a whole lot of choice to it," Dalroy said.

"Isn't there?" A light sparked in Carlen's eyes. "Why don't we break into an apartment?"

"An apartment?" Dalroy looked as though Carlen was trying to convince her of the existence of monsters.

"Why not? Let's find a really ritzy one!"

"Well, how are we going to get in? Hotel rooms all have keys."

"And so do you, my friend," Carlen said, jangling a large ring of keys looped to Dalroy's belt. "I'd say you've done your fair share of breaking and entering."

"Well..." Dalroy still looked doubtful but Carlen's excitement had infected her.

"Come on. What do you say?"

"Well, okay."

"Now you're talking!"

They chose a building just three doors up from the museum and, as Carlen suspected, Dalroy had no trouble popping the lock of a door on the third floor.

"There. See?" Carlen said, grinning. "I told you! Although, for a lady who claims never to use locks you sure do have a fine collection of keys. You look like a bloody jailer with that lot strung from your belt."

Dalroy made a grunt.

The apartment, though certainly ritzy, was more than a little untidy, but it wasn't the disarray of a looting raid. Unmade beds, cupboard doors standing open, drawers pulled out. These people had packed light and got out fast, probably during the first few hours of the attack on Newcity. Carlen couldn't help but wonder if they had they made it out in time. And, if so, had it been worth it?

The girls stayed up very late that night. They went through the whole apartment, playing with everything they could make use of. Carlen took a bath, with bath oil, and washed her hair with real shampoo. She even convinced Dalroy to shower - the first she'd known her to take in the six weeks they'd been acquainted.

By midnight they were ready to eat. Carlen set them a very fancy table with candlelight and crystal glasses.

They dined on a few unspoiled canned goods left in the cupboards, and Carlen encouraged Dalroy to take her first taste of liver pate. There was also a store of Scotch, Vodka and Rum and, by two the next morning, the pair were royally soused.

It was every bit as much fun as Dalroy had hoped they'd have a few weeks prior in the Five Star hotel suite. More, in fact. The personal effects in the apartment lent a kind of dream quality to the whole affair, especially for Dalroy who had never tasted such luxury, albeit a little on the second-hand side.

"Don't you ever get tired of having just women around all the time?" Carlen asked, her finger wiping up the last smear of pate from the silver gilt plate.

Dalroy belched. "Nope. Men are such fucking domineering bastards. Want to run everything all the time."

Carlen smiled grimly. "It's a man's world all over again. No doubt about that."

"It must be pretty rough for women on the outside these days."

"Hell, yes," Carlen sighed. "At least in this country. Half the women are gone and the other half are in twice the demand. We lost our back-up. The sisterhood is dead. Gone. Centuries of growth, gone in a sweep. Those who haven't been turned to prostitution are pregnant all the time, and half those pregnancies are the result of rape. It's not safe anywhere for women anymore."

"That's true enough," Dalroy said softly. There was a funny look in her eyes.

Carlen missed both the look and the comment. "No trust anywhere," she lamented. "People turning on each other. On their own kind. Like rats in a maze. That's what we are. Rats in a maze."

"Yeah," Dalroy agreed, although she didn't grasp the analogy. "I'd rather be in here than on the outside these days. I really would."

"That's a funny thing to say."

Dalroy's brow creased defensively.

"But it's okay," Carlen said. "You know, I almost agree with you."

Carlen got up from the table and moved over to the window. That woman sure had a strange love affair with windows. She stared out at the city like she could see something visible to no one but herself.

Dalroy got up and followed Carlen into the living area. She plopped on the floor with a bottle and glass. Carlen had left her glass on the table.

"What kind of life did you have on the outside, Carlen? Before the trouble, I mean?"

"Pretty good, I guess."

"What about your parents?"

"What about them?"

"What were they like?"

Carlen left the window and crossed to the couch where she stretched out. "They were good people. Both dead now. In the Conflict."

"Sure."

"What about you?"

"I never had any parents," Dalroy confessed. "I mean, I never knew them. I was a dump-site birth. Know what that is?"

"Abandoned."

"That's it. But I'm not a chemic, you understand," she added, quickly disassociating herself from that percentage of the population afflicted with toxic poisoning.

"I know that."

"Yeah. Well, I was half raised on the lot by anyone who happened to be around. The scavs and hobos sort of adopted me. I learned to do for myself pretty early. I could pick locks and pockets by the time I was seven."

Carlen smiled. "That's a pretty wild story."

Dalroy didn't take offence. "Well, it's true. Three other babies were dropped on the lot that week. They all died. I guess I was the only healthy one."

Carlen's smile broadened. It was hard to look at Dalroy and think of yourself as looking at something 'healthy'.

There was a pause and Dalroy looked up. Carlen's eyes were closed.

"Tired-huh?"

"Mmm."

"You coming to bed?"

"No. I think I'll stay here."

"There's a big bed inside. Plenty of room for two."

"You take it. I'm comfortable."

There was another brief pause. Carlen's eyes remained closed. She was aware of the mood Dalroy was in. She ignored it.

"Well, good night, then," Dalroy murmured.

"Good night."

Carlen sensed Dalroy's disappointment. She ignored that too. The girl's overtures were definitely becoming less subtle and Carlen wondered how much longer it would be before Dalroy got up the courage to make a more obvious move.

* * *

There was already someone in the deli when Carlen and Dalroy arrived for breakfast about a week later. The interesting thing was, Dalroy seemed to sense it even before she stepped through the door - breathing fire.

"Get the hell out, ragman! This is a private caf!"

The old man laughed abrasively. The first man Carlen had seen in the city.

"Private-huh?" His features curled into a snarl. "There ain't no private cafs here."

"I'll kill you, old man," Dalroy growled, going for the hunting knife.

"Shit on it!" the old man cast over his shoulder but Carlen saw him reach inside his coat.

She grabbed Dalroy's arm quickly. "What the hell," she said. "There's no coffee, anyway."

"Friggin' right," the ragman concurred under his breath.

Dalroy's arm relaxed but she was malcontented. Carlen took the stool next to the ragman and opened conversation to further diffuse Dalroy's impulse to kill him.

"How does it go, old man?"

"Oh, you know. You know how it is," he said.

"I don't know much at all. New arrival."

The old man nodded his head without looking up. "You know, then. You know how it is."

"How is it?" Carlen persisted.

"He's a loon," Dalroy cut in sharply. "Can't you tell? Fragged!"

Dalroy was behind the counter and had delivered up four cans of goods. Carlen picked up the can opener without reply. She suspected Dalroy's assessment was perfectly accurate. In fact, she'd decided not to pursue it when the ragman spoke again.

"Power position order ordeal... Know how it is here... Lines drawn... select few... a fact or two that are new-"

"He's raving," Dalroy snapped contemptuously.

Carlen was watching the ragman closely. There was a slight change in his demeanor and he said, "The way it'll be outside, soon."

"Already is," Carlen said.

The man didn't appear to have heard. He slipped away into another mood, then suddenly he was speaking again, quite a bit more loudly.

"Got to get it in order! Get in order and stay there. Stay there! Follow the line... follow the line..."

Follow the line.

To Carlen that meant a line of humanity in the process of relocation.

"The State keeps order outside," she said.

The old man seemed to come to. "The State!" he declared with a panicky snort. "State won't set foot! Not in here. Oh no. Won't set foot..."

"Who, then?"

"Who what?"

"Keeps control here?"

"Are we going to eat, or what!" Dalroy interjected, nearly shouting.

The ragman slumped into silence.

Carlen released a suppressed sigh and reached for the nearest can. She was well aware of Dalroy's mounting impatience but she was reluctant to give up this chance at some new information, meager or jumbled though it may be. He was an old man. Probably been rattling around the city for years. He had to know something.

For a number of minutes the unlikely group ate in silence. Carlen was halfway through the can before she noticed she was eating Spaghetti-O's for breakfast. About as drab as a food can get, but they were better than what the ragman had.

He was dining quite contentedly on a filthy nub of flom, the white, egg-shaped protein concentrate the State dropped in for the inmates. She could see a stick of litkin protruding from the mouth of a bag he had placed on the counter. Litkin was a concentrate of vegetable extracts, served up in cylindrical sticks which were about the consistency of rock candy. They were, in fact, mostly composed of carrots, hence their orange coloring. Abominable food. Nutritionally balanced so that one could live on it - but only just.

Carlen would have liked to offer the ragman a tin but she didn't want to test Dalroy's humor. Besides, he obviously had his sources, bad as they appeared to be.

"Whipmaster," he said suddenly.

Carlen nearly jumped out of her skin. So did Dalroy.

"What did you say?" Carlen spluttered through a mush of Spaghetti-O's.

"Aw, it's nothing," Dalroy sneered. "We should have wasted him."

Carlen waved her to silence just an instant too late but she thought she heard the tail-end of the same word repeated. Then "...his grace. Jades and parades... All the sterling horses..." He faltered again.

Carlen's face was ashen, her attention riveted on the man. "What do you mean?"

She thought the answer was within her grasp but the ragman curled deeper into his great coat. A skeletal hand appeared from the sleeve and grasped the bag on the counter. As he swung his back to Carlen, she heard him make one last remark. His voice was a rasp and she wasn't sure if she heard him say, "Rules... Cold one... Step light, ladies!" before he gathered the rest of his belongings and left the caf.

Neither woman regained composure immediately. They ate in cold silence, scraping at their tins more loudly than necessary.

When they'd cleared up, they stepped out into what promised to be a hot but fairly bright day. They paused on the pavement and Dalroy adopted what Carlen privately referred to as her 'Lord of the Manor' stance. Thumbs tucked into her belt, her left foot thrust forward, rocking on the heel of her boot. She took a very raw tone.

"You got a big curiosity, Newblood. It's going to get you all fouled up."

"No problem that I can see," Carlen said. "I'm just trying to tap into some basic information."

"Well, you won't get it from septics like that! He was talking a lot of bunk. I ought to know."

"I don't doubt that a bit."

Dalroy's eyes flashed dangerously. "Don't push it, Carlen."

Carlen wasn't buying. "This prison's been open ten years, Dalroy. You're not going to tell me there's no central power in here. There's got to be someone sitting on top of things. It's the nature of the world. Basic information."

"There's no such thing! You listen to me, new girl. You keep yourself to yourself here. Look out for your own. You'll learn. You'll learn that. I mean it. Get it in check, Carlen, and keep it there."

CHAPTER 7 \- THE CHECKERBOARD

The tension between Dalroy and Carlen was strung just a little more tightly after that. Dalroy could see Carlen was not going to leave it alone. Maybe it was unrealistic to think she could keep Carlen in the dark indefinitely. It might be time to let her in a little closer to the center of things. Acquaint her with a few of the realities. A selected few. It might keep her from running. Dalroy did not want Carlen to run.

They were installed for the night in yet another hotel room a few days later. Dalroy had plans but, when Carlen said she was tired, they had gone straight to the room. As usual, they talked about outside conditions.

"How is it, generally? For the people, I mean?"

"Chaotic. Miserable, really," Carlen said.

"They're not still fighting!"

"No. The fighting has pretty much stopped, but people are still scattered all over the place."

"Relocation, you mean? That must be over by now."

Carlen's eyebrows arched. "Oh, the relocation lines have slowed some, but all those people they walked across the country are still in fucking line - outside the Rationing Stations in their cities of relocation."

"Not everyone had to move."

"Not everyone? How do you think they're keeping control? Hardly anyone's been able to stay put, except people in essential services and factory jobs."

"Well, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe some people who never got a break before can get one now."

Carlen gave a grunt.

"Where I was brought up... well, it was really bad. A slum."

"The whole world's a slum."

"You're really sour," Dalroy remarked softly.

"About what's going on here? Yes. I am."

"It can't be as bad as you say."

"No. Not everywhere. Some places it's worse."

Carlen's cynicism was making Dalroy uncomfortable. "Still, it's not so bad in here. No crowds, right? Me, I'm glad to be out of that ghetto."

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Huh?"

"There aren't any more ghettos. At least, not in the way you think of them."

Dalroy forced out a little chuckle. "In that case, things can only improve."

"Improve?" Carlen exclaimed, totally incredulous.

Dalroy immediately regretted her remark. Carlen was looking at her with those narrowed eyes.

"What do you think is happening in the so-called Freeworld? Where do you think the people are going? Really. Where the fuck do you think all the Black people are going? Nobody wants them. Nobody wants to alienate them. Everybody wants to see them 'rehabilitated' and 'compensated'. So. What do you think they're doing? Why, they're 'Relocating' them. Giving them entire cities of their own. Segregating them.

"Fine solution, huh? Whites over here, Blacks over there, Hispanics, Asians. Everybody's scared of everybody and, in another ten years, this country will be nothing but one great string of ghettos from sea to shining sea!"

Dalroy was awed by the grappling that went on in Carlen's mind. It never seemed to cease. "Well," she said morosely, "I never could understand what got the whole thing started up."

"Dalroy, you have just hit upon the question of our generation."

Carlen seemed to relax suddenly. At least, a little. She became introspective. "I think people just got too caught up in the manufacture of a way of life. They bought into a dream that manifested itself in the collection of material wealth and they forgot to keep asking themselves who really owned it all, or what the real cost of it would be.

"We became a nation of followers, closet clones, trained in on production and more production. And, as fast as we could dish it out, they were dishing it all straight back - everything but the wealth. We were kept so busy in the pursuit of this dream, we lost sight of our capacity for individual thought, individual decision, individual action.

"I believe that's partly how the Angloid Army was able to galvanize such a large fighting force. They played on people's fear and ignorance, their need to be part of something larger than themselves. Saddest of all, they played on their need to be controlled by something, so they wouldn't have to learn to think or take responsibility for the lack of purpose in their mundane lives..." Her voice became softer. "Well, at least now they've got what they paid for. Peace, Love, Freedom, Happiness... all gone. Like your hair."

"If you feel so bad about it, why did you come back? Why didn't you stay in England, when you had the chance?"

Carlen gave a derisive snort. "England isn't really any better."

Suddenly Dalroy seemed interested. "You mean, it's the same over there?"

"Not quite, but almost. They've had racial problems for a long time. At least here they were honest about it. They came out in the open. It's different there."

"How?"

"Well, in England, the Angloids got together into raiding parties of maybe twelve or twenty men. They used burnt cork, to darken their faces, then went out, under cover of night, into Black neighborhoods to burn, bomb and kill. You know."

Dalroy nodded.

"It doesn't sound like much, except that there were hundreds of these little groups and they all supported each other. They could go in, one group at a time, on sniping runs, or go in together and hold a whole neighborhood all night. A sort of guerilla warfare. An English KKK, if you like. Some horrible stuff going on. Really horrible. About the worst thing since all that IRA shit. They never declare it, but England's been at war for decades.

"Pretty rotten world, isn't it, where people leave their children to starve and spend every cent they can lay hands on for guns and more guns..." Carlen seemed to be drifting again. "Crossed the line from gray to khaki..."

"What?"

Carlen came to. "Nothing. Just a line from a movie."

Well, Dalroy didn't know anything about gray to khaki, but she could plainly see Carlen sliding from blue into black.

"You sure do think about things one hell of a lot," she said. "Get yourself all worked up over nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Well, you can't do shit about it."

"Small attempts," Carlen said in an undertone.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You're getting yourself into a mood. What do you say we go out? Have a drink."

"Go out?" Carlen smiled cynically. "I thought it wasn't safe to go out at night."

"Depends where. We'll be all right where we're going. I'm known."

"Known, huh? Where's this?"

Dalroy flashed her toothless grin. Hooked. Carlen never turned down the offer of a drink.

"Come on," she said. "It might improve your temper."

* * *

They walked several blocks across town through an area which was once the hub of the business center. Skyscraper central. Now, understandably, it was called The Canyon. Unfortunately, the area was crawling with ugly butch types, all of them, it seemed, cruising for a piece of tail. Some of the comments cast Carlen's way were a great deal less than gallant.

"Where the fuck are you taking me?"

"Checkerboard," Dalroy said.

"What's that? Some game for deviates?"

"It's a club."

"A club!"

"You'll see."

"Well, couldn't you have found a more satisfactory route?"

"Hey, it's direct. Canyon's twelve blocks around. Besides, we're as safe here as anywhere."

"Sure we are," Carlen murmured.

"Look at that!" came a voice from the dark. "I'd take charge of that for a night! 'Course, one night'd be all it was worth, once I'd finished with it!"

A cutting laugh hacked the night.

Carlen scowled. "Feel like I'm running the fucking gauntlet."

"Mind your manners, girls," Dalroy called out, cool as you please. "The lady's with me."

"She's too good for you, Dalroy!" someone hooted from a darkened doorway.

"Let me know if you tire of her!" another called.

Carlen swung around angrily.

Dalroy grabbed her arm. "Take it easy. It's cool. Only talk."

"She'll have it back by the toe of my boot!"

"Don't worry about it," Dalroy said, goosing up the pace. "Nothing's going to happen."

They continued north and, as the streets fell quiet again, the shining glass towers of commerce gave way to four and five story buildings of brick and mortar that conveyed a cozier neighborhood feeling. One thing unusual about the area was the presence of street lamps. Not the towering contributions from the State, but city street lamps, the originals, and they were working.

The Checkerboard was located on the blunted apex of a triangular shaped block at a six-way junction of similar blocks, a dimly glowing oasis nestled in the mist enshrouded darkness around it. It was refreshing after the looming density of the Canyon.

Inside, it looked pretty much like any neighborhood hangout. Fairly small and surprisingly cozy. Nothing fancy. No table cloths, no carpet or tile on the floor, but the place had been completely straightened up and organized into an atmospheric, working bar.

Immediately inside the glass paneled door, to the left and right, were five or six tables seating four or five apiece and, to Carlen's amusement, working electrogames, blinking and bleeping their Freeworld currents warmly into the room.

The bar itself was L-shaped and squared off the entire left hand side of the room. It was wood, all wood, with a genuine brass foot rail that ran around the base. A very fine piece of workmanship and obviously an object of great pride to the proprietor.

There was even a discspinner in the corner, pouring out an undercurrent of top song favorites.

Though by no means dark, the combination of the frugal electric lamp over the bar, candlelight from the tables and neon flashes from the games and discbox lent the bar an old world ambiance.

There was a good crowd. Animated. Sociable. Every seat was occupied and people stood out on the floor and up at the far end of the bar. It was the largest company of people Carlen had seen since the Barracks, and every one of them was a woman.

As Dalroy and Carlen came through the door, two ladies in black were just turning in their hardware at the corner of the bar. No guns allowed.

Scoping the crowd, Carlen was reminded of the barroom sequences in a couple of sci-fi films she'd seen. She wanted to laugh.

It was a motley group. Traders, street procurers, hustlers, free lance Jobgirls, Runners. A Runner, as Carlen had come to understand it, was not simply a third-rate courier, like it was on the outside. A Runner in Newcity might do some lightweight carrying but, mainly, it meant someone who relayed messages and information around the Sector. Not informers but legitimate information carriers. A sort of Western Union.

One other definition of the term was someone on the run from trouble. Apparently there was never any problem in distinguishing one from the other, despite the obvious span in their standing on the social scale.

There was a small group of Territorials in one corner who apparently patrolled locally, like the two Carlen and Dalroy had faced off a couple of weeks before. One thing about Territorials - you weren't likely to encounter them outside the ten to twenty block radius they ran in. Not really troublesome people. Easy to spot because they always dressed exactly alike within their home cliques.

There were others done up in garb Carlen didn't recognize. Some just street people. Some obviously just breaking from the rank of scavenger into a better position through some good moves. One or two were daintied up, offering a good night for a good price.

A couple of women bore marks similar to Dalroy's. Similar, not the same. Quite obviously not the same. Carlen couldn't make the other but one of them was a Jobgirl.

There were no Vets. No Vets at all. Veterans had less status than scavs. There were one or two obvious losers, but even the losers had something going for them. You had to - at the Checkerboard. Carlen was the only Newblood.

The discspinner was playing a romantic little number by a group called 'M-16' entitled "I Love You 'Cause You're Female", a song not about a woman but, as the name of the group might imply, a gun.

When the corner of the bar cleared, Dalroy led the way up to it. Everyone in the place seemed to know her. Some of the greetings were almost friendly, some less than cordial, some overtly frigid. Dalroy was cool with everyone but, like Carlen, she took note of every face in the room before she ever reached the bar. No one looked at Carlen directly.

The clientele of the Checkerboard consisted of some very tough types but the toughest had to be the proprietor herself. A monstrous woman, at least six foot of her, with arms like a Sumo wrestler, nine and a half fingers and two gold teeth. A real hard case. Probably a New Yorker. She arrived at the end of the bar just as Dalroy's hand lighted on it.

"Dalroy," she greeted with ominous neutrality. "What can I do for you?"

Carlen noticed the publican didn't ask if they had any guns to check.

"Shop open?" Dalroy asked, speaking up over the din of voices in the room.

"It's open."

"We'll be back," she said, taking Carlen's arm.

Their passage through the room created a stir of interest uncomfortably reminiscent of Carlen's experience in the Barracks. She was thinking: These people don't look at anybody - until you try to get past them.

Dalroy led the way through a beaded curtain at the back, and as Carlen followed, she felt like she'd passed into another dimension. The Shop was a hot, airless space, cluttered with packing cases and all manner of odds and sods. Everything looked grimy and second hand. The proprietor looked like a man, an emaciated one.

"Dalroy! I see you! What goes on?"

"Nothing, Calypso. All's quiet. Got a Newblood here, needs some identity."

"Boy! I can see that plain!"

"Set her up with anything she likes. Name's Carlen."

"Carlen! Okay! Whatever you say."

Dalroy turned to Carlen. "I'm going to get a drink. Help yourself!" she said with a shrug, the beads clicking as she disappeared through the curtain.

"Well, Carlen. Whadiyalike-huh?"

Carlen turned back to the proprietor, shaking her head with a smile.

There was stuff hanging everywhere, probably most of it pilfered in looting runs. Clothes, shoes, bags, hats, belts, badges, do-dads of every possible description. Most of it junk. Some of it very good stuff.

"You want to get rid of the uniform-huh?" Calypso suggested.

"No. I'll hang on to it."

Carlen found a black canvas vest with multiple pockets. Not exactly what she was looking for but in fair condition. She also found a well seasoned leather belt that wrapped around her hips like it was made for her. She was about to leave when she spotted a long, open weave scarf hanging like a rag from a nail in the wall.

Calypso picked right up on it. "You like that-huh?"

"It's a bit ratty."

"You take it."

"Mm... no."

"Take it!" Calypso made a wave at Carlen. "All too practical!" she chided.

"I have no currency," Carlen argued.

"That's all arranged. You take it! You want it."

Carlen took the scarf and Calypso stepped back for a final look, grinning broadly. "That scarf suits you," she said, as though it was something sinful.

Calypso had soul.

When Carlen emerged through the beaded curtain, Dalroy was stunned by the transformation. Carlen looked strong and handsome, and the three meager items she'd picked brought out an individuality that had been blunted by the uniform, which she had not shed but merely obscured.

How tall she stood, and how well she held herself. She was a winner, no doubt about it. The look of her whet Dalroy's appetite, and she flushed with pride, knowing that Carlen would attract the interest of some of the others as well. She watched her as she made her way over.

"You look good."

"I'm more interested in feeling good."

Dalroy nodded. "Fix that, too," she said, easing Carlen up to the bar. "I've got a little business to work out. You hang here. Order anything you want."

Carlen watched Dalroy withdraw to one of the tables by the front window. There was an empty chair waiting for her.

"What'll it be?"

Carlen turned to the bartender. "What can you offer?"

"You name it."

"You got Summer Light?"

The word "light" in the name referred possibly to the color of the cordial, or perhaps to the show it put on in your head, but most certainly not to the proof percentage.

The publican turned without comment and prepared the drink with long practiced ease. She was a good bartender. Good as any Carlen had seen. Her shot was down in front of her in one fluid movement, a movement that entailed crossing to the far end of the bar to pick up a bottle that needed dusting and opening. The publican had a lumbering gait and a gruff manner but her hands were quick and she knew how to deliver a drink.

Carlen kept half an eye on Dalroy's table and half on the rest of the room. A bunch of rough and nasty people. Some ambitious. Some stupid.

It was an aggressive atmosphere and competitive, littered with bullshit, swollen with posturing. There was a lot of information flowing - and a lot of fear attached to it. People's busts and lines, lies and boasts and plenty of in-fighting. It put Carlen in mind of some of the exclusively male bars she'd snuck into during her travels. There was also a lot of currency circulating.

Carlen turned a sharp ear to the voices around the room. Mostly she caught only snatches, although there were one or two conversations going on she attended with more than just a passing interest.

A group of four seated near the front door were busy scraping up the dregs of some powder they'd dumped on the table. Snorts.

"Shit! I hate this brown crap. It's giving me a headache."

"Poor you!"

"My man used to get us the cleanest, most beautiful stuff."

"I hear you," a third commiserated.

"Well, those days are over now, aren't they sweet meat?" said the second.

"There's got to be something better than this in the city."

"Oh sure!" said the fourth, lifting her snoot off the table. "Go ask Alice!"

Somebody laughed, a little wildly.

"Better ask polite," the cynic said ominously, "that is, if you're all that ready to sell your soul to the devil..."

The laughter ceased, the optimist capitulated, and the bully took the last of the scrapings.

At the back of the room, nestled in the corner near the shop door, was a wooden, pew-like bench. A rectangular table was set up in front of it with more chairs around the outside. The group of eight seated around it was obviously the social hub of the evening's company. At this table an even more interesting conversation was taking place.

"Well, you know you're talking some cold currency, now. Hard nickel."

"I've got currency."

"I heard you can get stuff like that down at the Ledge."

"Where'd you hear that?"

"They never had anything like that."

"They do now."

"Bullshit."

"They do. I've seen it."

"Really?" the first girl wanted to know.

"Yeah."

"How can I make a trade?"

"Talk to Shay."

A chair scraped back loudly as the girl at the end abruptly rose. "You assholes make me nervous."

"Yeah? Well, being unarmed makes me nervous!" the first girl retorted.

The one on her feet leaned down between them. "You know, you're talking like a couple of real candidates. Zoo fodder. You read me? There's Compound personnel in the club tonight, in case you gone suddenly deaf, dumb and blind, and you two frags are sitting here talking your faces off about fire power. There's rules involved here. Cold, hard realities."

"Fuck it, Belanger! I need some blaze! I'm not going to get by without it."

"You want a gun? Get a job!"

"Shit! She's not steady enough for that," someone scoffed.

"Fuck you!" the first girl snapped.

"You're testing the weather, friend," Belanger said, looking dead into the girl's eyes.

The girl couldn't stand up to it. She shook her head and dropped her gaze. Belanger looked over at the third major participant who only shrugged.

"What a couple of losers." Belanger straightened up. "Well, I'm gone and you can forget my name. See you in the afterlife!" she said and promptly left the club.

Carlen didn't know the in's and out's of the conversation or the circumstances it concerned, but one thing was sure. Belanger knew.

As Carlen turned back to her drink, she noticed one of the people from Dalroy's table making her way over to the bar. A young thing with untrustworthy eyes. Probably an informer of some kind with her sights set on a better station.

She stopped a couple of bodies up from Carlen, put in an order with the bartender and, soon after, came away with an armload of drinks. All spirits, unmixed.

As she made her way back, Carlen followed with her eyes. Dalroy was turned away, still deeply engrossed in conversation with an unsavory type. The young one and a fourth at the same table were apparently part of the group but remained uninvolved or uninvited in Dalroy's talk with the other.

Carlen turned away. She didn't want Dalroy to catch her watching. She figured Dalroy was watching her, too, and hiding it.

Things at the big table at the back had been very quiet since Belanger's abrupt departure, but now a new subject had come up, if somewhat tentatively. Carlen cocked an ear.

"What's that up at the bar?"

"Oh, Newblood," someone said disinterestedly.

"Want to check it out?"

"No. Let's wait. Kiano hasn't made her move yet."

Who the fuck was Kiano?

There was a stir in the room as the front door swung open again. The publican crossed in front of Carlen.

"Shay."

Carlen's head snapped up as the publican nodded a greeting to the new arrival - her only smile of the evening.

Shay was not a hard person to spot, especially in this crowd. She was smartly dressed in a pair of green fatigues topped with a pale pink shirt, sleeves rolled, and a canvas bush jacket, sleeves also rolled. The fatigues were tucked into a pair of very fine boots. She had a scarf similar to Carlen's around her neck and on her head was a felt bushman's hat.

She wasn't packing heavy, but Carlen spotted the grip of a large knife showing over the top of her right boot. A quality weapon.

This was no hustler or Jobgirl, by the look of her, and she was certainly no Runner. What she looked was well kept. She was probably a Trader. A prosperous one.

By the time she arrived at the short end of the bar her drink was already set up. She elbowed down and took an introductory draught with the unconscious grace of a patron who had spent some time in that particular spot.

There were no tattoos on her hands or forearms, although there was a snug fitting silver bangle around her wrist and two rings worn side by side on her middle fingers, one of which matched the design of the earring in her right ear lobe.

When she lowered her glass, she looked straight up at Carlen and gave a slow nod. Carlen returned it.

Shay turned to the publican. "Hey, Cheney! How does it go?"

"Goes fine," the bartender said, elbowing down. "You?"

"Things are good. Can't complain. I see you have some new custom."

They both glanced over at Carlen, although not in an insulting manner. There was no attempt to conceal their conversation.

"Name's Carlen," the bartender said.

Shay nodded. She wasn't going to forget that. They turned away again.

"Oh, do me a favor, Cheney. You got anymore of those chocolate mint things?"

"Yeah, only I didn't know you got wet for shit like that," Cheney jibed, shuffling over to a drawer under the bar.

"What, me? Kid me not! No. They're for a friend."

"Sure they are," Cheney said, coming back and tossing a package on the bar.

Shay laughed. So did Cheney. A big, rolling laugh.

"Fix me another, will you?"

Cheney topped up Shay's glass, then left to attend to some impatient types at the other end of the bar.

Shay looked over at Carlen again. "New in town?"

Carlen nodded.

"How'd you find out about this place?"

"I was directed."

"Oh yeah? You with someone?"

"Dalroy," Carlen said, indicating the table with her head.

"Oh."

Shay's mood switched completely. She was looking down into her glass. "What do you want to hang around with crud like that for?"

"She's the only person I know."

Shay looked up. "Well, you want to watch her."

Carlen said nothing.

"Still, I don't suppose she's going to give someone like you too much trouble."

What one of a dozen things did she mean?

"Not so far," said Carlen.

Shay tossed back her drink and stuck some hard cash down on the bar. Carlen checked. Those coins were rare, even outside.

"I'll be back, Cheney!" she called, then looked at Carlen. "Why don't you look me up when you get loose of the parasite?"

"Where do I find you?"

"You can leave a message here, with Cheney."

Carlen nodded.

Shay raised her eyebrows with a half smile. "Welcome aboard!" she said wryly and turned to leave.

The girl from the back table approached nervously before Shay could make the door.

"Shay! I need to talk to you."

"Yeah? What about?"

"A trade. I want to score a piece."

Shay's mood darkened a shade and she glanced around nervously.

"Come outside. We'll talk."

They left together.

Carlen turned back to the bar to call for another drink. Cheney was already there, bottle in hand.

"Again?"

"Again."

Cheney gave her a healthy refill and Carlen wrapped her hand around the glass.

"Barkeep," she called as Cheney turned to go.

Cheney turned back with a grunt.

"You wouldn't just happen to have any cigarettes back there?"

Cheney reached into another drawer and tossed a filtered tailor-made on the bar in front of Carlen. Carlen picked it up. "Only one?"

"You smoke more than one at a time?"

Carlen smiled. "No."

Cheney dropped a book of matches on the bar.

"Thanks," Carlen murmured around the filter.

"The name's Cheney. Just ask if you want another."

"You know, Cheney?" Carlen exhaled on a cloud of smoke, "I think you're one of my favorite people."

Cheney gave a disinterested huff and lumbered off.

A minute later, the girl from Dalroy's table was at the bar again, talking with Cheney who was nodding. Carlen assumed she'd come to order for her table again. She didn't wait to see, but averted her head. She'd been aware for some time that the person just down from her had been gradually edging closer. Now she was practically on top of her. One of the losers.

"Newblood-huh?"

Carlen ignored her.

"How long you been in?" the stranger persisted in a gravelly voice.

Carlen looked her over briefly. About five-seven, thin, haggard, clad in her own combination of street apparel, and armed with one or two pieces of heavy iron. Her teeth were green.

Carlen looked away. "Seven, eight weeks."

"What's your name?"

"What's yours?"

"Kiano."

"Carlen."

"What you in for?"

"Defecating on public pavements."

Kiano laughed. "I guess they don't lob off any fingers for that-huh?"

"I guess not."

Carlen tossed back her drink and slid the glass across the bar for another refill.

"What's that you're drinking?"

"Summer Light."

"What proof's that?"

"One-o-one."

Kiano reached into a vest pocket as Cheney approached.

"Let me pay for that."

"I'm covered," Carlen told her but Kiano would not be put off. She slapped a coin on the bar.

"One more," Cheney said, topping Carlen's glass.

Kiano reached into her pocket again. "You got expensive taste, friend," she said and laid another coin on the bar.

Cheney moved off, taking the money with her.

Kiano raised her glass. "Cheers!"

Carlen gestured without comment.

Kiano dropped hers in a swallow, set down her glass. "One-o-one-huh? You're a pretty serious drinker. This stuff's only eighty proof. But then, I've been here longer than you have."

"Meaning what?"

"You're drinking higher proof but I've put more away. We're about even, wouldn't you say?"

"Even for what?"

"A little game of One-for-One."

"A drinking contest."

"You catch on fast, Newblood. Last one on her feet wins."

"Wins what?"

Kiano chuckled softly. "We can work something out."

"Sounds like a waste of good liquor."

Kiano was gazing down into her empty glass. "What's the matter, Carlen? Got no stick?"

Got no inclination to find out what's really on your mind, Carlen was thinking. "Who's going to pay for all this?" she asked.

"I'll pay," Kiano said.

Carlen knew by the jingling in that pocket she could afford it.

"You game?"

Carlen swallowed the last of her drink and planted her glass on the bar. "Set them up."

Like magic, Cheney was there, a bottle in each hand, but she didn't pour a drop until Kiano's change hit the bar. She poured both glasses simultaneously, even-steven, and never lost a drop. The contestants raised their glasses.

"What's the wager?" Carlen asked before she'd drink.

Kiano smiled. "What have you got?"

"Nothing," Carlen said, grinding her cigarette out.

Kiano gave a perverse chuckle. "Oh now, I wouldn't say that."

Even Cheney smiled. Carlen said nothing.

"What about the remains in both bottles?"

"That isn't much," Carlen pointed out.

Kiano raised her glass, as though to toast. "Let's just call it a wager of honor." There was a dark cunning in her eyes. "I've never been carried out of here yet."

Carlen raised her glass and emptied it. Kiano did the same. Cheney poured refills. Carlen threw hers back. Kiano followed. Another refill.

A deathly hush had fallen along the bar and some of the people on the floor were beginning to take interest.

This time Carlen waited. She didn't look at Kiano but, when she saw her move, she picked up her glass and they drank simultaneously. When the glasses hit the bar, Cheney refilled them again, but Carlen was disturbed by the way she crossed her arms as she poured, filling Kiano's glass from her bottle and hers from Kiano's.

"What's this?" she demanded, with a look at Cheney.

"Part of the ritual," Kiano explained.

Carlen's eyes snapped over. Kiano smoothly slid the glasses across the bar, exchanging Carlen's for hers. "I know this is your drink," she said.

"Not anymore," Carlen said.

As Kiano nudged Carlen's glass closer, her sleeve drew back slightly, exposing the grayish patches marring her forearm.

"You're a fucking chemic!"

"Hey - you got acid breath, lady," Kiano countered with an edge of warning.

"What's on?" somebody called.

"This hot-shot insulted me," Kiano said.

"Gettin' a little of the home truth, are you Kiano?" someone at the bar called out.

There was laughter.

Kiano didn't take her eyes off Carlen. "You going to play the bet, or what?"

Carlen shook her head slowly. "I don't change horses in mid-run."

"It's a glass! Same drink. Or is it you won't drink from my glass?"

"Wouldn't piss in it."

"You forfeit the bet."

"The bet's off."

Kiano shifted ever so slightly. "Sounds like you talking hardchange, Newblood."

"Set her straight, Kiano!" someone goaded.

Carlen drew up slowly, allowing her hand to slide off the bar.

"Everyone plays the game, Newblood. You'll take the drink," Kiano said in an easy tone, but Carlen wasn't deceived.

When Kiano made a grab for her, Carlen swung in, the switchblade snapping open before Kiano's rheumy eyes. "I'll bury you!"

The entire room fell silent.

A small smile tugged at the corners of Kiano's mouth. Carlen understood it well enough. One of Dalroy's little pearls of wisdom was on replay at the back of her mind.

'Eyes open, keep your cool out front and your back to the wall.'

Real good advice. But the situation was anything but cool and there was no wall now. Not perched as she was at the corner of the bar. There wasn't a person in the room who didn't have a clear shot at her.

Well, when there's nothing in back of you, you just make out like anyone would be a stone fool to get behind you. Or anywhere near you. Kiano first.

"Think you got stick?" Kiano needled.

"Understatement, friend," Carlen replied softly, introducing the point of the knife into the buttonhole near the neck of Kiano's heavy coat. With the merest flick the blade sliced through, rendering the buttonhole useless. "Doubt me?"

Kiano's smile evaporated. Her eyes traveled down to the knife, the point of which was now pressed anything but subtly into her solar plexus. The blade was leveled vertically, all set to plow in and keep carving.

Almost undiscernibly, Kiano's hand started for the knife in a sheath on her belt. A very fine knife. About six times the size of Carlen's. Her hand was moving but there was uncertainty in those yellowed eyes. Carlen gave her a little prod. "You going to imperil your health, or what?"

"Stick her, Kiano!"

There was a movement behind Carlen. Another behind Kiano. The pair remained frozen.

"Fuck her!"

"Go on!"

"I'll lick up the mess!"

There was another small movement behind Carlen but she couldn't afford to look just yet. Kiano was about to make her move.

"Any of you ladies care to dance?"

Everything felt silent. Kiano hesitated.

"Sorry to cut into your waltz, Carlen." It was Dalroy. Right on her flank.

"Fuck you, Dalroy!" somebody shouted. "Let the vealer run the hazard herself!"

"It's One-for-One!"

"Not anymore," Dalroy said.

"Shit, Dalroy! I'd take you out myself for a broken clock! Do everyone a favor!"

"Come on then," Dalroy said with the same cool assurance.

It looked like every bitch in the room wanted to play. It wasn't to be. In the blink of an eye, Cheney reached under the bar and hauled out a shot gun. Shot gun? Hell! It was a ten gauge Alley Sweeper. Six automatic rounds of double aught buckshot. One big mother fucking gun but, in Cheney's hands, it looked like a pop pistol. Instant crowd control.

"Alright, Kiano. Game's over for tonight."

Kiano wasn't going to challenge it. Nobody was.

"Okay, I'm going."

"No you're not," Cheney corrected. "You're staying for one more."

"Sure, Cheney," Kiano agreed. She raised her hands and broke off the confrontation with Carlen.

"Dalroy - you and your partner here, get the fuck out," Cheney said. She reached a hand underneath and lifted a paper sack onto the bar. "There's your order."

Dalroy was all too ready. She stepped up briskly and snatched the bag off the bar. "Thanks, Cheney. Come on, Carlen."

"Now you two ladies clear the area. I'm not having any blood baths outside my joint."

Carlen began to back out.

"Nice to meet you, Carlen," Cheney called. "You be sure to come back soon." Apparently she was sincere.

"Thanks, Cheney. I certainly will."

Carlen and Dalroy backed through the door, which was not even closed fully behind them when everything inside went straight back to normal. Just a small diversion, apparently, and no hard feelings.

Carlen reeled to the curb angrily. "Achh! Chemics! Never know what you'll pick up from scum like that! Ech!"

"Come on, Carlen, don't spaz out on me."

Carlen pulled up in surprise. "Spaz? Did you say spaz?"

"Uh... yeah."

"Give me the afterlife, Dalroy! Where did you learn to speak? Nobody says 'spaz' anymore. That's older than 'freak' and that's archaic! We really must improve your grasp of the language," Carlen declared and set off down the block.

Dalroy was puzzled, but Carlen was effusive and mellow, so she fell into step, grinning.

"Alright. So what then? How do you say?"

"Seize."

"Seize?"

"Seize! Seize up. Seize out. Seize."

"Well, it still looked spaz to me."

"Chemics! Shit!" Carlen shuddered again.

"Okay. Okay!" Dalroy laughed. "You're seized, then!"

Their laughter burst out then softened as they moved along, their strides made generous by the lubrication of liquor, heads and limbs roaring with hot, loose energy. The scene had stimulated them both.

"Checkerboard's interesting-huh?"

"Certainly not monotone," Carlen replied with a dry chuckle.

"Uh... yeah," Dalroy said but she failed to understand. "Up here..."

CHAPTER 8 \- IMPASSE

They stayed in a small local hotel rather than run the Canyon a second time that night. A rickety staircase led up to a dark musty hallway.

Dalroy found a room and opened the door with a little flourish. As Carlen entered, a small click sounded behind her and the area was suddenly drenched in light. She turned to the vision of Dalroy, poised against the doorjamb, her hand still on the switch, a huge shit-eating grin on her face.

"I thought there was no electricity in the city," Carlen remarked.

Dalroy sauntered over and set the bag down on the bed. "Some places got it and some don't," she said with the deliberated casualness she sometimes adopted.

The Checkerboard had electricity. This place was probably on the same grid. But the electric light was where the luxury ended. There was just one bed, three quarter width; a small table with chipped paint and a chair to match; a dresser on molded legs, and a pocked mirror hanging crooked over that. Bathed in the grizzly yellow light from the single bare bulb, the place looked like the cheap set of a 1950's kinescope.

"Charming place."

Dalroy had taken off her belt and vest and was sitting on the bed, lighting a cigarette. The first whiff of it brought Carlen's head around with a snap.

"Where the hell'd you get that?"

"The club," Dalroy replied, puffing and coughing furiously. The end of the cigarette was in flames.

"Give me that!" Carlen snatched the cigarette from Dalroy's hand. "You'll kill yourself." She pinched off the flaming end and stamped it out on the floor. Producing her own matches, she relit the cigarette with the poise of one who is practiced.

It was apparent Carlen intended to keep the cigarette so Dalroy turned her attention to the bag. "Why don't you sit down?" she invited, moving back on the bed and proffering an unopened bottle of Scotch.

Carlen sat on the narrow strip of floor between the wall and the bed. With her back to the wall, there was just enough room to stretch out her legs. The cigarette was especially good after the events of the evening.

"You like those-huh?" Dalroy asked, watching Carlen intently.

"Well enough."

"I suppose there's plenty of them outside. Rare as hen's teeth in here."

"Rare everywhere," Carlen said.

"I can get all you want, if you like them regular."

"From Cheney," Carlen deduced, suddenly erupting with raw laughter. "My God! What a woman!"

Dalroy reached in the bag and tossed a carton of cigarettes on the floor beside Carlen. A new, slow smile spread over Carlen's face.

"Thinking all the time, aren't you?"

"All the time," Dalroy beamed.

Carlen picked the carton up. "How did you pay for these?"

"Didn't. They were grace."

"Grace?" Carlen was honestly surprised.

"Oh yeah. Cheney really liked you."

There was a twinkle in Dalroy's eyes and Carlen broke up again. Dalroy laughed, too, and jumped off the bed to join Carlen on the floor. She ripped at the seal on the Scotch bottle. Carlen tore open the cigarettes.

"What did you think of the Checkerboard?"

"Oh, really!"

"Come on."

"What do you think of it?"

"It's just a joint. A bit of social activity."

Carlen chuckled sardonically. "Socially rancid."

"What?"

"Just a line I heard in a movie once."

"You've seen a lot of movies, haven't you?"

"Yeah."

"How many?"

"I don't know."

"Aw, come on. Twenty? Fifty?"

"Hundreds."

"Fuck! Really?"

"Oh yes," Carlen sighed.

"What kind of movies were they? Porn?"

"Some. Some Wildtracks. Some music."

"Music?"

"Concerts. Crowds of people, all gathered in one spot to hear and see top songs performed live."

"Sounds dangerous! Somebody could get killed in a scene like that."

"Actually, some people were, in a couple of films I saw. Surprisingly few, though. Quite a phenomenon."

"Speaking of death," Dalroy said. "You nearly finished us at the Checkerboard tonight. Lose your temper?"

"You might say that," Carlen said, accepting the bottle.

"I saw how you turned on that bitch in there tonight. You were ready to smoke her."

"No I wasn't," Carlen said a little tightly.

"You were," Dalroy insisted in a no shame/no blame sort of way.

"Well, no bloody wonder," Carlen said. "The way she came on. Pleading through her teeth to get her arse wrecked. Anyway, you weren't exactly sweetness and light yourself."

"Well, I had to back you, didn't I? Besides, it's not the same thing."

"I'm sure it isn't."

Dalroy stuck her hand out. Carlen gave her the bottle.

"It's just that-"

"You're a known quantity," Carlen finished for her.

"Right."

Carlen accepted the Scotch again, swigged and rested the bottle on her knee. "Isn't it about time you explained what that mark on your arm signifies?"

"Nothing. I told you. Just a tattoo. Don't you have any?"

"No. I don't," Carlen said, thinking Dalroy knew it well enough.

"Very common in here."

"So I've noticed. Yours ought to be about rubbed away, the reverence heaped on it tonight."

"It's like you said. I'm a known quantity." She took the bottle.

"There was a lot of currency circulating in there tonight," Carlen remarked.

"Sure. Pocketmoney."

Carlen looked quizzical.

"The nickel..." she rephrased. "Coin... CASH?"

Carlen nodded. "Yeah."

Dalroy shrugged. "Prison cash. Inside money."

Carlen smiled. "Yes. I get it."

"God! Give it a try!"

"Sorry. Sometimes it sounds to me like you're talking a foreign language."

"Well, alright!" Dalroy sighed, but Carlen could see she was pleased. Secretly, Dalroy felt the opposite was also true. "People trade anything to get by in here, but if you've got the nickel, you're pulling alright."

Carlen nudged her for the bottle. Dalroy handed it over.

"What does 'hardchange' mean?"

"Oh... much the same. It depends. Why do you ask?"

Carlen shrugged. "Nothing, I guess. Just something someone said."

"It's just a trade term, mostly."

"I notice you didn't pay for anything all night."

"I've got credit," Dalroy said.

"And me?"

"You were with me."

"Little Dalroy. The Known Quantity."

"That's so," Dalroy affirmed and took the bottle again. "Which is more than I can say for you."

She raised the bottle for another swig, but the burn of the Scotch on her tongue was suddenly unappealing. She decided not to take anymore - if she wasn't too stoned to remember the decision. She lowered the bottle to her knee and looked over at Carlen who was smoking again. Dalroy knew Carlen had consumed more than she had at the Checkerboard. The lady drank hard and that was sure. So why was it she didn't look drunk? At all?

"Can I have one of those?"

Carlen was surprised. "You don't smoke."

"I can learn."

Carlen held out the open pack and Dalroy gingerly helped herself to a cigarette. She looked at it a moment then handed it back.

"Changed your mind?"

"Light it for me."

Carlen obliged and handed it back to her. Dalroy watched Carlen drag on her cigarette then imitated her the best she could. After a few tentative puffs she managed a small drawback without coughing. A little smile curled the corners of her mouth. Her hand dropped to her knee and her head rolled back against the wall.

"Shit. I never realized. These things make you high!"

"Only the first one," Carlen said, tamping her butt out on the floor.

"Only the first? Then why smoke them all the time?"

"Addiction."

Dalroy sat quietly while the buzzing in her head eased off. The cigarette had been a bad idea. She held it out to Carlen. "Here."

"Had enough?"

"Yeah."

Carlen took the cigarette and dragged on it.

"You certainly were something tonight," Dalroy reflected.

"You're easily impressed."

"No, I'm not. And I'll tell you something else. Nobody in that joint ever saw any Newblood stand up to Kiano like that before. Opened their eyes for them."

"You weren't so bad yourself. That monster in the headband really wanted to dust you."

"Yeah," Dalroy chuckled. "Well, she knows better."

There was a pause.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, she's a... well, she's nothing. Just a mouth with no brains. She wasn't going to do anything. Just a mouth. But not you, boy. Not you. You must have done some fighting in your time, Conflict or no."

"Not really."

"Come on! The way you fronted Kiano?"

"There just didn't seem to be any option. I'd rather die in a barroom brawl than go down with chemical poisoning."

"Well, you scared her good. She was sweating bullets."

There was a silence. Carlen looked around to find Dalroy gazing up at her pensively. Her eyes flicked over to the bottle which Dalroy had set on the floor. "You drinking that?"

Dalroy seemed to come to and quickly passed the bottle back to Carlen.

"Thanks," Carlen said, taking another deep draught.

Dalroy reached up suddenly and touched Carlen's head. "You sure do have a good head of hair."

"Not much there now."

"Oh, but it's healthy. It's going to be something when it grows out. Did you wear it long on the outside?"

"What does it matter?"

Carlen didn't move as Dalroy's hand lightly stroked her cheek.

"You know, you're pretty."

"I'm not."

"Oh you are. You are! You must have had lots of lovers on the outside."

"You think so?"

"Oh, I'm sure."

Carlen swigged again and set the bottle on the floor. "You're entitled to your opinion."

"Ah, come on, Carlen. When you going to break down and open up?"

Carlen smiled slightly. "Break down and open up?"

Dalroy didn't see the humor.

"What about you?" Carlen countered.

Dalroy flushed, reaching over Carlen's leg for the bottle to cover up. She'd forgotten her decision to lay off. Pulling up, she knelt to face Carlen directly, her knees pressing into Carlen's thigh.

"Tell you frank, Carlen?"

Carlen nodded solemnly.

Dalroy hesitated. "I like you."

"This is the news?"

"No! Really. You're really not a bad sort."

Carlen smiled at her use of the British vernacular. Anything to please. She wondered where she'd picked the term up.

Dalroy went on. "You're sharp. Able bodied. You'd be a good person to have around on a permanent basis." She took another quick swig, as if in relief at finally getting this off her chest - or, perhaps, as Dutch courage for something more she wanted to add. "It's like I said," she continued, placing a tentative hand on Carlen's thigh. "We could be partners." She wasn't looking at Carlen, almost as if in apology for her small advance.

Carlen slowly drew her legs up to lose Dalroy's hand. It worked, but not for long.

Dalroy had taken the outside position on the floor which left Carlen boxed by the corner and the bed. For the second time that night she felt hemmed in and the feeling did not appeal at all. The problem was, Dalroy was evidently too far gone to pick up on Carlen's increasing discomfort.

"I know I'm nothing much to look at," Dalroy said, a little sadly, Carlen thought. "Not like you. Probably no great catch in that department..." Her eyes flicked up, glazed and bleary, fully revealing the emotions inside her. "But I'd like to please you. I really would."

She edged closer, her eyes on the vee of Carlen's open shirt collar. Her hand was moving toward it. "You know," she said, catching the material of the shirt between her fingers. "You could stay with me. I'd keep you safe..."

So. Here it was. The moment of truth. Make or break, the time had come for Carlen to draw up the borders of their relationship.

She was sorry it had to come down this night. Enough was enough. It was also unfortunate the poor dolt didn't know how far she'd overstepped it; that she was yet to learn she was not in control of Carlen.

Dalroy's breath was sour in her nostrils as Carlen lowered her hand to tamp out the cigarette. With barely a side glance at Dalroy, Carlen's right hand shot up to the girl's throat, and in that instant she sprang, pinning Dalroy to the floor \- the point of the drawn switchblade pressing hard enough against her throat to leave an impression.

Carlen's eyes were the raw essence of menace and the syllables of her words were as measured as the death knell.

"Any thought you've got of touching me again, put right out of your mind. Keep your hands to yourself, you malignancy, or I'll blow you out like a candle."

The pressure of her knee in Dalroy's gut increased slightly before Carlen stood up and was gone, out of sight, by the window. She'd got off as fast as she came on, leaving a vacancy that cancelled every mood they'd spilled into the room that evening.

Dalroy peeled up slowly, trying to recoup some semblance of dignity. Her sense of propriety was knocked badly out of whack and all her shaken brain could think to do was laugh. Her chuckle cracked strangely, inappropriate in the loud silence. "Okay. Okay. You're not in the mood."

"Don't hold your breath." Carlen's back was still turned.

Dalroy got to her feet, grabbed the bottle and sat heavily on the corner of the bed. The liquor tasted good in the face of her instant sobriety but swallowing was painful.

"It's not that heavy a thing," Carlen said, trying to undo at least some of the damage. "I've got nothing against lesbians. I just don't happen to be one."

Dalroy took another swig and stood the bottle on her knee. "Shit, Carlen. You're in stir now. Where the hell you think you're going to get it from now on-huh?"

"I'm not looking for it."

"You're not-huh? Well, maybe not yet."

Carlen made no reply.

"You know there's no men over here, if that's what you want."

"It's not."

Dalroy paused. Her tone altered slightly. "I might as well tell you. If you don't find it, it might find you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you saw what happened tonight."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"A lot. A lot. Maybe you didn't notice but I sure did. Every bitch in that place tonight was sizing you up. That scene with Kiano was just a pre-lim."

"Oh. She wanted me, did she?"

"No. Kiano doesn't get anything. All she was doing was drawing everyone else's attention to you."

"Really? I thought you managed that quite effectively just by taking me in there."

"Oh, now you want to turn it all back on me!"

"No," Carlen replied softly, completely undercutting Dalroy's mounting hostility. "Besides, I thought you were going to look after me."

"Well, I could. Pretty decently, too..."

"Only you don't know if you can quite trust me."

"You don't give me half a chance."

"Likewise, partner."

Carlen could sense Dalroy's angry stare boring into her back.

"Honestly, Carlen. Sometimes I wonder if you give a shit about anything."

"So do I."

* * *

Things would be tricky from here on. Carlen knew she'd have to make a move. Some move. Soon.

Dalroy slept on the floor that night, pointedly leaving the bed for Carlen. Carlen didn't go near it until first light, then she lay down and closed her eyes but she didn't sleep.

It was her fifty-seventh night in the city.

PART TWO ~ THE CHAIN OF COMMAND

CHAPTER 9 \- SPIKED

The next morning Dalroy was the first one awake. Or so she thought. Carlen was on the bed when Dalroy left the hotel, but when she returned half an hour later, Carlen was gone.

"Shit!" she muttered and raced for the stairs.

To throw Dalroy off, Carlen turned east for one block before turning south. Her destination was a good thirty block trek from the north/east corner of town but Carlen looked forward to it. The alcohol she'd consumed the night before was still coursing through her veins and she almost hoped she'd have to fight someone along the way.

It was about ten o'clock by the time Carlen reached the south central entrance of the park. She'd rejected four entrances along the way, opting to go the extra distance to cool the trail behind her. She hid in a cellar stairway across the street and waited. For two hours she did nothing but watch. It had been very quiet. Unnaturally quiet. There had been no one.

Despite the noontime heat, the morning mists clung, almost dependently, to the park. Not the ideal day for sightseeing, but Carlen was no longer in any doubt about the condition of the south side of the park. It was burned, as were many of the high class apartment complexes that fronted onto it.

Carlen was somewhat crestfallen but she was drawn in anyway. Even dead trees were better than no trees at all and there was certainly the possibility of new growth underneath.

The mist enveloped her as she passed through the gates. It intimidated her, but it also sheltered her. No one standing more than six or eight feet away would have the least idea she was there at all.

She stuck to the pathway, using the sound of her footsteps for guidance, and eventually came to an open field. Here the fog was burning off rapidly and Carlen could finally see around her. She ran into the field, dropped to her knees and touched the ground. Grass. Green, green grass. She yanked up a fistful, pressing it into her face with a primal gasp. The lyric of an old song turned over in her head.

"And these are the gifts we accepted from Thee -

The grass, the trees, the sky and the sea -

Give me life on Earth or eternity!"

By Yellow Moon

It was a song about ecological responsibility, but then, ecological consciousness had gone a little out of fashion. More than a little, in fact.

Carlen moved on in search of saplings sprouting up among the larger stands further on, by now thoroughly engrossed in her nature hunt. This was the largest area of open ground she had walked in some time and it was something of a re-birth to her. She felt comfortably hidden by the mists. Neatly displaced in a world completely her own. A world like the Indians must have known. Before pioneers. A haven of solitude and almost unearthly quiet.

This should have told her something. It didn't. Unaccustomed as she was to it, it struck her as no more odd or unusual than the silence of Newcity generally. Coming into this city had been like walking out of a noisy factory into the evening street. The park she likened to that same street, at three o'clock in the morning. Quiet, mystical, almost undiscernibly pulsing, as though catching its breath before dawn broke the spell.

If she'd been a superstitious person, she might have got out then. She might have run as if her mortal soul depended on it. But she wasn't and she didn't. The luxury of this solitude after all the weeks of Dalroy was just too precious to skim over. Besides, who but Dalroy would have the remotest idea she was there? Who indeed.

There were saplings, and bushes. There would be insects and insects meant birds. And other animals. Real animals, besides the diseased urban pigeon. There was a real survivor.

Carlen was about to move on to look for nests when she froze at the hint of a sound. She rotated her head slowly to sense the direction.

A grinding sound. To the east. A... vehicle? Approaching. Combustion engine. A big one. A truck.

She sought cover and waited.

Definitely a truck. Moving closer. In fact, it seemed to be coming directly at her. Carlen glanced back and there was Dalroy, just coming into the clearing.

This was a little too coincidental. Over two hours and there had been no sign of that truck. Too quiet? Too quiet, alright. Curtain up. Spotlight on.

There was nothing to do but break and Carlen did, just as the truck loomed out of the mists. She cut a path for a gully a few yards ahead. The truck swerved into her wake, gears grinding. Carlen ran, hardly knowing whether to be scared or mad. Hand to hand was just fine, but you couldn't take on a truck with a switchblade and Carlen was clean out of grenade launchers.

Shit. She'd expected secrets. What she hadn't expected was two tons of truck to barrel out of the brush, apparently intent on rolling her flat. And there was no mistake about who they were after. They were right on her tail and gaining.

Carlen figured she'd have the advantage in the steep gully and thus be able to slip away into the thicker foliage on the next hill. No such luck. The truck was a tank and well adapted to the terrain. It crested the verge with a righteous bounce and thundered down. It see-sawed in the V of the gully and, as it roared up the hill after Carlen, three men leapt off the back and pursued her on foot.

They ran her to ground like a pack of dogs. Carlen hit the dirt sliding and, before she knew it, they'd thrown her on her back and snapped a pair of crude, iron shackles on her wrists. One man dropped down, straddling her. He caught the chain between the cuffs and twisted it. Carlen arched, grimacing in pain as he lowered his evil, grinning face over her.

"You're spiked, Newblood!"

They hoisted her onto the back of the truck, a slat sided flatbed with a narrow bench fixed along each side and a metal frame above. Welded to the frame was a sturdy pipe which ran down the center, six feet above the flatbed. This was a rig for hanging things, as they hung Carlen, by the chain of the shackles. She kicked and cursed as two of them indulged in a bit of grab-ass before taking their seats on the benches.

There was a second attachment on the pipe, and before they pulled away, Carlen craned around for a look. The girl had the biggest, bluest eyes Carlen had ever seen, and long red hair that set off an agonizingly pale complexion. Gentle blood. Blue, through and through.

"What's your name?"

"Wilma."

"Shit. Nobody's name is Wilma, anymore."

A faint smile crossed the girl's lips. "So they keep telling me."

The truck lurched into motion and Carlen managed to catch a quick, diminishing glimpse of Dalroy, standing in the clearing.

"You're a loon, Carlen!" she shouted angrily. "A fucking loon!"

Carlen thought for sure she was right. Not only had she managed to get herself into chains, but she was riding toward her destiny next to a dead woman.

The brief, uncomfortable journey took them deeper into the park and slightly westward before the truck passed through an ornate, iron gateway and pulled up on a wide promenade flanked on both sides by cages. Animal cages. The Zoo.

The men from the cab took Wilma, cowering and whimpering, in one direction while the two from the back took Carlen, kicking and shouting, in another. They wrestled her through a door at the end of one of the cage houses, to the indoor cages, where animals could be kept in comfort against bad weather or at night.

They hung Carlen from an iron hook in the wall and searched her. They took the bag, the scarf, her boots, socks, belt, and the knife, before lifting her off the hook and forcing her to her knees. One of them encircled her throat with the belt, exerting just enough pressure to insure her passivity. The second man crouched before her, a syringe in hand.

Carlen couldn't speak and didn't dare move as he yanked up her sleeve and stuck the vein. In helpless fury she watched the syringe drink its fill of her blood.

Once free of the garrote, Carlen created a royal controversy as her captors picked her up and carried her to the end cage. Neither shy nor inexperienced, they dispatched her through the gate without breaking breath and climbed in right after her. One copped another feel while the other stripped her of the vest and shackles, before they pushed her down and departed, locking her in. They had already quit the building by the time Carlen recovered and came to the bars with a mouthful of abuses. The metal door slammed shut on her words.

Reeling back in fury, Carlen was ready to lash out - at something, or someone. But she was alone in the cage, and bare hands and feet were a poor match against bone crushing steel and cement. Returning to the gate, she gripped the bars, directing her attention away, down into the main body of the building.

It was an immense house, probably for the big cats. Yes, it had the feel of cats. There were certainly no cats now. In fact, there was no one. The emptiness of the enormous house overwhelmed Carlen who was already wrestling with emotions too poignant to be welcome. What the hell was this? A prison within a prison? That was a good one. Inmates imprisoning inmates. What a terrific world it was.

Carlen bent to look at the lock. The mechanism was not entirely unpickable, but what little she'd collected so far had already been taken from her - and that did not include a set of lock picks.

A rumbling of pulleys and cables sounded behind her as a heavy metal door in the back wall of her cell began to rise. When it was nearly fully open, Carlen ventured through to check out the other side.

The outside gate was secured as effectively as the inner one. As Carlen examined the lock, the metal door began to lower. Glancing over, she figured there was time enough to get across and squeeze back inside. She didn't bother. She preferred to be outside and thought, most likely, she was expected to stay there anyway.

Carlen moved around, taking stock of the new situation. There was a can in one corner of the cell, presumably provided for long detainments. The only other decor was a medium sized log wedged into the bars above, catty-corner, between the front of Carlen's cage and the side of the adjoining cage.

Beautiful cages, constructed of ornate wrought iron that curved in over the tops of the cells. The concrete floors were elevated three feet above the ground permitting spectators a clear view into the enclosures. Separating the cages from the main promenade were low dividing walls topped by brass railings which served to keep spectators at a safe distance, while allowing access in between for zookeepers to function in their daily routines with the animals.

Now a little worse for wear, these walls had once glittered with tile work that depicted small scenes, a different scene before each cage. Parts of the promenade were also tiled, reflecting the black, green and yellow color scheme of the entire zoo. Once a source of obvious pride to the city, the zoo now looked shabby and decayed. Broken tiles and chipping paint off the black bars and green doors added to the overall look of neglect.

Yet, there was life here, and activity. Despite the lack of attention to finer detail, the place was definitely in use and being maintained within the demands of that use.

Looking down the cleanly swept promenade, Carlen could see into most of the cages on both sides. Fourteen in all. She was surprised to see the majority of them contained occupants. All of them women. Most of them were nude, or draped in rags, and practically all were inert in their cells.

Carlen studied the situation for a long time, particularly the case in the cell beside her own. The woman was bare naked, filthy, and she had the visage of a ghost.

Carlen discarded any idea of trying to communicate with the creature. She backed all the way to the far wall of her cell and slid slowly down to the floor. There she crouched until dusk, her mind infected with speculation.

* * *

Not long after sun down there was an uproar inside the house behind Carlen's cage. She listened but didn't look or move until she heard the gate of the inner cell clash back and the green adjoining door begin to rise.

Carlen had not quite gained her feet when two of the men shoved a woman through the hatchway into her cell. She hit the cement with a thud. The men withdrew, the green door cutting them down to no more than feet before cutting them out of sight altogether.

The woman, more of a girl, actually, was weeping. She glanced up with terror that melted into relief at the sight of Carlen. "It's you!"

"Wilma," Carlen acknowledged coolly.

Wilma struggled to her feet. Carlen didn't move to help her. The compound lights flickered on.

"Where have you been?" Carlen asked.

"I don't know... They... they..."

"They what?"

Wilma began weeping again. Carlen groaned internally.

"You're alright, then?" Carlen asked, but Wilma seemed not to hear.

"Where have you been?" she asked.

"I've been here," Carlen told her. "Right here."

"Oh..." Wilma breathed, barely daring her gaze to take in the new environment. "What's this all about?"

"I don't know," Carlen admitted and was about to continue along some pragmatic tack when Wilma lurched a step toward her.

"Why have they brought us here? Who are these people?"

"I don't know anything about it," Carlen reiterated tightly.

Wilma stared at her in accusing disbelief for a second then began wandering the perimeters of the cage. She stopped at the gate and stared down the promenade, her face crazy pale by the compound lights.

"These cages... These people... I... can't handle this!"

"You're going to have to," Carlen said flatly.

Wilma glanced around, new terror aglow in her eyes.

"Do you think...?"

"Think what?"

"...it's the NCL?"

"For fuck sake, Wilma, get a grip!"

When Carlen attempted to turn away, Wilma broke from the gate in a desperate lunge at her. Carlen wheeled, landing her a backhand that sent her crashing into the bars.

"Don't grab me, girl!"

Wilma sobbed and Carlen, still coursing with unresolved rage, made a sudden rush at her. Wilma squealed as Carlen gripped her shirt and danced her across the cage, dumping her roughly on her behind in the corner by the next cell.

"You shut it down, Newblood, or I'll knock you out myself before morning!"

Wilma cringed into the bars.

Satisfied she was stilled, Carlen resumed her previous position against the wall and crouched there, grimly watching the girl.

By midnight most of Carlen's anger had subsided, giving way to grudging sympathy. The girl cried. She got angry. It was the same thing.

"Wilma," she called softly, and called again when the girl failed to respond. "Wilma."

Finally Wilma raised her head.

"Come on over here," Carlen invited.

Wilma remained motionless.

"Well, move girl!" Carlen extended an arm out. "Come on..."

Wilma slunk across the floor and curled up under Carlen's protective arm. They sat like that for a long time until Wilma finally spoke.

"What's going to happen to us?" she asked in a ghostly whisper.

"I don't know, girl," Carlen replied. "I'm not even sure I want to."

Wilma sighed softly.

"How long have you been in this madhouse city, anyway?" Carlen asked.

"Four days."

"Shit."

CHAPTER 10 \- THE KEEPER OF THE KEYS

The women were asleep next morning when the men came. Their dialogue roused Carlen who half opened one eye to see, but did not move, otherwise. Three of them, beyond the spectator barrier. Two much the same as the roughnecks who had spiked her, but the third was quite different.

He was not a tall man, perhaps five eight, with a compact frame and the lean look of a hungry desert dog. His hair was a peculiar grayish-brown, very straight, well cut, parted down the middle.

He wore a waisted, navy blue, woolen tunic, that looked like a throwback to the Civil War. Only it appeared new. Impeccably new. Under the coat he wore a collarless, cotton-weave shirt. His flannel trousers were the same color as his hair. The shirt and pants were clean and certainly not out of any grab bag.

On his feet were a pair of polished boots. Around his hips, a wide leather belt, black, like the boots. Hanging from the belt was an enormous ring of keys. This in itself was not unusual since the others also carried keys. The difference was this man appeared to have a key to every lock in the compound. Apparently a figure of some authority.

His face was a study in perfect cruelty, and he spoke in a voice as dry as a desert wind.

"Why are there two in here?"

"I don't know," one of the others answered. "They were brought in on the same truck and lodged together sometime last night."

"Separate them. Get her out."

"Which one?"

"The redhead."

The two subordinates rounded the dividing barrier, rousing Wilma by the clash of keys against the bars.

"What's happening?" she murmured, not even fully awake as the men entered, seized her and hauled her out, locking the gate behind them. As they marched her off, Carlen figured it was the last she'd see of Wilma.

The lean man, who had stayed behind, stepped closer to the cage, studying Carlen through the bars. Despite the heat of the day and the woolen jacket he wore, there was not a hint of perspiration on him. His eyes were the same rare color as his hair and, when their gazes met, Carlen was aware of sudden darkening.

Her eyes followed as he walked down the promenade and she thought he moved with the gait of an undertaker.

* * *

Nothing more occurred until late morning when there was a stirring in the cages down from Carlen. Pressing her face to the bars, she could see a man working his way along the passage between the cages and the dividing wall. He made a stop at each gate, shouting at the occupants who inched forward as he approached, lapsed back when he shouted, then lurched forward again, dropping to their knees when he moved on. By the time he reached the third cell down from Carlen's, she'd caught on. It was feeding time.

Once he'd served the woman in the neighboring cage, he stopped at Carlen's gate and looked her over through the bars.

"New arrival-huh?"

"I've been here since yesterday and I want something to eat."

"You use the can?" he asked.

"What?"

"Did you use the can?"

Carlen suddenly understood. "Well, it's been twenty-four hours. What do you think?"

"Never mind the backchat, just bring it over."

Carlen went and got the waste can.

"Set it down near the hatch and step back."

Carlen set the can down.

"Back off, Change," the attendant insisted, and Carlen stepped back.

"Right back to the wall."

Carlen backed up to the wall.

He unlocked a small hatch in the gate, retrieved the can and slid an enamel bowl and cup through the opening in its stead.

"Alright," he said, re-locking the hatch. "A dirty can for a full bowl. An empty bowl for a clean can. And you back up every time. That's our little routine. Got it?"

Carlen came forward. The cup contained water. She picked up the bowl. Flom and litkin.

"What the hell's this!"

"Breakfast, lunch, dinner, take your pick," the fellow said and moved off.

Carlen watched him go, her hand instinctively reaching into the bowl.

* * *

Next morning there was more than a slight stir in the compound when two men came onto the promenade lugging a large hose. Shrieks and shouts pierced the air as the men turned on the power, cutting jets of water through the bars of the cells.

They almost passed Carlen over. The fresh look of her, still in her clothes, still on her feet. It all seemed to add up to someone else's decision. Carlen stood back, watching with suspicion as they debated the point in shouts over the roar of the water dashing against the spectator wall below the gate of the cell.

In the end they decided that dousing this newcomer would be worth any minor trouble it may cause. They turned the jet full on her, knocking her to the back wall where she hit the ground with a thump. The men were laughing.

Stunned and half winded, Carlen crawled along the back wall, to the corner where the two cement walls met and wedged in, trying to protect her face. The water thundered against her back and the men laughed on.

Expending the last of her breath, Carlen exercised the only defense open to her and cut loose at the top of her voice. "Fucking cock suckers! This how you depraved frags get your hits? You pair of rat dicks! You rat dick sons-of-jackal-bitches!"

Although the eloquence of her speech was lost in the roar of water, the outburst earned her an extra minute of battering.

When the hosing was done, the entire compound lay in a wet pool which turned to a steam bath by the time the sun hit midday.

* * *

Despite the heat, Carlen's clothes took two days to dry out properly - a minor inconvenience compared to the crawling discomfort of her skin which had been scorched by pelting jets. She rankled with an itch of cataclysmic proportion, rubbing angrily at the irritation - until she noticed the woman in the next cell who had succumbed to unbridled scratching and torn her skin to bloody shreds.

When it came to the can, Carlen was further irked by the blatant lack of anything to wipe with. She finally decided to remove her underpants, which only clung on, keeping her wet, and use them for the purpose - at least for as long as possible.

Except for the dormant women, there was no one to see her strip out of her underwear and get back into her trousers, or to see her finally make full use of the pot in her cell.

Simple as it had been, this small ritual made Carlen feel better. Her sense of proportion was slightly restored and she felt pretty sure something would develop soon.

* * *

Two more days passed. Nothing happened. There was nothing but the cage, the moaning women, the heat, the can and bowl routine, and the hosers. The God damned hosers. Carlen sat against the wall, the knuckles of her fist pressed tightly against her teeth.

* * *

Carlen was leaning on the gate of her cell when Dalroy came down the promenade just before dark on the eighth day.

"Hey, Spiker!"

Dalroy pulled up short and reluctantly moved to the railing, her darting eyes taking in everything but Carlen.

"What's going on here?" Carlen asked in a murmur.

"You're the smart one, Carlen. You figure it out."

"It was at the back of your mind all the time. Why'd you wait so long to betray me?"

"I had to measure your value."

"As if guttergarbage like you would know the first thing about it."

Dalroy's head came around with a snap.

"Value to whom?" Carlen pressed.

Dalroy's veil of indignation evaporated. She looked away.

"Why'd you do it, Dalroy?"

"You know what happened, Carlen."

"Yeah. I do."

"I just can't trust you anymore," Dalroy said, her hand sliding from the railing as she turned to go.

"Bloody right there," Carlen said softly as Dalroy walked away.

* * *

The nights were the worst. The sun went down. The lights came on. A chill came into the air and the mist rolled in in force, slithering down the promenade like a crawling dog, sniffing before it for signs of blood. It lapped against the spectator walls and crept around to lick at the walls below the gates of the cages.

Carlen watched in black dread, praying to any God she could think of to keep it from breaching the ledge of the cell and advancing in. She watched the fog as she would watch a wild, stalking animal and, as she watched, so the fog seemed to watch her - all of them. It seemed to look in on every inmate as it traveled up the promenade.

Carlen realized this element of oblique menace had been equally conspicuous that day in the park. The white smokes that cloaked the blackened stumps had been saturated with a teasing premonition of foreboding. She had ignored it, and now she felt as though the mist laughed at her in her germinating knowledge of just how evil a place this was.

* * *

By the afternoon of the ninth day Carlen's mind was engaged in a study of the log wedged across the corner of her cage. A good strong log, put up there for one big cat.

Without the remains of a second tree stump to aid its ascent from the cage floor, the big cat would be hard pressed to get up there now - whereas Carlen, built more like a monkey than a cat, did not find the climb too arduous. The log was more comfortable than the concrete floor and the added elevation afforded a better view of the compound.

Carlen took to spending her nights as well as most of her days on the log perch. Up there the night mists did not reach her and neither did the night bugs. Those that did find her she casually flicked off, listening with grim satisfaction to the sound they made hitting the concrete below. She slept little.

Day or night. It made no difference. Sleeps were only tiny escapes from the worry and tedium. Night or day. The enemy was the same. Time hung. Minutes hung, like the dying leaves of an autumn tree on a windless day.

Carlen was getting more than a slight impression she was being held on permanent ignore. Other women had been moved from cages around her. Trucks came in. More women arrived. Women of every conceivable type - except Black, of course. No Black women ever went to prison anymore. Many were Newblood, like herself, but none of them ended up in any of the cages along the promenade. By now she'd figured out that, for whatever reason, she was considered in a different light to those around her but, of course, she didn't know why.

She sat atop her perch and watched it all with morbid vigilance, silently sweating. She stroked idly at a few pieces of blonde hair caught in a splinter of the log, undoubtedly left there by the great cat who once inhabited the cage. Where was that wondrous creature now? Another zoo? Dead? Those pieces of hair were precious to Carlen and she never moved them.

Although she exerted little physical energy, beyond dropping to the floor to feed or use the can, Carlen's mind was in a constant uproar. Unrelated words and phrases whipped through her mind like note pages blown off a pin board. Conversations with Dalroy, conversations overheard at the Checkerboard, the encounter with the ragman, everything she'd been able to observe.

Were these women the "sterling horses" the old ragman had alluded to? Was that some sick way of describing what was going on here? Carlen knew it would never be more than a jig-saw, viewed through the bars of this cage. She chafed with fury and mounting desperation. She was losing her edge and she knew it.

* * *

On the nights when the mist did not come Carlen was more relaxed. The lighting in the compound was unhampered and she was able to catch a flash of reality, embrace her privacy and clear her senses. It was quiet and calm and she was the top observer. The single guardian of the night.

Thus, it came as a surprise one night to pick up a sound on this still clear air. A sound, breaking up the privacy of the night. Rhythmic. Like the tick of a clock. Like a heartbeat. Like - footsteps. It was well after midnight but there were footsteps, somewhere on the compound. The footsteps of that man. The one Carlen thought of as the Keeper of the Keys. Walking? No. Pacing. He was awake, he was out and he was pacing. In the middle of the bloody night.

Carlen's serenity was shot.

* * *

She was on the floor of the cage a couple of days later, chewing the last precious morsel of her daily food allotment when she looked up and noticed the cadaverous features of the Keeper, staring in at her from the spectator railing. She ceased all movement and stared back. There seemed to be a shadow of doubt in those peculiar eyes. A question. He recognized her, alright, but it was as though he was surprised to see her there.

The encounter sparked the memory of an old conversation she'd had with Dalroy.

"The Men's Barracks."

"What a circus!"

"What a zoo!"

And the laughter had died.

As he moved off down the promenade, Carlen was seized by an urge to call out to him and demand an answer to all this. She had no way of knowing what this man would come to mean to her, but instinct warned her to keep silent. Dalroy may have been responsible for her detainment, but this man seemed to run the show. Carlen already knew he didn't sleep nights.

* * *

Carlen barked her shin on the bars scaling down to the floor in time to catch Dalroy's passage down the promenade on the afternoon of the twelfth day. She was afraid she'd miss her chance but, as luck would have it, her timing was perfect and so were the logistics. Dalroy passed the cage, tight on the railing, so awash in other thoughts it appeared she'd forgotten all about Carlen.

"Hey, Spiker!" Carlen called out.

Dalroy turned and, just as she did, Carlen heaved the contents of her cell can through the bars, dressing Dalroy in a brand new aura.

Dalroy went rigid with rage. "You bitch!" she shrieked, arousing the interest of every occupant of every cage. "Christ, Carlen! How DARE you!"

Carlen staggered against the wall, howling with laughter. "Sorry! Had to! Was worth it!" she gasped, half looking to see if Dalroy recognized her own words coming back at her.

Dalroy was so stunned it was hard to tell what she knew or thought. Some of the women were hooting and beating the bars of their cages. Not too far gone to appreciate the situation, Carlen thought grimly.

"I swear, you'll pay for this!" Dalroy shouted and stamped off.

"Shit becomes you!" Carlen called after her, arousing a fresh wave of choral support from her fellow inmates.

It was a full hour before Dalroy came back, but Carlen was waiting, so excited she could hardly keep from laughing out loud.

Dalroy's first mistake was entering by the green, sliding door in the back of the cell. Her second mistake was coming through this entrance ahead of the two men who accompanied her. Her third mistake was entering the cell unarmed. Carlen was on top of her before she was even through the hatchway, nearly winding her as she threw her to the cement, punching.

The men came in hard on Dalroy's heels and broke into the fray to restrain Carlen. There was still a row going on as Dalroy gained her feet. She may have had an hour to clean up and cool off, but her anger was now rekindled into black malice.

"String her up to that log," she ordered through clenched teeth.

The men deftly wrapped Carlen's wrists with rope, cast the remaining length over the log and wrenched her up on her toes.

"Tie her feet together," Dalroy ordered and more rope was wrapped around Carlen's ankles. "Now leave us."

The men left and silence descended over the compound. Carlen hung facing the front corner of the cage, Dalroy behind her.

"Now, Newblood, you're going to understand, once and for all, just who's on top!" Dalroy proclaimed and landed her first blow.

Carlen couldn't see the implement of her punishment, but she figured it was a rubber hose. Standard jailhouse equipment.

And Dalroy laid right in, venting every shred of her hostility. Carlen responded with shouts of provocation, and just when she thought Dalroy had the best of her, the beating ended. Carlen throbbed from top to bottom.

Dalroy circled around to face her, eyes glittering in dark victory. "You throw any more shit at me and I'll see you eat it."

Carlen managed a cold smile. "Oh. You're trying to scare me."

Dalroy mirrored the smile. "Just give it time. And don't worry. You'll get the answers to all your questions," she promised and turned to leave.

"A bit of cold, raw rat meat should slow down the swelling in that eye!" Carlen called out and Dalroy's step faltered. "I'm not afraid of you, Dalroy," she said more softly.

"Hardchange, Carlen," Dalroy replied and departed.

The door slid shut.

* * *

Carlen was still bound to the log when she heard the Keeper's measured step on the promenade at dusk. She experienced a frantic impulse to run and hide which, of course, was impossible. She almost hoped he wouldn't see her. Vain hope. He spotted her immediately and stopped, displeasure evident in his eyes.

He rounded the end of the dividing wall and approached the gate of her cell. He had the key, alright, and he didn't need any time to figure out which one it was. He had the gate open with swift proficiency and, just as smoothly, he hopped the ledge and entered the cell.

He released her ankles, then her arms, easing them down with unexpected consideration. Carlen repressed the urge to shout against the pain that stabbed into her shoulders, despite the Keeper's care.

She rubbed feebly at her wrists with numb, bloodless hands, fighting mightily to stay on her feet. The Keeper collected up the ropes, winding them into concise coils with an unconscious grace.

When Carlen glanced up, his eyes pinned her. They were utterly compelling, as though the power of his gaze alone could suspend her there for as long as necessary. She realized his anger was not entirely directed at her, but she also understood he knew she was partly responsible for what had occurred.

She momentarily forgot the ache in her shoulders, the fiery prickling in her arms. She didn't even bother to ask herself whether or not the man was armed, or if it would be worth trying to break for the open gate. The compound lights flickered on. He spoke.

"Good health is a rare advantage these days. What you need to recognize is, most conditions can be changed."

There was that word again. Still another context.

When he had gone, Carlen dropped to the floor, where she spent the night, bugs and all.

* * *

Two nights later, Carlen was wakened by voices in the house behind the door of her cell. Angry voices. Dalroy and that man. With sudden liquid energy she shinned down to the floor, the hurt and discomfort of the past two days forgotten in a burst of excitement. She crept up to the green door and crouched down to listen.

"What the hell are you doing!" Dalroy shouted.

"...you think?"

"...not ready!"

"She's more... ready, Dalroy."

"No!" Dalroy protested. "...don't understand!"

"...understand this has gone on long enough."

"Look, I'll decide... time-"

The Keeper cut her off, his voice rising slightly. "You do NOT set policy..., Dalroy. ...you don't make up the rules... you go along. ...want my interference? Fine. You spiked it. ...sent it. Or is... personal issue?"

"No!" Dalroy said quickly. "...under-stand. What... think you have here?"

"...not a question... what I think. Frankly, Dalroy,...not the one who's worried."

"You're a bastard, Nolty!"

No love lost there, Carlen thought.

"...got ...hours," the Keeper said. "Fix it."

The Keeper walked a short distance and came out the door at Carlen's end of the block. There was a sharp clang on the bars inside followed by Dalroy's angry steps and the slam of the door at the other end of the block.

CHAPTER 11 \- PRESENTATION

On the morning of the fifteenth day Nolty came for her. As before, he came in alone. He was the only one who did. Carlen didn't struggle as he manacled her wrists behind her and buckled a crude leather collar around her neck.

She'd come immediately when he entered and signaled her down from the log, and now quietly followed him through the green door to the inner cage, led by the chain he'd latched to her collar.

Carlen was in no mood for an argument and, despite the unwelcome sight of Dalroy, she placidly obeyed Nolty's direction to sit down in the open gateway with her legs over the drop. He lifted her down from the ledge himself and Carlen realized that, for his slight build, the man certainly had some torque.

Dalroy was waiting in the passageway. Nolty held the chain out to her but she begged off. The tension was strung like a wire between them.

"No. You take her," Dalroy said.

"You want me to take her?"

"Yes. And take her as she is."

Nolty slipped something from his belt.

"I'll take her," he said coldly, "but you see to it you keep close by."

Dalroy gave a grunt and stamped off. Nolty turned to Carlen and the last thing she saw before he covered her world in darkness were the slate gray shadows in his brooding eyes.

He led her outside and inside again, through mysterious mazes, to someplace. Carlen couldn't tell where. It was a long journey to someone wearing a blindfold.

At last he paused, but only that, as if... waiting for something? Or preparing for something? Carlen could sense his tension. If he was tense, how was she supposed to feel?

All at once, he hooked his fingers into Carlen's collar and pushed her forward another ten steps or so before releasing her again. She felt herself adrift in empty space, half realizing by the tightening of the chain behind her that Nolty had already stopped. Her step faltered but Nolty nudged her with his fingertips to urge her on a couple of steps more.

"Wait there," he said, so she stopped.

Standing there, alone in her darkness, Carlen felt suspended in a tremendous void. Time began to stretch away and, eventually, all that was real were the manacles, the blindfold and the weight of the chain that arced between the collar on her neck and the hand of the Keeper.

Then the silence hit her. The most profound silence she'd ever experienced. This silence, coupled with her sudden and complete blindness, banished Carlen to a universe black and oozing with suspense and a dread of unnatural perils. Her mind became a rampage of speculation and doubt, and it was a number of minutes before she even became aware of the third person in the room.

Her mind sighed to a standstill, questioning why it had not occurred to her much sooner. For some reason she had seized the misconception that she'd been brought here for a private session with Dalroy. Apparently not so. Carlen was fairly sure this other person had circumnavigated her twice already, although she had not actually heard a thing. That would be an impossibility for Dalroy. Besides, the Keeper had seemed in no mood to do Dalroy any favors. This had to be something else.

Finally, a voice attached itself to the entity.

"This one clothed. And damp. Quite a variety we have this morning."

A man's voice. Quiet, contained. Almost confidential. A stranger.

Then the hands went to work on her. Face, mouth, teeth, tongue, gums. Hair, neck, shoulders. The touch was firm, authoritative, and Carlen hardly had time to adjust to it before the hands were abruptly planted on her breasts. She jumped back.

"One or two extras. What about the eyes?"

"Two. Intact. Gray... green. They change." Nolty's voice was subdued.

"Your acquisition?"

"Dalroy's."

"I see."

Nothing was hurried here, Carlen thought.

"How long has it been on the compound?"

"About two weeks."

"How long?"

"Fourteen days."

There was a short pause, then Carlen was unexpectedly seized by the collar and pulled forward. The stranger's voice murmured right into her ear.

"How long have you been in Newcity?"

"Two months."

There was a slight movement which Carlen sensed rather than felt, then the voice came back.

"When did you meet Dalroy?"

Carlen was right on the verge of lying, from nothing more than blind habit, but she quickly threw the idea away.

"The first night."

A moment later the fingers slipped from the collar.

There was another long stretch of stillness, then Nolty's end of the chain slacked off. A hand came up from behind and took a generous hold of the collar. A second pair of hands was opening the front of her shirt.

Carlen started to protest but the hand in the collar tightened. By the time she'd found a way to breathe under the constriction, the shirt was already off her shoulders and pushed down to the manacles on her wrists. Her trousers were next, and the hands worked with such dexterity that Carlen had time only to think of kicking before the pants were at her ankles, revealing almost every inch of her five foot, five inch frame.

There was another pause during which Carlen did nothing, thought nothing. Nolty, who had an unbearably tight grip on the collar, was by now exerting a subtle but definite upward pressure on the chain adjoining the manacles. It was apparent he wanted her still. Perfectly still.

The hands touched her again, this time cupping her full, pendent breasts before traveling downward over a slender rib cage and waist to slightly flared hips. Her stomach was flat, tapering down to a modest patch of brown pubic hair that matched the hair on her head.

The pale translucent skin of her body was unmarked, but for the bruises inflicted by Dalroy's beating, and the gash of a surgical scar drawn four inches across her abdomen at the hair line. Not a new scar. This incision was more than a year old. A finger traced the line of this scar as though to indicate that it had been noticed.

The hands then continued on down over strong, well formed legs with a sparse coating of fine fair hair that had never been shaved.

Carlen well knew the difference between touching and feeling and it seemed this man was intent on feeling every inch of her. The sudden vision of this unseen stranger handling her like a piece of livestock incited her. Automatically, she locked her thighs together as the hands retraced their way up her legs. The Keeper's knuckles pressed into the back of Carlen's neck, a grip so tight it forced tears to her eyes. His voice breathed into her ear.

"Let it go, Carlen."

The command was accompanied by a sharp tug on the manacles. A small cry escaped her as pain shot into her shoulders. She was hardly aware her knees had buckled when with horrible suddenness, a hand shot into her groin, probed for a moment, then withdrew.

Rigid with rage, Carlen was ready to start kicking when Nolty swung her around and, hooking an arm under her hips, forced her into a deep bow. A foot came down on the trousers strung between her ankles, pinning her feet to the floor. It was impossible for Carlen to do anything from this position and she thought it was probably just as well.

The hand came again, this time seeking the other passage. Carlen clamped down. She knew she couldn't beat them, and she knew her resistance would not be welcome, but there were times when it was best to fight and to be seen to do it. Protest was well in order, for the moment.

And, for a while, she thought she was winning, but Nolty jerked her hips higher as he forced her head closer to the floor. Carlen's control was slipping, and the more she struggled, the more persistent the hand became.

At last he gained penetration and after that no amount of bucking would expel him. With the downward force of Nolty's exertion, the pressure of the collar on her throat eased and, as the invading hand stabbed into her, Carlen exploded in a tirade of righteous blasphemies.

He was unhurried with his withdrawal this time, and when Carlen at last felt herself slowly, agonizingly released from his grasp, she was utterly stormed out.

Nolty brought her upright and turned her around. His hand had slipped from the collar and now held her lightly by the nape of the neck.

"Quite a speech," the stranger remarked.

"She's something of a rogue," Nolty replied.

"Is that what all this is about?"

The tracing stroke along the line of a bruise on Carlen's thigh was subtle enough to tickle, but the pressure of Nolty's hand on Carlen's neck prevented her from moving.

"There was - a conflict," Nolty explained.

"In Cage Seven," the stranger assumed.

"That's right."

"Get Dalroy in here."

Carlen jumped as the end of the chain clashed to the floor. Nolty's step as he left the room was more clipped than usual.

During his absence the stranger did not touch or address Carlen. Only a small splashing of water disturbed the engulfing silence. In a way, Carlen found the silence less disquieting than before. She appeared to have been forgotten or unneeded for the moment.

By now it was apparent that Dalroy had, indeed, thrown her in deep. The irritation in her groin was probably only a taste of things to come and, even though Dalroy's now appeared to be the head on the chopping block, Carlen realized her own troubles were just beginning.

CHAPTER 12 \- SOUR REVENGE

Carlen perked to the staccato click of Dalroy's step coming in. Nolty was with her but, when she stopped somewhere nearby, he turned and started out again.

"Wait, Nolty," the stranger commanded and the footsteps ceased. There was a leaden pause. "Your acquisition?"

"Yes," Dalroy replied.

"I'm impressed."

Carlen heard a slight jangle and recognized it as one of the attachments on Dalroy's belt. She could just picture her standing there, that one heel rocking out in front of her. Cocky and sure of herself.

"And we've had it on the compound for two weeks."

"Well - yes."

Carlen heard the heel draw back. Dalroy was already on the defensive and the realization gave Carlen an unexpected thrill.

"This is what has blocked up Cage Seven for two whole weeks."

Dalroy hesitated. Carlen had to admit the man had a way of making statements that were actually questions which demanded responses.

"She, uh..." Dalroy faltered. The boots clicked as she shifted her weight.

"Tell me why," the stranger pressed in a tone that sent shivers down Carlen's spine.

There was a tiny pause, as if Dalroy was deciding to suck it up and brazen it out. "This one's given us some trouble. Incites the others. Took some time settling in."

"I noticed the mouth," the stranger commented dryly. "It was brought here in a wet uniform."

"An oversight." A fast answer. Too fast.

"It's a day of oversights." The voice moved to another location further away. "What we have here is an unusual and healthy subject which, for some reason, has been kept a secret." The voice traveled again, closer. "Next, it is presented, fully clothed, and I must assume the purpose of this was to conceal something further."

Quite gently, the stranger took Carlen by the shoulders and turned her back to Dalroy. "What's the excuse for this?"

"I told you. She made trouble."

"What trouble?"

"She threw waste out of her cage." Dalroy almost gagged on the words. Carlen nearly laughed.

The hands turned Carlen back around. "Next time, you clean up the shit and leave the discipline to me."

Carlen shivered again. The hands slid away.

"What information do you have on it?"

"She was a courier before detention. International status."

"Well, a courier," he replied with unveiled sarcasm. "Of what?"

"Discs, books, music. All underground stuff."

Carlen could tell Dalroy was out to damage her if she could, but her response to the next question was even more disturbing.

"Did you find out the crime?"

"Ah..."

"Then you did get a story."

"Yes sir."

"But you're not sure you believe it."

"She plays pretty close to the chest."

"Is it a Veteran?"

"I don't think so. She doesn't seem to know much about the trouble. She says she spent some time in England."

"I see."

There was a pause. Dalroy walked right into it. "I'm sure you can use her."

"That will depend on a number of things. But you obviously thought you might."

"I... don't understand."

The hand caressed Carlen's shoulder and the stranger's voice became mellow and indulgent. "Yes. It's very nice. Where did you find it?"

"At the barracks."

"When was that?"

"Three weeks ago."

She lied! Carlen couldn't believe it.

The stranger's hand dropped away. "Her first night in the city."

"Yes. It was," Dalroy confirmed.

"Fine head of hair."

"I thought it would please you."

"It pleases me," he said, combing his fingers into Carlen's hair. "But this is certainly no salon coiffure," he observed. "I don't think she paid someone to do this to her hair. Do you?"

Dalroy chuckled tentatively. "No."

"No. This looks like an NCL job. Although, it's not a new cut, is it?"

He'd popped it to her and Dalroy began to dance.

"Well... it grows fast. She told me that herself."

"She tells me it's had a whole two months growth," he rejoined, clipping off the last three words.

"Oh - she lied."

"To what purpose? Nothing for a Newblood to hide in that."

"Well, she's tricky-"

The stranger's hand dropped away and his tone altered. "No. You're the tricky one. You thought you'd slip this one by. Had some idea you'd like to keep it for yourself."

"Never-"

"The truth is, your plan fell through. What happened? Did she reject you?"

"No. There was nothing like that." Another lie.

There was a terrible pause then the stranger's voice dropped to hardly more than a vibration. "You forget, Dalroy. I know everything there is to know about you and the workings of your mean little mind. I knew it was only a matter of time before you'd become saturated in your own self-importance and forget your responsibility, your allegiance and, ultimately, your orientation."

Dalroy started to protest but the stranger overrode her.

"You forget who you're dealing with. I think you're overdue for a little attitude realignment. That is, if you expect to maintain your position..."

Dalroy's response was impossible to make out.

"Nolty?"

The dialogue was apparently over. Carlen heard Dalroy's utility belt drop to the floor and two sets of footsteps passed her. There was the clash of chains against cement behind her and a small cry from Dalroy.

Carlen was crawling with curiosity, having almost forgotten her own fears. She had not long to wait in doubt before a low, unmelodious whistle gasped in the silence, culminating in a report that turned Carlen's blood to ice. Dalroy's shriek rebounded piercingly off the walls.

The combination was unmistakable. Dalroy was taking the beating of her life. It sounded like he was using a bullwhip and, judging by her screams, she was certainly feeling it.

As Carlen stood there listening, she realized a deepening sense of satisfaction as she anticipated each successive blow. Bitterly mingled with this savage elation was a burning fear in the pit of her own stomach. Finally she knew. This had to be the Whipmaster.

CHAPTER 13 \- INDUCTION

Carlen counted fifteen strokes, the last five delivered more slowly. There was a pause.

"Get her out before I lose my temper," the Whipmaster said and Carlen shuddered.

The chains rang again. Someone swept Dalroy's belt from the floor. Two sets of footsteps departed. Dalroy was staggering.

Shortly after, a bell sounded and a new and different step entered.

"Take this away," the Whipmaster ordered. "Clean it up. Mark it. Condition One. Then I want another look at it."

An instant later a pair of hands yanked Carlen's trousers up and fastened the top button, presumably so she could walk. The shirt was left hanging from her wrists. The lead chain was retrieved from the floor, her arm taken and she was led away.

In another room, she was handed over to two other people, women, Carlen gathered, by their touch. She heard the door close behind her as the women directed her forward a few feet and stopped. Their footfalls were silent, like her own, and Carlen assumed they were barefoot, as she was. The other footsteps, presumably those of a man, crossed the room, stopping somewhere off to Carlen's right.

Carlen's trousers were unfastened and, this time, taken off completely. The cruel, iron shackles were removed, followed by Carlen's shirt. They left the collar on, and the chain attached to it, but the blindfold was taken away and, when it was, Carlen felt so much more exposed, now being able to see the strangers who saw her, naked, embarrassed and utterly vulnerable.

The room was round, concrete wall and floor, with only one small, barred window. The door was solid, impenetrable, and securely locked.

On the floor in front of Carlen was a large metal tub. Large - that is to say, larger than a bucket and not as large as a bathtub. Beside the tub were four buckets of steaming hot water and two more she took to be cold. Beyond that was a slatted wooden bench on which stood a plastic bottle and a small enamel bowl.

The women flanked her. Two, as Carlen had guessed, but she was surprised to see they were naked, and they wore collars, although there were no chains on them.

And there was the man, leaning against the wall to Carlen's right, arms crossed, watching. He was moderately tall, five-ten, Carlen estimated. Moderately good looking. Fair haired. Hazel eyed. Very Anglo-Saxon. Very ordinary. Carlen wondered if this ordinariness was the very thing she found most offensive in his open observation of her.

One of the women took her clothes and dropped them in a heap on the floor near the window. She sprinkled them with some kind of spirit, struck a match and set them alight. They all stood and observed the ritual in silence as the shirt and pants became ash. All but the man, who watched Carlen as she watched her last shelter go up in smoke.

When the fire died out, the woman returned and poured hot water into the tub.

"Do you need to relieve yourself?" one of them asked, indicating a can near the wall.

Carlen was a little taken aback but she thought a pee might be alright. It had been a stressful morning. Then she looked over at the man and changed her mind. "No."

Half the supply of water had been dumped into the tub and the woman who had spoken took Carlen's arm. Carlen stepped into that tub with a willingness she hadn't felt or exhibited since she'd been spiked. Even this meager few inches of water lapping her ankles felt wonderful to her.

As the women went to work with soap and rags, Carlen wondered how all this had come to be organized so quickly. The order to "clean it up" had been issued not ten minutes before. Perhaps the Keeper, with an edge of foresight, had seen to the arrangements in advance.

The women were thorough, soaping Carlen from top to bottom. One knelt and pressed Carlen's knees apart. Her groin smarted at contact with the soap. As clean as she had tried to keep herself, two weeks without a decent bath had set up a rather unsanitary condition in that area. She was truly glad to be properly washed at last, but she would have preferred to do it herself, without the benefit of an audience.

"Sit down," the same woman instructed.

Carlen sank into the water, quickly snapping her eyes shut as the soapy cloth swiped across her face. They shampooed her hair, cleaned her ears and rinsed her head. They made her stand again and poured the remaining water over her to rinse away the residue soap. They helped her out of the tub and thoroughly dried her off, both women using one large towel.

After this, Carlen was issued with new manacles. Leather manacles that wrapped around her wrists, closing by means of a ring fastened in one end which fit through a metal slot fashioned into the opposite end of the bracelet. Once pushed through this slot, the ring turned freely and could serve to hold the bracelet in place.

Carlen was stunned by the engineering and craftsmanship of the bracelets, and more still by the newness of their appearance. These were designed for something special. Something like maximum haulage with minimum damage. Not self-locking in themselves, the bracelets were secured to the wrists, and each other, by an additional ring which functioned as a lock that could only be opened with a small key.

Carlen's wrists were secured behind her back by one of these linklocks. She was made to kneel on the towel, which had been folded and placed on the floor at one end of the bench. Carlen heard the man pass behind her as the women eased her down so that her torso lay over the bench.

The silent woman knelt beside her. She threaded the chain on Carlen's collar down between the slats of the bench and pulled it taut. The other knelt on the opposite side and eased Carlen's manacled wrists up her back until Carlen felt the strain in her arms. The same maneuver Nolty had engaged during her presentation to the Whipmaster, although these manacles were joined a lot closer together, making the strain apparent much sooner.

"Turn your head," she told Carlen.

Carlen turned her head away.

"No. Towards me. "

As she lifted her head, Carlen caught a glimpse of the man, standing at the other end of the bench. There were some sounds she couldn't distinguish, then the man's legs appeared before her face. She felt a sudden coldness on her left ear, accompanied by the smell of antiseptic. He moved away, but in a moment reappeared. With one hand he pressed Carlen's head against the bench. In his other hand something flashed silver. Looked like a pair of pliers.

"Don't move," the girl said, and every pressure they were exerting on her increased.

The flashing object came near her face, and there was a stab of pain in Carlen's left earlobe which completely overshadowed the discomfort of the ear braced against the bench. She bolted with a cry of protest but they held her fast. The man's hand jacked the pliers thing into the air and a tiny piece of Carlen's flesh popped loose.

"Jesus! What are you people doing!"

The man moved away briefly, then leaned over her again. More antiseptic smells. Stinging pain. Carlen's teeth ground together as he tugged at the burning lobe. She heard a tiny jingle, then a click. The man stepped away and the women relinquished their grip on her.

Carlen rocked back on her heels with an angry snort. Spots of blood stained the bench and her shoulder. Something tinkled against the point of her jaw.

They'd fucking well ear marked her! Like a cow or a field specimen. Carlen glared at the man who'd done this to her thinking she would not forget this soon.

They made her stand and blindfolded her once more. The coarse collar was removed from her neck, replaced by a slightly more comfortable one. Nobody wiped the blood from her shoulder.

They moved her to the door, the lock was opened and Carlen waited outside with one woman while the man conferred with the other within. The door opened again, the women traded places and Carlen, now adorned in no more than the collar, manacles, earring, and blindfold, was taken on the third of her dark journeys.

As with the second walk, she was led through only interior passages to a place where she was made to step onto what seemed to be a low platform. The surface gave like wood planking but, in stark contrast to the cold cement floors, Carlen felt the hairy warmth and slippery sensuality of fur under foot. At least, that's what she took it to be.

The woman made her kneel and, behind her, Carlen heard the clash of chain against concrete. A twitch at the collar suggested that Carlen had been attached to some wall fixture. She jumped when the woman touched her shoulders from behind.

"Don't move," she was told, "and don't make a sound. If you do, I'll be held responsible. I'll be punished. You know what I mean? Don't speak. Nod your head."

Carlen nodded and the girl left her.

Silence descended, but Carlen expected something would occur - immediately. Something dramatic, possibly life threatening. The violence of her capture, two weeks of inactivity in the cage. Something big was coming, was due.

Seconds passed. Minutes. Carlen knelt perfectly still. Waited.

But the silence only became deeper, denser, pressing down with a physical weight, thickening until even the air she breathed seemed saturated with suspense.

Time passed, a long time, and Carlen finally began to suspect she was alone in the room. That, in fact, she sat there alone, keeping still for no reason at all. She listened with her entire being, but there was nothing. No action, no movement, no whisper of sound.

Nothing and no one. No one there... Or was there? But why this? To what purpose? Her being there, silent. Their being there, silent.

OBSERVATION her mind intoned.

Yes. Observation. Right. But no one in the world could be that quiet for that long. She was sure she would know. She would know!

It could be him, her mind whispered.

Damned right. It could be the Whipmaster. He'd evaded her radar before.

So: Was she waiting to be seen or was she already being seen? Again she asked herself, to what purpose? What interest could there be in secretly watching a blind, dumb, dormant... what? What kind of a thing was she? What kind of thing was she being turned into?

In her darkened universe, Carlen realized the worst enemy was her own imagination. Desperately she struggled to seize control over the paranoia kindling there. But her body was partner to this betrayal. Her laboring heart pleaded for reprieve, as did her lungs for oxygen – one gasp – one precious gasp for tension relieving air!

Carlen caught herself just in time, the breath lodged in her throat. If he was watching, she must be wary. Stillness was no simple feat. One had to be vigilant. For all she knew, that girl had spoken the truth.

So this was where and how the real thinking began and, although Carlen didn't know it then, she had already embarked upon the most demanding psychological adventure of her life. For the present, she knew the task and was confident she could accomplish it. Nothing could prevent her from it. Not hunger, fear, curiosity, or rank stupidity. She sat as still as stone and kept her thoughts strictly in order. She was hardly aware of it herself when, much, much later, her lips parted ever so slightly, expelling a minute sigh.

"Excellent."

This mere murmur shattered the brittle silence.

"No conscious movement in over an hour."

It wasn't strictly so. Carlen's position had altered considerably - and only partly due to unconscious movement. She was leaned further forward, her head was slightly bowed, her hands had coiled into fists, and the tops of her thighs throbbed with the exertion of alleviating the pressure that cut off the circulation to her legs.

All this Carlen realized in an instant. The instant after the sound of his voice caused her to leap half out of her skin.

"I'm glad to see you have a sense of discipline."

There seemed to be an undertone of grudging admiration in the remark. Instinctively she cocked her head to the voice which carried on a plane that suggested he was seated somewhere across from her.

"What's your story?" he said in a tone of such understated speculation that Carlen couldn't be sure a reply was expected. She waited.

"Did you have a relationship with Dalroy?" he asked more directly.

It took Carlen a moment to find her voice. "No."

"You don't even know what kind of relationship I mean," he said.

"I'm not a lesbian," Carlen said. "We're not friends. No relationship. It was exploitation, pure and simple."

"On whose part?" he said, as if to demonstrate that no answer would be considered straight enough or complete enough.

Carlen made no reply.

"Have you ever been married?"

"You mean, am I a virgin."

"I mean, have you ever been married?"

"No," she replied.

"Do you have any children?"

"No."

"Are you sterile now?"

"...Yes."

He paused. Carlen tried to make herself relax. She desperately wanted liberation from the blindfold so she could see this man. At least she thought she did.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-six," Carlen told him.

"You seem older."

"So does everyone."

"Are you a liberal thinker?"

"I can't answer that," Carlen said.

"You mean you won't."

"I just don't know what that means anymore."

"Quite the enigma, aren't you?"

Carlen said nothing.

"Can you read?" he asked.

"Not with a blindfold on."

He was silent a moment.

"Are you always so flip in tight situations?"

"Always," Carlen told him.

"Do you have any idea who you're talking to?"

"No," Carlen lied.

"You haven't heard anything about me?"

"No."

"I think you're lying," he said finally.

Carlen sat tight.

"How long were you a courier?"

"Eight years," Carlen answered.

"Were you exposed to the materials you carried?"

"Most of them."

"Did you ever come across a film called 'Midnight Express'?"

This time Carlen hesitated.

"Well?"

"That's an old one," she hedged.

"Have you seen it?"

"Yes."

"That kid was in over his head. Didn't know his way around. Do you remember? They thought he was carrying a bomb."

Carlen didn't know what to say.

"I wonder if you're concealing any bombs," he said in that speculative manner. "Lies. Evasions. Not a good start for someone in your position."

He paused but Carlen made no sign.

"Do you remember the asylum scenes?"

Carlen was finding it difficult to breathe. "Yes."

"Good," he said. "Now I'm going to tell you something and you'd better listen carefully. We're going to find out everything there is to know about you. At times you'll resort to lies, but you'll retract them. Perhaps many times over. You're going to be kept under constant scrutiny and we'll be listening very closely. The truth had better ring like bells.

"You'll have plenty of time to think about this. I don't want to hear you've been walking the wheel in the wrong direction. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Yes." It was another reference to the film.

"Good. One more thing. You tell me you don't know who I am."

"I don't."

"Then why are you so afraid?"

Carlen didn't answer right away.

"That's rather a strange question," she said. "Considering the circumstances."

There was a low, contained chuckle. "I wonder if all your answers will be as carefully considered."

There was a pause, then the bell sounded off to her right. The interview was over.

A minute later two people came in. Men. One of them was Nolty, but Carlen was unsure of the other. The Whipmaster spoke.

"This is for the Workshop. Condition One. Nothing is to be broken. I want a turn, not a ruin."

A moment later someone unhooked Carlen's chain from the wall and helped her to her feet. A hand grasped the chain near the collar and someone led Carlen out.

Another journey. Another room. The blindfold was taken off and Carlen saw the man who had brought her to this new location was the one who had punctured her ear.

This was a small room. Square. Concrete walls, floor, no windows, one door, which remained open. There was a table against the far wall. A chair. There was a small sink on the left-hand wall and between it and the table was another, smaller table with a single cooking burner on it. In the far right-hand corner some bedding had been laid out on the floor and, above that, a large iron ring had been sunk into the wall. A few feet left of the ring was a large ugly hook.

The man directed Carlen to the bedding where he secured the lead chain to the ring in the wall as Carlen knelt down. He crossed to the table and returned with a foot length of chain. Releasing the ring between her manacles, he brought her hands around in front of her. With the use of two linklocks, he refastened her wrists together, incorporating the chain between them. Finally, he placed a wooden bowl of food in front of her. Good food. Carlen picked up the bowl, keeping watch on the man from the corner of her eye as she fed.

For a number of minutes he seemed oblivious to Carlen, engrossed as he was in the apparent inventory of a variety of items on the table and in the drawers. When at last he was satisfied, he pulled out the chair and sat down facing her.

Carlen thought there was a straightness about him. A correctness in his deportment. A detachment. He didn't look at her as if he were aware of her nudity, or her femininity, or the awkward, heavy chains she wore. Carlen was starkly aware of all these things but the impersonal, uncorrupted way he looked at her helped still her anxieties. She sensed no malevolence in the man, and she wondered if he could have cored her earlobe with the same indifference he projected now.

"This is the Zoo," she ventured.

"You're in it," he confirmed.

"Why?"

He indicated the bowl. "Finish up."

He seemed surprised when she left the bowl unemptied. "Had enough?"

"I can't eat any more."

He took the bowl away and resumed his seat without looking at her. After a moment he spoke.

"Do you recognize the seriousness of the position you're in?"

Carlen didn't know what to say. The man looked up. Something in his manner compelled her to speak.

"I guess so."

"Certain things are going to be expected of you. Cooperation, for one. You'll be held accountable for everything you do or say. If you deviate from the prescribed behavior it could turn out very badly for you. You understand this?"

"I guess so," Carlen said.

"Are you under the influence of narcotics?"

"No."

"Show me your arms."

The chain between the manacles dropped heavily as Carlen extended her arms. He found no evidence of needle marks. He checked her eyes.

"What about alcohol?"

"Not for at least two weeks," Carlen said with a smile. He did not see the irony of the question.

"No symptoms of withdrawal?"

"Oh. No."

"There's a chain attached to the collar around your neck. Get used to it. It'll be there a long time. Never touch it."

"That's going to be a little difficult with it hanging round me all the time."

He did not respond to the satire. "Keep your hands off it," he stipulated.

Carlen gave a little nod.

"Do you want a cigarette?" he asked, less sharply.

"I don't smoke," Carlen said.

"That's not what I heard."

Carlen hesitated, then smiled a little. "Well, you got me there."

He gave her a cigarette, lit it for her, supplied an ashtray and sat patiently until she finished it.

"Stand up," he said then.

Carlen got to her feet. He released the chain from the wall.

"Are you sure you don't want to relieve yourself before we go?" he asked.

"Go where?"

"Do you?"

Carlen grimaced. "No."

CHAPTER 14 \- THE WORKSHOP

At the end of yet another short journey, they came through a doorway into a short hall that led into a room which opened out on both sides. Directly across was a second, identical hallway with an identical door.

To the right was an area of approximately eight by ten feet, containing two narrow beds - one against the near wall, the other opposite it. The left side opened into a small kitchen area and a partitioned corner Carlen took to be a toilet. The entire set up looked something like a Staff Rec. Room. Rec. was the word alright, only the spelling was wrong.

Four chairs were set up in a circle which obstructed the junction of the room. Dalroy was there. So was Nolty. Carlen's attendant maneuvered her into the circle defined by the chairs and made her kneel on the cement floor.

Just as she was beginning to wonder about the fourth chair, the second door flew open with an aggressive crash. Through the conglomerate of chair pieces, Carlen got her first view of the fourth member of the circle. A stout, powerhouse of a man, about twenty-four, with mean eyes and clenched fists. He wore full, urban battle dress and, from some of the emblems he displayed, including one like the mark Dalroy sported, Carlen judged him a Londoner. Eastrake, to pin it exactly.

The man wore his identity like an armor, and Carlen bet that nobody, here, or most places, would front him on the streets without absolute necessity.

He glanced around briefly, checking the others. Then he looked at Carlen. He took the seat directly in front of her. Dalroy sat to the left of him, but not before she had turned the back of her chair into the center of the circle. Her movements were not exactly fluid. Carlen's attendant took the next chair in the circle, just out of sight, and Nolty took the one at her back. The interrogation began.

Many of the initial questions were merely taunts, a familiar banter between four compatriots to set the tone and spur a reaction.

Carlen sat tight. Said nothing. Then, quite abruptly, Dalroy's voice rose above the others.

"Her mother's a lesbian!"

Carlen fixed her with a piercing glare.

"I think you've hurt her now," the Eastrake said with smooth sarcasm.

Everything in the room had stopped. Carlen was the focus of every eye.

"That's the look we're going to kill," Nolty said with an inflection that brought Carlen's head around with a snap.

The thunderclouds were waiting for her, and in those tumultuous eyes she could openly see his cruelty, his resolution, and his confidence. Carlen's anger with Dalroy abated instantly.

"I want you to keep your head up," he said. "Can you remember that? Nod..." he said, and nodded.

Carlen nodded. This was going to be scarier than hell.

"What's your name?"

"Carlen."

"Is that your real name?" her attendant asked.

"Yes."

"Any other names?"

"Code name."

"What?"

"Christopher Robin."

Carlen's attendant smiled.

"How old are you?" from the Eastrake.

"Twenty-six."

"Is that the truth?" Dalroy wanted to know.

"Yes."

"Where were you born?"

"Philsberg, Nebraska."

"Why did you leave there?"

"The trouble."

"Where did you go?"

"Midland. The country."

"Can you read?"

"Yes."

"How long were you a courier?"

"Eight years."

"What are your politics?"

"What does it matter?"

"Are you a Veteran?"

"No."

"Where are your parents?"

"Dead."

"How?"

"The trouble."

"Where have you spent most of your time since then?"

"On the road."

They asked a lot of questions. A lot of pointless questions, but they kept pouring them on and they expected answers. At times, they would pile up two, three, or four questions at once, and if she skipped one to pop off replies to the others, it was always restated and she was reprimanded for missing it.

"What role did you play in the Conflict?"

"None."

"You'd better explain that. It lasted five years. Where were you?"

"I was in and out, cities, states, countries. I had no attachments, no loyalties, no territory to defend."

"Did you kill anyone during that time?"

"No."

"Did you kill anyone in connection with your status as a courier?"

"What the hell are you people? The fucking SS?"

"Oooo, I like that," the Eastrake crooned.

Nolty pushed Carlen with his foot. "Answer the question."

"No! It was never necessary. They had shooters for the wet work. What do I look like? A secret agent?"

The Eastrake turned suddenly vicious. "That'd be good! Entitle you to special treatment, wouldn't it? Lots we could do for a secret agent!"

"Shut up, Kick," Nolty snapped, and picked up the line again.

By now every question was accompanied by a shove, compliments of the asker, and Carlen began to experience the import of the Eastrake's nickname.

It was a well rehearsed routine and, when they weren't butting egos, they worked together like a finely tuned machine.

Carlen was growing impatient. It was becoming a strain to keep up with their demands and still maintain her sense of equilibrium.

"What was your crime?"

"Trafficking."

"What?"

"Forbidden materials."

"Other counts?"

"None."

"Were you ever charged before?"

"No."

"Tax evasion? Jaywalking? Littering?"

"No."

"No trespass? Vehicular misdemeanors? Graft? Theft? Looting?"

"No."

"No border arrests or detainments here?"

"No."

"Abroad?"

"No."

"No prostitution?"

Carlen was beginning to anger. "Certainly not."

"Did you carry a weapon as a runner?"

"Of course."

"What?"

"Shiv."

"What else?"

"Nothing."

"Gun?"

"Yes."

"Anything else?"

"No."

"Anything else?"

"No!"

"Why did you lie about it, Carlen?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you lie?" Nolty pressured.

"To fuck you up!"

Just like that Nolty was out of his seat. The chairs were parted and he had her sprawled on the floor between the beds, pinned beneath him. He unfastened his trousers and Carlen felt the source of his new interest press against her with firm determination. She lay perfectly still, staring with muted shock into those frightening eyes, silently resisting him.

They seemed to be locked like that for some time when someone shot another question at Carlen. Instantly, Nolty picked up on her confusion.

"Answer," he commanded.

Carlen made a quick reply which was followed by another question and another. She realized the questions were an intentional distraction from the battle of wills between Nolty and herself. He was watching her, waiting for an unguarded moment when she would forget herself and relax - even for an instant.

As the seconds and questions clicked by, it was hard to keep both lines of concentration going. Nolty's eyes bored into her as if he might somehow reach inside and take possession of her very soul. He continued pressing, pressing, yet, never quite forcing, just waiting for the moment of her relinquishment. His stare was hypnotic. The clouds engulfed her, ladened her.

At last her will broke and Nolty gained swift penetration. Carlen gasped but that was all. She bit back the tirade of abuses burning on her tongue. There was no point in making a bad situation worse. The battle was lost and she'd have to accept defeat as gracefully as possible.

That the rape should have occurred at all was probably inevitable. That it should occur with witnesses was unfortunate. That it should occur with Dalroy watching was humiliation. Galling humiliation.

Finally it was over, and by the time Carlen recovered and sat up, everyone had left the room but her attendant.

"Is that all?" she asked a little dryly.

"For now," he said.

He leaned over from his chair and picked up the lead chain.

"Can you get up?"

"Of course," Carlen replied stiffly, rising to her feet.

CHAPTER 15 \- JAIM

He took her back to the small room.

"Nice class of people you hang around with," Carlen said as he fixed her chain to the wall.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"Why should I be hurt? One little fuck? How could that hurt me?" She slapped both hands to her abdomen. "You see? I'm built for it."

The man turned away without comment and put some water on to boil. He made them each a cup of tea and sat in the chair by the table while they drank it.

Carlen gulped the tea with relish, but then looked up, a pained expression on her face. "I'm busting for a pee."

He took her cup and placed a can by the bedding. "So, pee."

Carlen looked doubtfully at the can and then at her custodian. "You're not going to give me privacy for this, are you?"

"No."

"Well, that's direct."

Reluctantly, Carlen crossed to the can. She squatted over it and waited. And waited. Finally a small, self-conscious trickle escaped her. Closing her eyes, she tried to forget the man and focus on the emptying of her bladder. He gave her toilet paper and, as she wiped herself, she experienced a small sense of accomplishment.

"There!" she said, rising off the pot. "You see? Anything is possible!"

"Congratulations," he said dryly.

He bent to take the can as Carlen resumed her seat.

"Turn around," he said.

Puzzled, Carlen pivoted her back to him. He ran his fingers slowly, firmly down her spine. Carlen arched away.

"You're bruised here... and here," he said touching the spots. "That's going to be sore for a while."

He took the can and placed it just outside the door. Carlen turned to face him.

What a strange man he was. Different from the others. He was dressed in a pair of blue denim pants, the type that had not lost their practicality or popularity in over two hundred years. They'd been called any number of names through the years - everything from dungarees to jeans to brand names like Levis. Now they were simply called denims.

Not at all an easy item to lay hands on these days, but just as highly valued now in this country as they had once been in Russia. Denims, like so many simple things, were looked on with distrust by the State who still associated such modes of dress with the music industry.

In here, of course, nobody cared. The important thing was to dress to your station and, those who had the where-with-all, dressed and conducted themselves as they pleased.

On top he wore a simple cotton shirt, white with a pale blue check, sleeves rolled. He carried a limited supply of keys from a reinforced belt loop on his pants.

Like most everybody else, he wore boots. Brown ones. And, like the Keeper's boots, these were in no way, shape or form any agency issue.

There were no extraneous adornments. No badges, tattoos, rings, belts, tools, or weapons. He was obviously no lackey but he was no warrior either. This was a man who did not have to worry about protecting himself.

One of the women dropped off a bowl and, while Carlen ate, the man busied himself cleaning up the tea things.

"How does a person like you fit in with all this?" Carlen asked between mouthfuls.

"What kind of person am I?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

Silence.

"You seem like a sad man. A poet."

His movements slowed ever so slightly. "That's an odd thing to say."

Carlen shrugged. "What are you in for?"

"What are you in for?" he countered.

"I already answered that," Carlen said.

"Did you?"

"Oh. A tough guy, eh?"

"Well?" he persisted, buffeting her humor.

"I've answered enough questions for one day."

"Better get used to it."

"I'll never get used to it," Carlen said tightly.

The man said nothing.

"What the hell's going on here, anyway?" Carlen said suddenly.

Nothing.

"Too hard? Start with something easier. Well, can you at least tell me your name?"

There was pause. "It's Jaim."

"Jaim. Well, Jaim, what happens now?"

He leaned over and took the empty bowl from her. "I suggest you get some sleep."

"Ah. Right. I don't suppose there's any chance of my having a blanket or something?"

"None."

Jaim left the room and, in the brief period of privacy before sleep, Carlen mentally re-capped the interrogation session, recounting as many questions as she could remember and her replies to them.

If they bought everything she said, she might be in pretty good shape. If.

CHAPTER 16 \- IN THE CIRCLE

Before Carlen had much chance to recover from her first experience in the circle, she was back in it. Kick, who had turned his chair around and seated himself astride it, began the line.

"So, you're a runner, then?"

"A courier," Carlen corrected.

"A what?"

"A courier," she repeated.

"Ah! A 'carrier' then," he said, with deliberate mispronunciation.

"What?" Jaim asked.

"What what?" Carlen bristled.

"Did you carry," Nolty clarified.

"Discs, mostly."

"What sort?"

"Music. Audios. Some visual."

"What? Skins?" Kick wanted to know.

"Some of it was porn," Carlen replied evenly.

"What else?"

"Books."

"What sort?"

"All sorts."

"Anything else?"

"CD's, films."

"Real films?" Kick sounded impressed.

"Yes," Carlen answered cautiously.

"They trusted you with real films?" Nolty wanted to know.

"Yes."

"What else?"

"Nothing."

"No drugs?"

Carlen snorted. "I'm not crazy."

"What about alcohol?"

"Oh yes, like I'm going to hump four cases of Black Label over my back through Minimum Luggage! You dumb shit."

Kick snatched Carlen by the neck and yanked her across, pinning her shoulders to the back of his chair. He stroked her arm up and down with his fingertips.

"Listen, Newblood," he growled into her ear. "You ever been strung out?"

"No."

"Well, you could be."

"What else?" Nolty persevered.

"Nothing."

"Come on, come on! Any money? Gold? Rocks?"

"No. Nothing like that."

"Messages?"

"What?"

"You ever carry any messages?" Kick reiterated, increasing the pressure across Carlen's chest.

"No. No messages."

Now the questions came mainly from Nolty.

"How did you get around?"

"Any way possible."

"I mean identification."

"I had plenty of cards," Carlen said.

"Where did you get them?"

"The association supplied them."

"You say you traveled internationally."

"Yes."

"How did you get through customs?"

"I walked, like everybody else."

Kick gave a jerk with his arm.

"I don't know what you mean," Carlen said more softly.

Nolty sighed in exasperation. "With the merchandise."

"Luggage with false compartments."

"Carlen-" he began with impatience.

"No, really!" She laughed slightly.

"What about the films? They come in canisters, don't they?"

"Yes."

"And aren't they sometimes rather large?"

Carlen hesitated. "Sometimes I had help."

"You mean a contact?"

"Yes."

Nolty stood up and crossed to the kitchen area where he poured himself a cup of coffee. "How did you get into this line of work?"

"Gradually, really."

"What did you carry at first?"

"Cheap novels, magazines, cigarettes. That sort of thing."

Carlen's eyes were stuck on the cup in his hands. He took a sip of the steaming brew, monitoring her reaction.

Carlen winced ever so slightly. What the hell was it in the aroma of fresh brewed coffee that still seduced a nation of people who had virtually learned to live without it?

"How did you happen to hook up with the Cultural Underground?"

"I kept alert for better breaks. Actually, they found me. Word gets about."

"Why did you get into it?"

"I had to eat."

"Did you believe in what you were doing?"

"I don't follow you."

"Did you consider yourself a part of some underground revolution?"

"In what sense?"

"Did you believe you were in some way serving your fellow man by the distribution of these forbidden materials?"

"Not necessarily," Carlen said carefully. She seriously wondered why Nolty was taking this line with her. Had she unintentionally revealed something? What could he be reaching for?

"Why did you do it?"

"For the money."

"You were well paid?"

"Quite well."

"Did you maintain a permanent residence?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Too expensive. Besides, I was on the road all the time."

Kick had not relinquished his hold on Carlen. In fact, his hands had found her breasts and he was pinching her nipples painfully. Carlen was finding it increasingly hard to ignore and was trying to figure out how to get away from him. Nolty's next question made her forget all about Kick.

"Why did you come to the park?" he asked with careful containment.

He had resumed his seat, crossed his legs and sipped his coffee, all with finely articulated casualness. Only his eyes revealed the intensity with which he awaited her reply.

"Why do people normally go to parks?" she stalled.

"These are not normal times," Nolty countered.

"I came to see if there were any trees left," Carlen said.

"You like trees?"

"Is that wrong?"

"That was the only reason?"

"Yes."

"Dalroy tells me you consistently pressed her for information about the park."

She would, Carlen thought. The bitch.

"That's true," she said.

"And the hierarchy of the prison."

"Yes."

"Isn't it true you came to the park to satisfy your curiosity about these matters?"

He was trying to trap her.

"No. It isn't."

"You're sure you didn't come to do some investigating?"

"Yes."

"Why did you press Dalroy about it?"

"I already told you. I heard Newcity had one of the best parks in the country. I wanted to see if it still existed."

"A real nature lover!" Kick sarcassed, bored with this line.

Nolty pressed on, ignoring him. "What about the other questions you asked her?"

"About the power structure?"

"Yes. Why so curious?"

"I thought maybe I could do myself some good. You know, get connected. Or, at least figure out how to keep myself out of harm's way. So much for that. She never told me a thing. Just wanted what she could get-" Carlen shot Dalroy a nasty look. "- and when she missed out on that, the bitch turned me over."

Dalroy lashed out, hitting Carlen in the mouth. Carlen recovered as quickly as possible, turning back to Nolty with what she hoped would serve as appropriate indignation. "I never saw one fucking bird."

"They're all dead," Kick said maliciously.

"Kill them all yourself, did you?" Carlen snapped back.

* * *

When Nolty called an adjournment, Kick gave Carlen an extra squeeze, murmuring, "See you later, darlin'," before dropping her like a sack of potatoes and marching out.

Nolty signaled Dalroy to the corner where he conferred with her in undertones. When Dalroy's voice rose up suddenly, Nolty silenced her by cupping his hand over her gaping mouth. He began speaking again but Jaim led Carlen from the room before she could make out the words.

* * *

Back in the Quiet Room, as Carlen came to think of it, Jaim attended to the usual formalities with his customary reserve.

Carlen walked through the routines passively, half lost in her own thoughts. This certainly was not going to be easy. She hadn't told Dalroy very much about herself, but then, Dalroy didn't possess Nolty's cutting intelligence.

As Carlen replayed the interrogation in her head, she heard the same questions over and over, always twisted, always rephrased in some subtle way, but the exact same questions. Nolty landed hard on the smallest inconsistency or variation, making it nearly impossible to fabricate convincing lies.

To tell the whole truth was out of the question. There was no way of telling where that could lead. Besides, if she could convince them of a few selected "truths", she might shorten the line and maybe even save her skin.

Somehow she had to keep it all straight in her head, although it was becoming obvious she would not be permitted much time alone for reflection. Every single uninterrupted moment would have to be spent collating facts and stories to feed them, working out tactics and, basically, trying to anticipate every move they may make.

It was a bad situation, alright, with plenty of room for slip-ups, but Carlen was determined to control the selection of what they would be and when they would occur. A monumental task, with infinite possibilities.

The repast was a hunk of bread, stale, and a mushy substance resembling some sort of stew. Quite a come down but Carlen ate every bit without complaint.

At one point she looked up at Jaim. He was seated across from her in quiet repose, meditating on the sole of his boot. Carlen swallowed.

"If you tell me what this is all about, we might be able to save a lot of hassle."

She thought for a moment he hadn't heard, then he looked up.

"You're mistaken," he said. "Hurry up. You've got a rest coming."

Carlen wiped her mouth with her wrist and handed the empty bowl up to him.

* * *

Thus was the ongoing progression of her days and nights. Carlen lost track of time. She no longer knew what times of the day she was wakened, fed, interrogated or put back to bed.

Of one thing she was sure. The quality of the food was dropping daily and the rations were getting shorter. So, she suspected, were the sleep periods.

But the pressure kept building and Carlen felt she was caught in a spiral during the culmination of her last days under the scrutiny of the Workshop.

CHAPTER 17 \- THREEWAYED

There was some kind of confrontation going on between Nolty and Kick as Carlen and Jaim came into the interrogation room one day. The two men were toe to toe by the corner of the toilet partition.

"Where's Dalroy?" Nolty demanded.

He was tense and angry - rapidly approaching rage. Carlen saw the veil of collectedness drop as he suddenly grabbed a handful of Kick's shirt. "Where is she!"

For the first time, Carlen could plainly see the man's power. His power, and the edge of his insanity. Kick stood his ground but Carlen knew he was afraid. His eyes blatantly reflected it.

"It may come as shock to you, Governor, but I don't tail the little grimer round town," Kick retorted with as much indignation as he could muster.

Carlen was watching the scene with avid curiosity from her position on the floor but, at this point, Jaim's hand touched the back of her head and pushed her down until her face met the floor. She couldn't see how Nolty recovered himself, but the session did not begin with questions. Kick's black boot came down on the chain near Carlen's ear and Nolty laid on the leather.

His blows sounded more ferocious than they were but, even so, Carlen was caught completely off guard. The heavy strap made a terrific impact across her rib cage, more bruising than cutting her. Carlen managed to repress her cries, but the weighty blows knocked tiny puffs of air out of her. She wondered if this was part of the planned procedure or if Nolty's anger had brought it on. She was never able to figure it out. Things were accelerating fast.

By the time she was directed to sit up, Carlen's back burned hot and it stung like fury. She'd lost track of the count but, when she moved, she felt a deepening muscular soreness already setting in. As she raised her head, she tried to console herself with the fact that Dalroy's chair still stood empty.

"Well. Do we get the truth today?" Nolty asked snappishly.

"I don't know what you mean," Carlen said with restraint.

"You know what he means," Kick said. "You're a fucking liar."

"Is that so?" Carlen replied stiffly.

"Yes, that's so! And I'll tell you something else - you'd better get your arse on the line and keep it there!"

Familiar turn of phrase, Carlen thought wryly.

"Or what? You'll kill me?"

"Oooo..." Kick steamed. "That'd be so easy!"

"You ever seen anyone killed?" Nolty broke in.

Carlen was a little surprised. "Yes. Of course."

"How?"

"Shot, knifed, clubbed, run down."

"You ever kill anyone yourself?"

"I told you, no."

"How did you manage to come through without getting hit?"

"How did you?" she threw back at him.

Nolty leaned forward and drew the leg of his trouser up to reveal a knee dimpled and capped with scar tissue.

"Now, how did you?"

"Just lucky, I guess," Carlen said, looking away.

"You ever seen anyone tortured to death?" Kick asked with undisguised malice.

"No. I'm not the sort to hang about for a thing like that."

Jaim spoke up. "How do you feel about Black people?"

"What do you mean?" Carlen challenged with derision.

"Did you ever associate with any Blacks?"

"What do you mean?"

"What about in your line of work?" Nolty pinpointed.

"Not really."

"Any Black friends?"

"No."

"Lovers?"

Carlen hesitated a fraction of a second. "No."

"We better not hear anything of that sort," Kick warned darkly.

"Fuck you," Carlen said.

"Black and blue, lady!" Kick intoned with a predatory grin.

"You ever kill any Blacks?" Jaim asked.

"No. I told you. I never killed anybody."

"You know, that's really hard to believe," Kick said.

"Believe it, you bastard!"

Kick shot out of his chair and wrenched Carlen to her feet. His eyes glowed dangerously. "I'm going to take you down, darlin'," he said, before tossing her back onto the bed near Nolty's chair.

"Attach her," Nolty directed. "Face down."

"Right!"

Kick had everything necessary for the job hanging right from his belt and made short work of stringing Carlen's thrashing limbs to the bed railings. Carlen lay there pulling and grunting in impotent rage as Kick dropped his belt and loosened his pants.

"Black and blue," he intoned again before throwing his weight onto her.

Carlen screamed in rage as he bludgeoned his way into her. Dry and tense as she was, Kick's kingly endowment served only as another rude surprise. She called him every name she could think of but, the instant he left her, she fell to abrupt silence.

There was a huge self-satisfied grin on Kick's face as he stood up and retrieved his belt from the floor. "That should settle the stiff-backed bitch!" he said, but his smile vanished when Carlen spoke up.

"Shit, Kick! That's the most fun I've had since I come 'ere!" she taunted in her thickest Eastrake.

Kick turned with murder in his eyes. "Fun-huh? Well, what about I rip you a new arse, bitch!"

With surprising agility, Nolty jumped into Kick's path and directed him away from the bed. Carlen craned her head back to catch the exchange.

"You'll get your chances," Nolty said tightly, "but take care! Make one wrong move, you can bet she'll let me know and I'll nail you to a cross!"

Kick was nodding his head in angry resentment.

"Keep it in check," Nolty warned, then turned to Jaim with a curt nod. A moment later, a blindfold was wrapped around Carlen's eyes and, a few seconds after that, the bed groaned under the weight of another body.

"I see," Carlen said with a small smile of disdain. "A little game of Pick the Prick."

This time the entry was easier, thanks to Kick's generous donation, but the intercourse was short and incomplete. The attacker withdrew suddenly, only to replaced by another. And so it went on.

Before too long, the questions began and Carlen was expected to furnish articulate answers during each successive assault. They worked it well, only one of them asking questions at a time in order to keep the identity of the man on top of her in constant doubt.

Whenever Carlen felt close to the breaking point, she concentrated on the absurd image of the three men, working to maintain erections as they awaited their next turn to plug into her. She would have given in to a chuckle if she hadn't believed it would only bring on a new demonstration of their ability to wreck her up.

When this failed to keep her occupied, she thought about Jaim. Carlen had no delusions about the seriousness of his part in this, but there had always been a certain neutrality in his dealings with her. Since she was never entirely sure when, or even if he took his turn with her, she could pretend that none of them was him - or, alternately, that all of them were. Under the umbrella of this self-deception she could tell herself that, if it was Jaim, she needn't be distressed. The fact of his neutrality meant that he didn't care and, therefore, was incapable of hurting her.

When this device plowed under, Carlen grit her teeth and praised the heavens that at least Dalroy was not present to see this happening to her.

Despite the stresses of this constant punishment, Carlen was quick to notice Nolty never allowed her to become overly dry or irritated before supplementing with some sort of lubricant. This struck her as being inconsistent with their purpose but, as soon as they started letting go, there was more than enough to facilitate smooth and easy access for everyone.

* * *

For Nolty, as well as Carlen, the time dragged. There was an uneasiness germinating in him.

He had no problem performing, on cue, in his alternating roles as rapist, observer, and interrogator. This was all part of the process. It was the job. He approached it as a professional and executed every duty with commitment and pin point precision. Unlike the others, Nolty's only real incentive was the work itself. That, and the pleasure of the Whipmaster.

As to sex with Carlen - Nolty performed the task with a practiced ease and certainly more sensual subtlety than the others. He caught himself enjoying the slick heat inside her, coupled with the heightened scent of profuse perspiration, one signal that she was under appropriate duress.

If Nolty were to admit the truth to himself, it became more and more difficult each time to withdraw from her prematurely so as to maintain his stature until his next turn with her. Yet, despite this unexpected spark of sensual exhilaration, Nolty could not combat the sense of dread settling over him. All the time he was thinking:

It's not working. It's not working!

Ultimately, he pulled his mind out of it, back from it, in order to analyze it from every aspect, but the readings did not satisfy him.

At times Carlen did seem on the verge of losing control, but she never gave up her struggle to maintain it. Cries of pain or pleas for mercy she deftly turned to explosive outrage, concentrated forbearance or satirical banter. Her defense against an emotion of fear or depression was aggression. She launched attacks, thereby releasing the pressure in small bursts.

It didn't take him long to realize that she alternated between using the rape as an excuse to evade certain questions, and engaged the questions in her mental defense against the rape. Plainly enough he could see her doing this, but she was doing something else besides. Was it possible she was exercising a third, even a fourth point of focus, in addition to her mechanical responses to the dual pressures the men were exerting? It seemed impossible - but it also seemed likely.

Nolty was amazed by Carlen's psychological dexterity and he marveled anew at what a woman's body would take if the will were set to it. He'd seen enough to be an expert. It was as if Carlen had thrown herself into this, with almost as much energy as Kick. Physically bound, yet psychologically meeting it force to force. This mental well had to be drained. If he could just get to that mind, he would set it against the will.

There was a long way to go with it yet and Nolty was uncomfortable about a number of things. He knew Carlen's strength of spirit would not be taken down by short measures. Her continual baiting of Kick, going virtually unpunished, was a danger sign. He had become an easy target for her, drawn in and susceptible as he was to her wit.

Jaim stood by, steady as a rock, but Nolty sensed that Carlen trusted Jaim. So it had been ordained. One "soft" man. He noticed she never challenged him.

Possibly this could be changed and controlled, like Kick's anger and frustration, which increased daily. He was not used to this. None of them were. In normal practice, any subject who displayed even the slightest deviation into rebellion was dealt with swiftly and severely - and they never recovered. Carlen was always springing back. Always on guard, apparently always ready, and it bothered Nolty a great deal.

Apart from this, however, her overall level of cooperation so far could not really be criticized. During questioning she remained alert and relatively communicative, and her conduct with Jaim was reported to be docile and uncomplaining.

Nolty expelled a silent sigh, unconsciously tapping the floor with his foot. He didn't have the answers yet. In any event, it was not his task to force it. There were particular limitations on this case and he alone would be held responsible. She had to be kept busier.

* * *

When at last they adjourned, Nolty took Jaim aside and counseled in undertones while Kick none too gently released Carlen's bonds. She had time enough to ease herself into a sitting position, but she didn't attempt to stand. Nor did she touch the blindfold, which Kick had omitted to remove. She sat patiently, her hand clutching the bed rail, waiting for Jaim to come for her.

When Nolty left, Jaim removed the blindfold and looked intently into her eyes. Carlen hoped he didn't find what he was seeking.

"Do you need help?"

"No," she said, a little petulantly, he thought, but her knees buckled as she tried to stand.

Jaim took her arm, all she would allow him to do, and half carried her back to her cell.

He was going to put her straight on the bedding, but Carlen latched onto the chair left standing in the middle of the room and she stubbornly, pridefully, he thought, refused to budge an inch further. Jaim relinquished his hold of her and went to the sink to fill a pot with water. Carlen sat down uncomfortably. Jaim put a match to the burner, placed the water on to boil and turned back to Carlen.

Squatting beside her, he unlocked the shackles momentarily to check her wrists for bruising. He uncurled her fists to find the palms of her hands cut and bloodied. His tongue clicked, like that of a disapproving parent. Finally, he checked her ankles, which were badly burned from pulling at the coarse ropes Kick had used to restrain her.

With hot water and soap he gently cleaned her hands, ankles, and every other part of her he could reach. Carlen sat in listless silence, submitting to it all. Only when he applied disinfectant to the cuts on her hands did she pull away, a wounded expression in her eyes. Jaim gave her a moment, then expertly clipped her fingernails as short as possible.

He disposed of the dirty water, rinsed out the basin, and prepared a second batch of warm, clean water, which he left to stand on the table.

"Get up," he said.

Carlen glanced up miserably. "What the hell! You want to fuck me some more?"

Something in her eyes touched Jaim off ever so slightly. "There's nothing to prevent me, you know," he said, and was a little amazed by the instant repentance in Carlen's eyes before she turned them away.

"I'm going to examine you," he said more gently.

"What for?"

"Get up."

Still she hesitated but, when Jaim took a step toward her she grappled for the back of the chair and pushed herself to her feet. When he reached for her arm she yanked it away angrily.

"Over by the table," he instructed, fighting back an impulse to push her.

Carlen shuffled to the table, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Turn around and bend over."

Carlen looked angrier still, but the mere touch of his hand at the nape of the neck flexed her rigid back and she went down quietly.

"Spread your legs," he said, and she did, with some encouragement from him.

Carlen cringed as Jaim delicately explored the source of her deepest injury. She listened to the water lapping in the basin near her head and jumped at the initial contact of the cloth. Jaim could sense her humiliation and sympathize with her pain, but he took time to insure a thorough job, wetting his finger and gently douching her internally with it.

His hand quickly appeared and disappeared from Carlen's sight as he reached for a jar on the table. He unscrewed the lid, dipped two fingers into the gluey salve and replaced the jar on the table.

"This is going to burn," he said, placing a hand against the small of her back.

"Well, thanks for the warn-" Carlen began, when the entire sentence was sucked back in a gasp as Jaim touched the medicated salve to the raw tissue. With a shuddering groan, Carlen flexed her legs and Jaim had only a split second to wedge his knee between them before they clamped together. He quickly focused more weight on her back to prevent her from rising before he could complete application of the salve and withdraw.

Carlen's disposition did not improve immediately, and Jaim was obliged to keep her pinned to the table until her struggles abated and she lay there, her sides heaving in convulsive gulps.

"That's it," he said, turning to the sink to wash his hands.

Carlen pushed herself upright, sorely wishing she still had the impetus to slug him. Her gaze dropped and she spotted the end of the chain lying on the floor at her feet. She realized instantly what it meant and her mind seized the idea of snatching it up and hauling ass out of there. Why hadn't she noticed it before?

She glanced up - straight into Jaim's watching eyes.

Sure. And pigs could fly.

She turned to the bedding, leaving the chain for Jaim to retrieve and lock down. He never said a word about it. Carlen wondered if he'd noticed anything.

As a matter of fact, it seemed more and more she'd been wondering about Jaim. Soft spoken Jaim, her attendant, her doctor, her counselor, her warden. Really the closest thing she had to a friend in this sinister place.

Almost a submissive personality himself, he wore a coat of many colors. His patient neutrality and almost sad detachment during the ordinary, private procedures with her was a definite contrast to the role he played with the group, becoming an astute interrogator or rapist upon demand.

Carlen suspected it was actually only Jaim's identity Nolty sought to conceal from her during the sexual encounters. The style he employed was easily confused with the styles of the other two men. Yet, once, she thought she was sure...

She had taken to wondering how he would react if she tested his authority. It was not his strength but his commitment she doubted.

She never followed it up. She was so exhausted by the treatments of Kick and Nolty that Jaim's calm and careful ministrations were almost a welcome relief. Carlen did what she could to keep these feelings from becoming evident to Jaim but she was never sure of her success.

One of the females brought food - once again, no great reward. Without enthusiasm Carlen picked up the bowl, then suddenly decided to take relief first. Not altogether an inspiring experience either.

Jaim was preoccupied with clearing things up as Carlen resumed her seat. She picked up the bowl and began to eat \- very slowly. Adrenalin and food made poor companions. Indigestion was becoming a way of life.

As carefully as Carlen had chewed and swallowed every mouthful, she still could not prevent the escape of two or three loud burps. Jaim turned with mild surprise. Carlen pushed the emptied bowl to the edge of the bedding and, as Jaim bent to retrieve it, he looked at her closely.

"You need rest," he said.

"Oh, yeah," Carlen parried with a sour smile. "And are you going to arrange it?"

He didn't respond but she knew he was right. The cold and hunger were beginning to tell on her. And the hassle. The endless hassle was ripping at the fabric of her nerves. An additional burden had become her constant nakedness, which was no longer a source of self-consciousness to her except for the susceptibility to injury it afforded.

Yes, she regarded these private routines with Jaim as safe time when she could let down most of the defenses and rest - although there was precious little rest. Only the questions. The interminable questions and answers; checking, always checking and re-checking...

She couldn't help but wonder where it was all leading. With every new turn in their line of attack, Carlen was thrown into a fresh wave of doubts concerning her ability to avoid making a bad mistake. Although she failed to see the importance of the information she gave them, every answer was met with suspicion and tenaciously followed up.

She began to suspect the entire set up was nothing more than an information clearing house. This didn't make it any less real or dangerous, it only meant that one day the questions would be exhausted and, presumably, so would their interest in her. If the real torment was scheduled to commence at that time, she hoped it would not be too prolonged; that, if she were to die, it would be quick.

"Time to think," the Whipmaster had said.

Yeah. Too much time for the stark realization of her cruel collision with mischance - and too precious little for the organization of her defenses against her tormentors.

On trial, all over again.

* * *

Carlen stared up at the towering judicial bench which seemed to list toward her in cartoonish distortion. The frenetic gaveling of the judge ricocheted like the reports of a pistol off the courtroom walls which vibrated with the murmur of a thousand voices. Booming out over the cacophony came the judge's pronouncement.

"There is no TIME for con-si-der-a-tion!"

It's a time-tunnel, honey. Gonna steal your time... time...

"Consideration of what?" Carlen demanded.

The courtroom quaked with thunderous laughter.

"I'm not guilty!"

"Guilty of what?" a voice asked softly.

The judge loomed down at her, his grimace turning to a leer. "You are NOT en-TITLED to MORE than ONE WORD," he admonished.

"Not guilty IS one word!" Carlen shouted, her protest lost in the uproar.

"Guilty of what?" came the question again.

The judge rocked back in his chair with a hugely exaggerated gesture. "It is the sen-tence of this court that you be TAKEN DOWN!"

"Taken down where?"

"Re-MOVE the prisoner!"

The gaveling resumed, the judge laughing maniacally as his robe and wig billowed out crazily in a sudden wind.

Left and right, Carlen was seized.

"But I'm not guilty!"

"Guilty of what?"

"NOT GUILTY!"

"What were you sentenced for?" asked the gentle voice, so incongruent with the pandemonium around it.

Carlen's feet left the ground as she was swept from the courtroom – through a door – to the precipice of a narrow, twisting staircase that dropped into a well of blackness. The supernatural contortions of her struggles were of no consequence to her wardens as they propelled her forward.

"Don't take me down there!"

"The change will benefit," the guards said.

"Benefit who?" Carlen shouted.

Her feet never touched down as they descended through Escheresque dimensions into ever more penetrating darkness. The laughter of the guards reverberated, commingling with the whispered accusations of unseen tormentors.

"Where are you taking me?"

"You're going down..."

"That's not an answer!"

"What is the answer?" asked the voice.

To Carlen's mind, the soft spoken, disembodied inquirer pinned it exactly. Down - a direction, not a destination. No answer, no destination. It was simple.

A shuddering laugh rumbled up from her quaking soul – then they hit bottom.

They swept along with dizzying speed through a maze of corridors - left then right, right then left. Carlen's terror re-ignited as they traversed this new landscape – a terror so potentially destructive she dared not give in completely.

"This is stupid!" she declared on a raw chuckle. "You don't even know where you're going!"

"Why do you say that?" asked the voice.

"They don't know," Carlen murmured. "And if they don't know, how can they expect me to?"

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the scene changed again. Stairs and corridors gave way to a flat, black space. Although there was no detectable illuminating source, it seemed that Carlen could see. And there was nothing. No walls, no defining features of any kind.

Yet the space was not empty, and the darkness there could never be cured by light alone. Carlen's breath was coming hard as the guards rushed her on.

The false luminescence of the scene played tricks with her eyes, and so it seemed an illusion when she saw something glint up ahead. Bars. Cell bars.

Then she noticed - the voices had stopped. Only the rhythmic click, click of the guards' footsteps marked off time in this timeless place, their bruising grip carrying all – past to future, disbelief to fatalism, fear to horror, and the panicked bundle of Carlen – toward those bars.

But there was no cell, only a single panel of gleaming steel bars, erected in the middle of nothingness, like a gate to nowhere.

Chains clashed with a chilling ring as the guards secured Carlen's wrists to the bars.

"Don't do this!"

The steel chilled her to the marrow as she suddenly realized her clothes were gone. The savage laughter of the guards receded with their footsteps.

"Wait - Wait! Don't leave me here!"

But they were gone and the silence closed in like a suffocating shroud.

"Don't leave me..."

"Where are you?" the voice asked.

"...I don't know..." Carlen whimpered.

"Are you alone?"

"Yes..."

Something moved in the darkness before her. Carlen blinked, blinked again, and she was able to discern the figure, although the features were obscured in darkness.

"...No."

"Who's with you?"

It's just a man, she thought, but every instinct told her otherwise.

The bars vibrated with the thrumming of her heart. She tried to swallow, scream, anything.

There's no such thing as monsters... There's no such thing as monsters... There's no such thing as monsters...

Her foolish heart banged on, unaware that Carlen had stopped breathing. She watched through the bars in mounting horror, running the childish mantra through her head.

There's no such thing as monsters... No such thing-

As the apparition emerged from shadow, an uncanny glint sparked in the eyes, lending them a distinctly lupine cast.

Carlen recoiled.

"Oh God... Don't let him..."

"Who? Who's with you?"

Closer.

"Don't let him touch me! Don't-"

But he was touching her. He was in front of her, and behind her, and he WAS touching her - all of her, his hand on the untouchable. And she was... turning to ash. Ash...

"Oh GOD!!! Some-body - HELP ME!!!!!!!"

CHAPTER 18 \- BETRAYAL

Carlen threw her arm up against the sudden light with an irritated grunt.

Jaim was shaking her. "Time to go."

Carlen squinted, bleary eyed. "Go where?"

"You know where."

There was nothing particularly unusual about this morning. Carlen, Nolty, Jaim, Kick, Dalroy. All present and accounted for. Only Carlen's positioning between them was altered. They knelt her between Kick and Nolty's chairs, thus placing her in full view of the entire group.

Everyone appeared to be comfortable and relaxed except Dalroy, who was slumped back in glowering silence. Nolty began it.

"Tell me what you dream about."

"Food, if anything at all."

"You dream all the time," Jaim said.

"What are your nightmares about?" Nolty asked.

Carlen feigned amusement. "Nightmares?"

"You have a lot of those," Jaim adjoined smoothly.

"What are they about?" Nolty asked again.

"I don't know," Carlen sighed, "You, I suppose."

This sparked off a spontaneous wave of laughter. The tension eased and the session got rolling. For the first time Jaim took the initiative.

"Why do you talk so much about your mother in your sleep?"

Carlen glared at him with ill-concealed shock.

So. Jaim was auditing her dreams and now they were to become Property of The Group.

This was a line she had not anticipated, and the scariest thing was, apart from Dalroy's insights, for the first time they might have information Carlen had not intentionally given them. They were going to probe and dissect, pull at the personal threads of her life by bludgeoning in the back door of her subconscious.

Suddenly a new world of horror was opening up and Carlen had no idea how to stop it. Now, possibly, they could find questions to which there were no safe answers.

"Why do you dream about your mother so much?" he prompted.

"I miss her."

Kick and Dalroy broke into jeering laughter.

"That's really touching," Kick commended, "but, you've got Nolty for your mummy now, haven't you?"

He nudged Dalroy and they broke up like it was some kind of in-joke. Carlen sparked and turned on him.

"What's the matter with you, fucker? Never had a mother of your own? Dump-site birth, were you? I know she was! Not born of anything too sanitary, either of you!"

This ignited a ruckus that lasted several minutes as Kick and Dalroy both jumped Carlen, fists flying.

Despite Carlen's obvious handicaps, she enjoyed these infrequent free-for-alls. Invariably she took a hammering, but it was worth the satisfaction of landing a few solid blows herself. These events were cathartic to her, invaluable in her ongoing struggle to keep the lid on her state of mind. By instigating scraps she could dissipate atmospheric tension, distract the group and, sometimes, cut off the line. She also knew it undermined Nolty's sense of order and that was part of it.

Nolty and Jaim burst into the fray, shouting. Nolty dragged Dalroy away from the area and Jaim grabbed Carlen, half carrying her back toward his chair.

Carlen was frankly relieved to be saved from certain devastation but, the instant she was sure Kick had given up the attack, she wrenched free of Jaim's grasp and backed away, black denouncement in her eyes.

When Dalroy was at last placated, Nolty resumed his seat with all the gravity of a university professor. The others took the cue and quickly resettled into their chairs. Nolty directed Carlen to get back in the circle and had Jaim fasten her manacles behind her back on a single ring. He was well aware of her temper with Jaim. He was aware of every advancement.

He waited until he had perfect silence then picked up the line - precisely.

"What happened to your mother, Carlen?"

"She was killed."

"How?"

Carlen sighed. "We were dug out, hidden on the outskirts of a small town. I went out to find some clothes..." She stopped a moment, shrugged. "She was quite dead by the time I got back."

"You say that very coldly," Nolty observed.

Carlen hesitated. "I don't understand."

"Quite dead. That's the term you used. Not 'she died' or 'was killed', but 'quite dead'. It's cold. Detached. It's deceptive."

He waited. So did Carlen.

"I happen to know your relationship with your mother was anything but detached."

"Hey!" she responded hotly. "One hell of a lot of people died, now didn't they?"

"You were very close to her, weren't you?"

Carlen tossed her head impatiently.

"Cold bitch!" Kick declared. "Does nothing make her cry?"

"She cries," Jaim said softly.

"Yeah? When?" Kick demanded.

"When she dreams."

Carlen's heart was hammering.

"Who did it?" Jaim asked.

"What?"

"Killed your mother!" Kick steamed.

Carlen shook her head vaguely. "Someone... I never found out."

"Did you try to find out?" Nolty pressed.

"Nothing to go on. I got away from there."

Carlen made no attempt to slow her sudden descent into depression. They were really preying on her this time and Jaim had given them the ammunition. He had betrayed her and in a way she had never foreseen. Quiet Jaim.

"Can I have a cigarette?" she digressed.

"No," Jaim said curtly.

"Tell me about your nightmares," Nolty invited.

"I don't remember them."

"Tell me the ones about me," he suggested twistingly.

This fetched a sardonic grin from Carlen. "I've forgotten them all!" She cocked her head at Jaim. "Why don't you ask your boy here? He seems to have all the answers!"

"Tell him about the burning water," Jaim said softly.

"What?" Carlen exclaimed, trying to veil her shock with irritation.

"Three days ago," he replied evenly. "You remember."

Fuck. Cornered.

Carlen checked every face briefly. The malevolence was definitely coming on now and Carlen was in no frame of mind to be tied to the bed again. She shook her head with a yielding sigh while she searched her memory in a genuine effort to sweep up the details of the dream. Fuck the bastards. Let them conjure any meaning from it they liked.

"It was very dark, all around. There was a sea, an ocean. The only light was patches of gold, shimmering like phosphorous on the surface of the water. Like a path of moon glow or something.

"I was standing on the water. I was trying to walk on the water, across the sea, stepping on the patches of gold. Only, the patches were constantly moving, rippling, and if I missed a patch, or slipped off the edge of it, my foot would sink into the black water. And, instead of it being cold, like you'd expect, it was hot... burning hot.

"I tried to keep going, but my feet kept sinking into the burning water. My feet... were burning."

"What the hell!" she heard Nolty murmur as he and Jaim exchanged glances. "Why didn't you walk back to shore? Wasn't there a shore behind you?"

"There was nothing behind me," Carlen said. "I had to go forward."

Nolty looked again at Jaim. Jaim was unreadable. Nolty turned back to Carlen.

"Did you get across?"

"A... no. Not at first."

"What?"

"I don't know."

Nolty sighed softly. Consternation was not an expression he wore gracefully. In some unfair way he wanted to strike at her then, yet he didn't dare reveal to her that this, although in no way a good omen, was, at least, exactly the kind of thing he'd been looking for.

She'd told him, freely enough. More than likely she saw nothing revealing in the tale. But Nolty saw, alright. He saw it clearly enough.

"Now tell him about last night," Jaim prompted.

"You bastard," Carlen said softly.

Nolty's thumb was poised between his teeth as he listened to the details Carlen could recall of the dungeon nightmare. She spoke in a dead tone, as if reciting an unpleasant lesson learned by rote. When she'd finished speaking, he leaned forward in his chair.

"What was the identity of the man in the dream?" he asked.

"Which man?"

"The one in the dungeon," he stipulated, an excitement sparking inside him.

"I don't know," Carlen replied in the same monotone.

"Who was it!"

Carlen looked up with perfect composure. "I don't know."

"You left something out," Jaim said abruptly.

Carlen's brow furrowed.

"Something you said about 'Not Guilty' being only one word."

"I don't understand," she said.

But Nolty did. Remove four letters, push it together and you had his name.

He swallowed back a sudden fury. He had to get her running - but she was not running yet.

* * *

By the time the session was ended, apart from the trouncing Carlen had taken at her own instigation, they hadn't touched anything - but her mind. She knew Nolty was satisfied with his results, although she wasn't sure precisely what they were. Dangerous ground. Dangerous, dangerous ground.

Carlen neither looked at, nor spoke to Jaim as he bedded her down for rest. His demeanor with her was not changed - although his status certainly was. Nothing. He'd get nothing from her again. She would compress herself into the image of the model prisoner for him and never, never trust him another inch.

An additional toll was taken on her over the rest period as Carlen endeavored to keep herself from deep, unconscious sleep. She cat-napped through the hours, periodically forcing herself awake to listen for Jaim. Perhaps the Whipmaster could deceive her, but Jaim could not.

She lay there, eyes open, and listened in the blackness. She was able to pick up the rhythm of his breathing. She could hear him blink and sense his eyes on her. As her own eyes adjusted to the dark, she could just make out the form of him, sitting in the chair. So. He had finally come.

Carlen waited to see what would happen, but nothing did and, after a while, it seemed less practical to deceive him by trying to lie awake all night than to simply confront the situation.

Her chains rang out rudely in the tight silence as Carlen pushed herself into a sitting position. To make greater issue of the noise of the shackles, Carlen raised a hand to scratch her head. Then, with a reasonable show of fuss, she moved across the bedding to the corner where she wedged herself in, her back to the wall, and sat, wide awake, staring at Jaim through the dark.

She had to hand it to him. He never said a word. Never moved. He tried to wait her out another hour then finally got up and left. Better luck next time, Carlen thought, making sure he was well gone before moving to lie down to sleep.

She was pretty sure she'd kept him at arm's length for most of the period. What she failed to recognize was it takes only a few seconds to begin and complete a nightmare - or even several.

She had to be shaken awake and made to sit up when Jaim finally came and turned on the light. Disheveled and logy, she shoveled in an unusually generous breakfast, and was heartened to discover urinating was less uncomfortable.

Jaim moved around quietly and methodically, as usual, but Carlen noticed a difference. There was a subtle change in his manner. A kind of stiffness in the way he handled things. In the past, Carlen might have jibed him about it, but this was a different day and Jaim was a different man.

Perhaps, like her, he was just tired. Maybe she was imagining things. Although - she did not imagine him pinning her wrists behind her back by a single linklock. Not the usual practice before a session. She didn't imagine the blindfold either. Another infrequent ritual. She certainly didn't imagine the left rather than right turn after they passed out of the door of the Quiet Room that morning.

CHAPTER 19 \- THE COLD ROOM

To Carlen, bound, blind, and vulnerable, it seemed a very long journey indeed to a location she sensed was unfamiliar to her. They had passed through drafty corridors wide and open, low and narrow, rounded corners and traversed small stairways. Carlen was wondering if the suspense would ever break when Jaim finally touched her shoulder in a gesture to stop.

The breathing silence was disturbed as Jaim moved what sounded like a huge steel door hung from the top by a rail. The ponderous progress of its castors along the rail caused a low rumbling in the corridor behind them. A big door, to keep something big out - or in.

The reverberation of Jaim's footsteps as they passed through the entrance spoke of a large chamber with lots of empty space. Jaim rolled the door shut behind them. He led Carlen a few feet further into the room, then surprised her by grabbing the collar and pushing her roughly to her knees on the concrete. The chain did not drop to the floor but continued to hang, presumably from his hand, as she heard him take up position behind her.

As the silence descended again, Carlen felt herself lapsing into the new, yet now familiar fears she had of being just this way suspended in black conscious space. She wanted to ask Jaim, Hey! What the fuck? - to hear her own voice, to hear his, to... find defense against the silence.

She kept quiet and still and, apart from a peculiar odor she detected, vaguely familiar yet indefinable, Carlen was blissfully lacking in any sense of subjectivity to the situation. Until she heard Nolty's step. He was approaching from across the room and suddenly a very bad feeling kindled inside her. His footsteps stopped directly in front of her and a moment later the blindfold came away.

"Take a good look around, Newblood," he said by way of greeting.

Carlen glanced around, confused by the light and Nolty's rare use of this title with her. Obviously he meant to make some point, and Carlen tried to grasp it, but her confusion only increased.

The chamber had incredibly high ceilings and there were moderately heavy bars set into an opening in the right hand wall, at ceiling level. Giraffe cage? There was light coming in. Daylight.

The space itself was indeed large, but nowhere as large as she had imagined, and sparsely furnished, if that's what you'd call it. Carlen quickly took in the odd assortment of objects around the room. Her brow creased slightly as her mind grappled with the realization that the things she was seeing were not really what they appeared to be.

Ordinary pipes, wooden posts, what looked like an old wooden butcher block, a table. All recognizable in themselves but, in small ways altered and erected around the room like an exhibit of grotesque sculptures. The only thing which drew the collection into a common theme was the presence of rings, chains and leather fixtures.

With mounting discomfort, Carlen quickly checked the wall where rings had been sunk and chains hung, from there, and from two points in the ceiling. The wall to the left contained only pegs - dozens of them, hung with every imaginable variation of the whip and other common implements popular in the torture of women.

Picture crystal clear. Was there an afterlife? Carlen was wondering as she looked back at Nolty.

"This is the Cold Room."

Carlen thought he said it as though it were capitalized.

Nolty was reading her reactions. Shock? Yes, it was there. Fear? Yes. Also there. Revulsion? Certainly. Good results, but hardly a match against the other element he saw. Resolve. Stiff-backed resolve. She was going to fight this. Whatever happened.

Alright. He'd expected it. She was strong. He liked that. It gave him something to push against.

"A few hours in here should realign your attitude somewhat," he said. "Feed those nightmares."

Carlen forced herself to look him in the eye until he broke off and turned to commence the business of the day.

Carlen could in no way have denied the fear Nolty had seen in her. It clawed at her as the first girls were brought in through a door on the other side of the chamber. They were naked and shackled, as she was. The kind of specimens she had observed from Cage 7. She realized with a needle-sharp prick of shock that, apart from Jaim's preoccupation with her cleanliness, she had by now been reduced to something very closely resembling these creatures who had seemed so alien to her when she first came to the Zoo.

It was not a welcome recognition, but it brought a few stark realities crashing home to her. She looked closely at the women as they came in and most of them had one thing in common. They had already given up - maybe not their terror, nor necessarily their hysteria, but their souls.

As the first victim was brought over and strapped to a railing apparatus near Carlen, she realized with sudden revulsion that she was going to be made to witness the torments of these poor creatures. A captive audience to the brutal ritual of the bending of wills, the turning of minds, and the breakage of human spirits by the members of the Master's Workshop.

The girl was placed within the framework of the piping so that Carlen had a clear view of her face. Carlen looked on in dread as Dalroy approached and took the first swings with a whip that would have brought a buffalo to its knees.

Carlen closed her eyes and turned away in despair. As the girl's screams rang out, Carlen felt violated herself, and deeply debased.

Nolty's voice cracked at her from across the room.

"Get your head up, Newblood!"

Carlen looked over at him as if to dispute his ability to force her. A mistake. It was quite evident he would tolerate no challenge to his authority. Not here. Not now.

With unconcealed enmity Carlen turned back to the proceedings and bore silent witness as Dalroy laid waste to the girl's back.

As the morning progressed, Carlen was introduced to the functions of the three major devices in the room.

First was the rectangular frame of pipes to her left. 'The Rails', she had labeled them, to which the victim could be strung, upright or upside down, spread-eagle by the wrists and ankles. An especially useful device for flogging, either back or front, with a leather strap stretched across at the waistline to prevent the victim pulling back or arching forward out of range between the framework. The group's name for it was The Devil's Doorway.

To Carlen's right was The Table, or, as Kick liked to refer to it, The Flats. A clumsy, crudely formed piece of apparatus, but perfect for the purposes of tying the victim down flat or, in fact, into just about any possible position of discomfort for any manner of abuse imaginable. Great for face to face encounters. Nothing was concealed here. You knew exactly who was doing what and when.

Lastly, there was The Block. To Carlen's mind, the most frightening of all. This was an old piece of wood. An old piece of workmanship. Constructed entirely of natural wood, maybe a foot and a half by three across the top, standing another three feet tall. Subjects for its delights were afforded the indignity of stepping up to be attached to it, or, if they resisted, the option of being lifted on by Kick and Dalroy.

All four corners were worn smooth and round. Carlen could see the edge of a soiled sheepskin clinging over the edge from the top. She imagined the top of this skin was threadbare and soft hided with tufts of wool left only at the edges. Beneath that the wood, worn in with the forms of the women who had pressed the last of their physical beauty into its warm, breathing grains.

Still called by its original name, this piece, although limited in the positions into which one could contort one's victims, was also particularly well suited to most forms of abuse.

Victims were secured to The Block, face down, by means of a heavy leather strap across the waist. Arms were stretched down over the sides and attached to adjustable lengths of chain by wrist shackles. The legs were then pulled apart and crooked into shaped indentations in the sides of The Block itself which had been chiseled out for just such a purpose. Straps were employed at the calves and thighs to prevent movement.

The first time Carlen saw and understood the operation of The Block she wanted to fade out forever. Just cut herself adrift in the great void of the comatose. Instead, she tried to involve her mind in a painstaking inventory of the entire set up. She counted the links of the chains, the number of buckles, hooks, rings, locks and whips; the hinges, boards, pipes, nuts and bolts. She took note of the scratches on the head of a nail close enough for her to see.

Unfortunately, this only depressed her further and it didn't work out for long. She'd glance up, to check on Nolty, and there he'd be. Watching her, knowing.

It always came back to the blood and the screams, and the ever present threat of her possible substitution for another at The Rails, or on The Block.

Carlen knew she was in the presence of genius. These people were experts. Many of the women they worked on were already missing eyes, ears, limbs, etc. Others were in some way infected or deformed by chemical birth defects. The fact that many were referred to as "substandard" did little to alleviate Carlen's feelings of outrage and repugnance. Their cries, worthy or unworthy all came down to the basic, primal screams of an animal in the throes of agony, protesting with blunt clarity the indignity, the injustice.

Suspending victims off the floor by the wrists from ceiling chains seemed to be one of Kick's favorite sports, razor blades a favorite instrument.

Dalroy's favorite activity was the internal abuse of victims with a variety of disproportionate phallic representations. Certainly the victims feared her brutality with these objects more than Kick's natural capabilities as a rapist. There was no apparent threat to his ego in this since he appeared to derive a deeper satisfaction from the branding of his victims with an assortment of irons kept constantly warming over live flames in a portable iron stand.

'It can always get worse' Dalroy had said once and Carlen believed it was true, but at this point she didn't care to know how. She realized she didn't know anything about these people or how much they were capable of.

She tried to figure out why she was being subjected to these torturings while it seemed less and less likely that she herself would be brought to such heavy endurance. Why on earth all the other tap dancing? Why not get on with the Main Event? What reasons held Dalroy back? If this was truly what she took her kicks from, who the hell wouldn't talk? What the hell wouldn't they say? What in hell did they need to know so badly?

Carlen even admitted the peculiar notion that the room had no other function than to terrorize new captives. Or special cases? It had seemed, at various times, as if she were considered to be such a case.

She assumed the reasoning would eventually be revealed and, if the only motive was to scare the non-existent shit out of her, then they were succeeding very well.

Carlen had one or two subjects of her own in mind as potential candidates for these delights and, by turning herself psychologically from tortured to torturer, she was able to hold up pretty well until late afternoon.

Despite her best efforts to ignore Nolty, Carlen found it was impossible. In fact, as the day wore on, she discovered she was less and less able to tear her eyes away from him. She watched in morbid fascination as he walked the stained floor with his grave digger's step. He comported himself as though it were his Holy Commissioned duty to be there; never actually enjoying himself, that she could tell, but concentratively dispatching the business of the day.

This was his domain. It was where he reigned. Where he shone. As the streets were to Dalroy, so was this place to Nolty. A demi-demon in his own personal hell. The identity of the man in Carlen's nightmare was no longer a mystery to her.

As for Nolty, he felt sure of very little. He believed that he was the figure of terror in Carlen's dream, but this only made him wish the more that he could find the power to flash the blind desperation in her the dream figure appeared to have affected.

Clearly, she was forcefully resisting any empathic reaction to what was going on around her. She remained unresponsive, remote. It wasn't working that well. Not as well as he'd hoped.

What was the core of her strength? How could he reach it? It had to be somewhere in the information. Where were the lies? Her identity? Perhaps. Her employment? Possibly. Her crime? More than likely. Everyone lied about that.

Well, he had two cards left to play. Both of them Aces.

"I have a couple of cases which should be of particular interest to you," he told her before the second to last girl was brought in.

Carlen's back ached. Her arms ached. Her knees were throbbing. How much longer could they keep this up?

The next subject had to be carried in. A horse of a woman. Not a woman Carlen would consider fronting on the street. Hell! She looked at least as strong as Kick, and she was bigger than he was!

He and Dalroy cut comical figures as they lugged her across the room, moving in quick mincing steps. They had a real job keeping her upright long enough to get her chained, spread eagle, against the wall. She was utterly unconscious and Carlen could readily understand why. If she'd had any concept at all of what was being done to her, she would have taken the place apart.

"She's sedated," Nolty stated flatly.

"Well, of course!" Kick laughed.

"What did you use?"

"Four point four," Kick told him.

"We'll have to wait. You should have used zero six."

"And have her come awake? Not at all, Gov!" Kick waved him off and stepped aside, dabbing his forehead with his sleeve. He was in a very good mood.

No one seemed in the least inconvenienced by the delay. They continued moving about, but in a slow, rhythmic half-time. Nolty retrieved a tall wooden stool from the corner and gracefully carried it back. He placed it, very precisely, three feet in front of the subject, at the same time, insuring Carlen the best possible view of what was to occur. Kick and Dalroy, likewise, had taken up positions, and the entire collage of movement came to a smooth, predestined halt just as the girl began to lift her head.

Dalroy was perched on the corner of The Block, like a sculptured part of it. The perfect picture of malevolent intent. Nolty was on the stool in the center, and Kick, beyond him, was leaned into the wall near the subject like an old tomcat.

Carlen would have sworn she'd been drugged herself, observing the almost choreographed effects of this strange ballet.

The woman came to, fighting mad. Carlen prided herself on her ability to foul the atmosphere with verbal barrage, but this woman tinted it purple.

Nolty waited. Watched. Listened. And when her abuses ran dry, he stepped into the break. "Feeling better?"

Some of them may have been dragged in but, so far, every one had been carried out. This one was different. Strong, wild, and very much alive.

"What the hell is this?" she demanded, now fully cognizant of the uncompromising position in which she found herself.

"Simply a means of getting your attention," Nolty said.

"What do you want, little man?" she snarled.

"Information."

"I'll tell you nothing, weed!"

To Carlen's amazement and delight, the woman spat, but missed, as Nolty dodged the unsavory projectile with poise of a snake.

"We already have your name," he said, "and we know why you're here. Now let's discuss why you're still alive."

He took pause as the first flicker of doubt appeared in her eyes.

"It is generally assumed that street trash like yourself knows enough to keep its rancid paws off property destined for this compound."

"Oh come on, little man!" she scoffed, somewhat nonplussed by his sleek articulation. "Are you really the best the great Master has to put up? I've taken better than you, just for breakfast! You, and your pair of dancing dogs!"

Kick deftly swung his knee round into the girl's groin and Carlen flinched in sudden sympathy.

Nolty waited for her groans to subside, then went on, cool as you please.

"Hijackers are not looked upon with favor here. I expect you knew that when you involved yourself in this."

The girl made no sign but went on watching him with animal fury.

"You're going to tell us four things precisely. How the information on the shipment was obtained; who else was involved; who organized the raid and, lastly, where they can be found."

The woman was totally incredulous. "I'm not going to tell you that!"

"You are."

Her brow darkened. "I'm not afraid of you," she said, as though to be quite certain he understood.

"That's fine," he said.

Carlen knew then, if the woman truly felt no fear, it was the worst call she was ever likely to make.

"Are you left, or right handed?" Nolty inquired with insidious nonchalance.

"Ah... left," she answered, obviously lying. "Why?"

Nolty said nothing but, without taking his eyes off her face, made a signal to Kick, indicating her right hand.

Kick was already in place, but Carlen now noticed he had a small, square stool by the wall with him. It grated on the floor as he nudged it forward with his foot and stepped up, thus placing his head on a level with the woman's hand.

She glanced around quickly at the movement, looking straight up into Kick's grinning face. He grabbed her hand and roughly uncurled the index finger of her clenched fist. With a sudden jerk, he thrust the finger into his mouth, right up to the top knuckle. There was a blood curdling crack as he closed his jaws down on the joint and, an instant later, pulled away, leaving a bloody stump.

The woman released a deafening scream, but Carlen had to give her credit. She had pulled it back before Carlen could turn and sacrifice her morning repast to the floor and recover herself.

Kick hopped down from the stool, extracting the severed finger from his mouth. He stepped around in front of the subject and held it up to her face, twirling it slightly to give it animation. She looked on in horror as his hand dropped and shot the offending object up into her groin.

"Fuck yourself," he said and stepped aside.

Carlen resisted the urge to retch again.

They disposed of four of her fingers before the woman showed serious signs of coming apart. A very tough nut indeed.

"I have only to ask him to take the thumb and he'll do it," Nolty told her. "He'll enjoy the task."

"You're a fucking coward," she retorted, with effort.

"No," he parried. "Not really. You understand, my job is to watch your face while he does it, and that, I enjoy."

He was so cool. So - practiced.

"You could be allowed to leave here alive... Of course, you'll never be the same again but, then, none of us are."

She thought it over. "What, then?" she conceded with deadly resignation.

"Who gave you the information?"

"Some scav - calls herself The Bird."

"Who else was involved?"

"Purdy, Stellen, me."

"Who set it up?"

This was the cruncher. John Hancock your own contract time.

"Shay."

Oh yeah. The Whipmaster's tentacles spread everywhere.

"Where do we find her?"

"Barker's Bridge."

"Fine."

"Ah - but only Thursdays or Fridays..." she added quickly.

Just like that he had it out of her.

Nolty nodded. "Fine."

"But you'd better get her soon!"

"We'll get her," Nolty assured her.

And the rest, Carlen thought blackly.

Dalroy hopped off The Block and helped Kick take her down. She left with them very quietly. The perfect conversion.

Before Kick and Dalroy returned with the last subject, Nolty came over and stood looking down at Carlen.

"You see how it's done," he said.

Carlen hesitated, unsure of him, then nodded slowly.

"I believe you could be turned in this way," he said and, in a completely uncharacteristic move, combed his fingers through her cropped hair. It reminded Carlen of the gesture of the huntsman with a favored dog, and it made her extremely uncomfortable.

The last girl came in struggling, but this particular girl was in no way a match for Kick and Dalroy. It was Wilma.

"This one's just for fun," Nolty said callously, before moving off again.

This time he brought his stool around to the right of The Block and sat down, facing Carlen. Carlen drew a tight breath and turned her attention to the trio scuffling across the floor.

Wilma was a thin, fragile creature before she ever stepped off the truck the day they were spiked. Now she was a walking waste. Her wide blue eyes were sunken and darkly circled, her fair skin already sliced by whips. She was panic stricken and hysterical. Dalroy and Kick had one devil of a time getting her across to the apparatus.

For an instant, Carlen caught Wilma's eye and she felt an immediate urge to communicate something to the girl. Then she realized Wilma did not recognize her. At all. She had gone quite insane.

Kick and Dalroy were laughing like two children trying to hold a slippery fish.

"Get her on The Block, fuck ya!" Kick was shouting.

"Fuck you, muscles!" Dalroy panted. "What's the matter? Screwed all your strength away already?"

They're punchy, Carlen thought. High on the violence.

Nolty waited with patient indulgence, unperturbed by the delay. Every moment of this was precious. He knew the two women had been brought in together, that Carlen recognized Wilma and was shocked by her appearance here. Her reactions over the next hour would tell him a great deal.

At last Kick secured his grip, lifted Wilma and dropped her over The Block with a thud. Dalroy was right on hand with the waist strap while Kick secured her arms. He moved, full circle around The Block and, with Dalroy's help, fastened the legs in place.

The fall to The Block had winded Wilma, who lay limp and whimpering. The sight of her vulnerable posterior sent a thrill of inspiration through Kick. He actually shuddered.

"It's never been touched," he said, his blood encrusted hand reaching out to stroke her flank in a hideous show of tenderness.

"Well, take your shot," Dalroy invited. "That is, if you've still got it in you."

"Oh, darlin'," he purred. "You just don't know." He was really humming, his vibrations almost a physical sensation to Carlen, who was thinking Any- Any- Anywhere but here!!!

Kick got things rolling with anal rape. Yet, contrary to his usual approach, he made it a slow, agonizing penetration which played in duet with the whipping Dalroy delivered across Wilma's back. Wilma's cries fluctuated crazily, as though see-sawing between two levels of reaction.

Kick came with a roar, as if he'd just discovered the mysteries of the first woman. Wilma's ass really gave it to him. So much so, in fact, that he went straight on, with hardly a pause, driving her with new urgency.

When he was near his second peak, Dalroy piped up.

"Hey! Hurry up, you prick. There's others waiting."

A queer little smile came to her face as the second explosion of ecstasy distorted Kick's features.

"My God!" he moaned.

"Come on, lover boy. I'd like to give her an internal myself."

Kick withdrew slowly, carefully, as men sometimes do, as though they were tender, or sore. He turned his back as he readjusted himself into his pants and Dalroy took up the rear position, toys in hand.

Carlen turned her head away as Dalroy made her first stab into Wilma. She was consumed with a fury that threatened to bust right into the situation and blow a gaping hole through all the walls she'd spent the past weeks so meticulously building. Her patience had just about run its course.

"Turn around, Carlen!" Nolty snapped.

When she failed to respond, Jaim nudged her in the back with his knee. With considerable effort, Carlen looked up, but she took special care to keep her gaze from drifting over in Nolty's direction.

Wilma retained consciousness throughout Dalroy's ministrations. She even remained conscious while Kick dislocated six of her fingers. She was still conscious by the time he got hard again and decided her mouth looked appealing. She was wide awake as he pulled back her head, stuck both hands in her mouth and forced her jaw open with a nauseating crunch. Her scream was stifled as he thrust himself into her throat.

Carlen turned away again to vomit. She heaved and heaved with no result. The odor of her previous leavings rose up sickly, making her dizzy. She gave in to it. A blackout would have been the perfect convenience right then.

As luck would have it, her head cleared a moment later and she felt compelled to sit up, away from the rancid stench of the food she'd lost earlier. The dry retching was just too much.

Her eyes were cloudy with tears of exertion as she picked up on the scene. Kick had apparently finished his oral assault and was standing by, waiting. Wilma was coughing. Dalroy was coming across, carrying something. Carlen blinked the tears away and saw it was the iron stand.

Wilma's eyes had gone dead. Her dislocated jaw gaped slackly, giving her face the look of a dead fish. Her breathing was very shallow.

Surely they must stop now, Carlen thought. Surely they had done enough. But, no. Not quite.

Dalroy set the iron stand down near the head of The Block. Kick was turning an iron in the flame.

"You like fire, darlin'?" he asked, now completely becalmed, almost understated.

Wilma stared on.

"A little worn, are we?" he teased. "Ah well, not to worry. Not long to go now."

He pulled the iron from the fire and held it up to Wilma's face. Still no reaction. He moved it closer, closer, until finally she could feel the radiated heat on her skin. Then she reacted alright.

She snapped cleanly out of her torpor into a blind, crazed terror. The screams of fear were different to the screams of pain and, to Carlen, they were harder to withstand. Carlen's skin prickled madly with salty sweat. She felt the blood desert her head in a furious rush and there was a high pitched buzzing in her ears.

As Kick slowly pressed the iron to the tender flesh under Wilma's arm, Carlen held her breath against the smell of burning flesh - the odor she had noticed but not been able to identify when she first came in.

Wilma's aria hit another crescendo, the positioning of her jaw lending its own weird contortion to the hideous sound.

Without warning, Carlen abruptly dropped forward, burying her face between her knees. Not two seconds later Nolty's voice cut across to her.

"Get up, Carlen!"

Carlen didn't move.

"I said get up!"

Carlen sat tight until Jaim reached over and wrenched her upright up the hair. It was the cruelest thing he'd ever done to her. Her eyes burned, and her lungs sucked air in convulsive gasps, like a child recovering from a violent tantrum.

Jaim kept grip on her hair, directing her attention back to The Block, where Kick stood, holding an iron which was about the dimensions of a walking cane. In fact, he was leaning on it as if it were one.

Carlen counted fifteen or so small burns down along Wilma's rib cage. The girl was sobbing continuously now, intermittently yelping and flinching from invisible terrors.

"I think she's about had it," Kick observed.

Dalroy was nodding in agreement.

"Hey, Gov. You want this one left alive?" Kick called over to Nolty.

Nolty kept his full attention on Carlen. "No. Finish it."

Carlen watched in horror as Kick lifted the end of the large iron into to the fire. She tried to divert away from the vision, but Jaim held her tightly trained on the final act of the drama.

Taking his sweet time, Kick unhurriedly checked and rechecked the tip of the iron for precisely the desired result. When he was satisfied, he walked, the long way around, to the foot of The Block. Dalroy followed anxiously and reached for the iron.

"Let me do it," she insisted with almost childish earnestness.

Kick turned the heated end of the iron on her with smooth malevolence. "Mind your manners, shortarse."

Dalroy backed off a step, her face a mixture of anger and doubt. With the two of them now standing so close to this end of The Block, it only involved a small flick of the eyes for Carlen to sneak a glance at Nolty. There was a strange look in his eyes.

"Let her do it," he said.

Kick poked again at Dalroy and laughed. "Here you are, little demon," he said, turning the handle of the iron to her. Dalroy stepped in cautiously and took it from him.

A terrible, shuddering tremor started up in Carlen as Dalroy took her position behind Wilma. Deep down inside she knew what was going to happen. She tried to prepare for it, but she could not suppress the primordial shout of outrage that wailed up in her throat as Dalroy brought home to her the ultimate depths of their sadism.

When Carlen's unexpected protest died, trailing Wilma's cry by seconds, she blinked into the sudden silence. Everything was still. Her throat was excessively dry.

She looked over at Wilma's form, wide-eyed and silent, draped inertly over The Block. Dead. Poor Wilma.

They made you mad

They made you cry

They made you die

Not one thing had they asked her.

Not one thing could she have told them.

* * *

Once safely delivered back to the Quiet Room, Carlen made straight for the corner and curled onto the bedding. She sat there very still while Jaim knelt down, unfastened her manacles and reattached them, incorporating the foot long chain at the front. Since she had sustained no corporal punishment herself, he forewent any formal examination.

"Do you want a cigarette?" he asked.

"This your bad-guy/good-guy routine?" Carlen mocked with chilling sarcasm.

Jaim ignored it. "Do you want a cigarette?"

For a moment it seemed she wouldn't reply.

"Certainly I do."

The first hungry drag she took made her head swim. Jaim tossed the cigarettes on the table, pulled out the chair and sat down.

"You're tiring," he said after a brief silence.

A satirical chuckle sounded in Carlen's throat. "I am, am I?"

"Nolty knows you haven't given it up. He's going to keep on until you do."

"Well, I can-" Carlen began when a fearful tremor broke her voice.

"What?" Jaim asked.

"Use a cup of water."

She suddenly felt faint.

Jaim allowed the evasion and fetched the water. Four cupfuls.

"You'd better rest," he said, before leaving her alone in the darkness.

Carlen took no sleep at all that period. She didn't dare close her eyes. She lay, tightly curled, keeping silent vigil over the terrors of the dark and listened to Wilma's cries, the echoes of which she could not banish from her mind.

CHAPTER 20 \- QUESTIONS AND LIES

Nolty was pleased to note that Carlen was red-eyed and subdued at the commencement of the next meeting. He glanced expectantly at Jaim as he brought Carlen in, but his brow darkened in response to the subtle negation in the turn of Jaim's head.

Carlen missed the exchange, going to her place without being told. She knelt down, hands composed in her lap, back straight, head up, eyes downcast. The absolute picture of servile serenity. At least, outwardly.

There was a half-hearted attempt to get the session rolling but the group energy was way down. Everyone was snapping and boorish and Carlen's replies fell into patterned monosyllables as if she didn't care or have to think about what she answered.

Carlen, who had entered in a state of perfect dread, was a little perplexed by the lack of attack - and the yawning. She saw nothing peculiar in the fact that she felt like walking death, but the others seemed somewhat overtaxed also.

It had been daylight in the Cold Room. They had spent pretty much the whole day there, Carlen was sure. Was it possible that this was actually the same night? That they, like her, were operating on limited or no rest? It would certainly tie in with her theory about the spiraling effect of the schedule.

If they were tired it could be a good sign. Maybe their questioning would not be as astute. Carlen knew her answers certainly wouldn't be and, in consideration of what she had learned about these people, she was in no way anxious to resume the chore of effectively weaving falsehood into truth. Her mind felt like a bag of ball bearings perched on a hilltop, only someone had slit the bag and the balls were spilling out and accelerating away down the hill. She couldn't reach fast enough or far enough to catch them. She was running out of answers.

Nothing was developing. Nothing at all. Nolty carefully concealed his growing irritation. He withdrew himself from the situation, assuming the pose of a casual observer. He watched in stony silence as the session deteriorated and did nothing.

Kick had taken most of the initiative, questioning Carlen on specific dates, a technique they utilized to gauge the subject's state of mind. The girl was all over the map. No mistake there. Now her head was bowed, her eyes shut. She didn't look altogether stable.

"What's your answer, Carlen?" Kick asked.

When she failed to respond, he leaned a little closer to her. "What's wrong Carlen? ...What's wrong with you? Oi!"

"I'm tired," Carlen murmured.

"What?"

"I've had no sleep."

"No sleep! You're just off your break, girl!"

"I've had nothing to eat."

"What did you say?"

"I haven't eaten properly in three days!"

"How long?"

"Three days."

"Are you sure?" Dalroy asked, suddenly smiling.

"What?"

"Sure it's been three days?" Dalroy intoned succinctly.

Carlen wasn't sure at all and it was obvious.

"I thought it might be a little quiet this evening," Kick said, rising from his chair. He crossed to the kitchen and picked up a wooden bowl off the counter. "Got something here could interest it." He resumed his seat, chewing loudly enough for Carlen to hear. "You like cheddar, Carlen?" he teased. "Reminds me of home." He leaned forward and held the bowl under Carlen's face. "You like grapes?"

Carlen closed her eyes again.

He sat back, popping another piece of cheese in his mouth. "Why don't you tell me a story and, if I like it, I'll give you something to eat."

"What kind of story?" Carlen asked with a sigh.

"The details of your arrest," Kick stipulated.

Carlen raised her head. It was worth a try.

"I was traveling with a partner-"

"You told us you always traveled alone," Jaim cut in.

"This was a rare case. It was a big shipment. I had a partner."

"What happened?" Kick asked.

"He gave the wrong name at customs," Carlen said.

There was an expectant silence.

"We were both tired. He gave the wrong bloody name and they took us both. Trafficking, illegal entry, false names, passports, the lot."

After a pause, Kick slid his rump to the back of his chair. He placed the bowl on the narrow ledge of the seat between his legs.

"Come on, then," he said.

Carlen started to her feet.

"No. On your knees."

Carlen crawled over.

"Closer," he encouraged.

Carlen inched forward to a position between Kick's feet. She didn't want them to see her look into the bowl but, in the leaden silence, it seemed the safest thing to do.

"Doesn't want to answer questions, does it?" Kick said, crossing his arms.

Carlen stuck with the food, although the sight of the fresh green grapes and block cheddar cheese activated every digestive juice in her emptied system.

"But food appeals!" He laughed. "Alright. Come and get it, then," he invited.

Carlen reached up with her hands.

"No!"

Carlen recoiled.

He smiled. "With your mouth, darlin'."

Carlen decided it was worth a go. If she could only get one of those grapes in her mouth... Very slowly, she eased forward, keeping her eye on Kick for as long as possible before dropping her gaze into the bowl. The grapes were a lot closer. There were droplets of water on them from being freshly washed. Closer. Another few inches and she'd have one in her mouth. An instant after that, she'd feel it split on her tongue, its beautiful juices dancing with her taste buds. Just one more inch and she'd be able to dive for it, before he could pull it away! Slowly...

As she thought this, Kick jerked his pelvis forward and the bowl collided with the floor.

"Now look what you done!" he scolded.

Carlen recovered her surprise, spotted the food on the floor and, without a second thought, she went for it. There were two grapes and a piece of cheese in her mouth before Kick could think to react.

He landed on her hard, wrenched her mouth open and never relented until he had retrieved every last morsel. Carlen was left with hardly a taste in her mouth.

He pulled her to her knees by the collar, talking straight into her face. "Now you're beginning to try my patience."

Patience, shit! Carlen thought. He was angrier than hell and trying to hide it.

"I'm going to hear you say you're sorry for what you done."

Carlen's mouth compressed in unmistakable defiance.

Kick jerked at the collar. "You say it!"

"I'm sorry."

"Now drop that food you got in your hands."

Carlen obeyed.

"Now you keep your hands off that food unless I tell you different. Eating off the floor! That's disgusting, isn't it?" He shook her.

"Yes."

"Now. You're going to pick up every bit of that food and get it all back in that bowl. Got it?"

Carlen nodded.

"One piece goes near your mouth and you'll be wearing my fist internally. Got it?"

Carlen nodded.

"Pick it up!"

Carlen jumped into action. The adrenalin jolt had renewed her energy. Kick resumed his seat as Carlen collected up the food then knelt, quietly, the bowl resting on her thighs.

"Now you don't deserve that food, do you?"

Carlen shook her head.

"Speak up!"

"No," Carlen murmured.

"No. You haven't earned it, have you?"

"No."

"No. I'm going to tell you, I don't like one thing you've told us tonight. I don't believe one word of it. I think you're a liar."

"I never lied," Carlen said.

He sat forward. "Come again?"

Carlen sighed. "Alright. I lied."

"What about?"

"The story was true, only it's not how I was arrested."

"Oh. And you're sorry about that now, are you?"

"...Yes."

"Give us up the bowl."

Carlen handed the bowl over.

"Now talk," he said, popping a grape into his mouth.

Carlen took a moment to get her thoughts together.

"I told you I had no permanent residence. That wasn't true. I shared an apartment with another courier-"

"A man?" Kick asked.

"Yes," Carlen replied, thrown by the interruption.

"Was he your lover?"

"What the fuck? Oh... yes, damn it! He was my lover! We fucked fifty-five times a day and had twelve mutant children together!"

"That's enough," Nolty cut in tightly.

"Why don't you control your animal, zookeeper!" Carlen snapped.

Nolty's slap sent her careening into Dalroy's chair.

"What's the rest of it?" he demanded.

Carlen pulled herself up resentfully. She'd got her reaction, but not quite the one she'd expected.

"He was a courier," she began again. "Same as me. He... a... he told me there was a new runner in town. Some smart-arse, kicked off the west coast, who was after his routes. Well, I guess this guy figured removal was the smoothest course into Wayler's position, so he set him up. Only, I got taken."

"Why?" Kick asked.

"Small detail of the wrong place at the wrong time."

"What happened to Wayler?"

"I don't know what happened to Wayler; or if the organization was at the back of it, or even if it was me the target all along-"

"Why do you say that?" Nolty interrupted.

Oh-oh. Another slip. Another circle. Another round. Carlen groaned. She would have to learn not to mistake his detachment for disinterest.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't bloody well know."

"You want to try it again?" he invited.

NO! she wanted to scream. She did NOT want to try it again. She was tired. So tired of fighting him. Them. Kick shifted his foot restlessly. Carlen forced herself not to hurry it.

At length, she appeared once again to draw in all her resources. Her eyes gazed off into the middle distance and Nolty thought he saw the twist of a smile.

"Touchstone," she said. "Ever heard of it? Mighty little invention. One of the new synthes. No pills. No powder. No needles. It's a salve. A tactile substance. Like Metholeen? Thumb and forefinger, like so-" Carlen demonstrated. "- on the bridge of your nose. That's all. Nice stuff. Keep you up, but clear. Very clear."

"What happened?"

"The Legion picked me up on some hot line. Took me in. Questions. I had some stuff on me. I told them! I say I had some \- but when they checked my freight, I was carrying four ounce tubes - and when they checked my hotel room they found forty cases of the shit! Can you believe it? Import, export! One would have sufficed. They must had packed that shit wall to wall."

"Who?"

"Who... You remember I told you about how they did Wayler for Hybol? Well, they did me. For Touchstone. Stupid, really..."

Nolty was not in the least surprised to see the first evidence of tears in her eyes. Tears, and that peculiar little smile. She was struggling.

"Who?"

"Some little upstart who wanted my locker cleared out. Slid in from Paris. Got a line on my number."

"How did she do that?"

"Somehow. Investigated me. I don't know. Turned the organization against me. It was a smooth operation. Too polished really."

No one spoke right away. Then Nolty said, "So's your story."

There seemed to be an audible sigh in the room, although no one actually moved or spoke for some minutes.

Carlen grimaced to herself. She knew they could see she was not exactly dotting her "i's" or crossing her "t's". She wondered what in hell they would do about it.

"What did you think of the playroom, Carlen?" Kick asked suddenly.

Carlen held her breath.

"That was a question, turn. I expect an answer."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Carlen said.

"You do know what I'm talking about. You want to end up there?"

Carlen hesitated. "No."

"Like me to take you down there one night?"

"No."

"You want to finish up like your friend?"

"She wasn't - my friend."

"She wasn't-huh? That's right. You haven't got any friends, have you? Only enemies. Mighty unpopular lady. Why is that, Carlen? How come?"

Carlen said nothing. She was ashamed of her easy admission regarding Wilma. It was cowardly.

"Well let me tell you why," Kick harped. "It's 'cause you're shady. You got something to hide."

"I told you-"

"You told us shit! WHY WERE YOU PUT IN HERE?" he shouted into her face.

"I told you," she said, hanging on. "It is possible, isn't it?"

"Possible!" Kick exploded, bouncing up and circling angrily. "Bloody hell, girl, I'll show you what's possible!"

He grabbed Carlen's collar and went for the buttons of his pants. "Your friend really enjoyed this."

"I wouldn't advise that," Jaim interrupted.

Kick glanced up, angry at the interference.

"She's still got all her teeth, you know," Jaim pointed out.

"So? What the hell! I'll break her fucking jaw! She's not going to tell us anything anyway - ain't that right, Nolty?" he said blackly and turned away in disgust.

"Have you missed me?" Carlen murmured as Kick released her. She honestly thought he hadn't heard, but he swung back on her.

"What did you say?" he demanded ferociously. "Missed you? How could sterile change like you possibly be of interest to me?"

"Ah. Just as well, then, isn't it, stud."

"Look! You don't know what's going to happen."

"I've got a prescription for her condition," Dalroy volunteered suddenly.

"Is that the truth?" Carlen shot back.

"I could get all over you," Dalroy said, achingly.

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

There. She'd said it. Now she'd sure as shit find out.

"I'll have your ears for souvenirs!" Dalroy screeched, leaping up to grab Carlen's hair.

"Dalroy!" Nolty interjected. "Take your hands off."

She cut him a look to kill, but, with a very deliberate flick, unfisted her hands and drew them back in a gesture of capitulation. "I've had it with this, Nolty."

"You know the directive," he said evenly. "Either you follow it or you can go back to The Wall. Frankly, Dalroy, I don't think you're quite ready for that."

"She's making fools of us!"

"She's certainly making one of you."

"You heard? You were listening? She just gets by with that?"

"Not exactly."

"Well, what exactly? This is getting us nowhere!"

"Do you really think it's your position to make comment on that?"

"Well, I tell you, I might have had the results by now!"

Nolty came back very cold and quiet. "Anytime you want my job, Dalroy, you just let me know."

Dalroy, who had been losing ground for several exchanges, fell into sulky silence.

"Just remember," he added. "You're the one who made the mistake. Live with it."

Carlen was astonished by the exchange. Pretty dirty linen to be airing in the presence of a turn. Carlen was surprised at Nolty's participation in it. It wasn't really his style - unless it had been deliberate?

Dalroy walked out, but she closed the door very quietly behind her. Nolty gave Kick the nod and sat back. Even Kick seemed discomforted by the scene, but he turned his attention to Carlen and went immediately back to work. With a piece of particularly dirty cheese and a mashed grape poised in his hand under Carlen's nose, he began a new line.

"What's the date of your birthday?"

Nolty resumed his previous silence, leaving Jaim to sweep up whatever information Kick could glean.

He was not happy about the scene with Dalroy. Something would have to be done about her. Still, the situation had been ripe for it. Nothing else he could have done, short of openly dragging her from the room and that, he felt, would have made it worse. As it was, he had blatantly humiliated her in front of Carlen and maybe that would sharpen Dalroy's edge.

He watched Carlen's responses with Kick. She was slow and she was muddled. It was becoming difficult to distinguish between the lies and genuine mistakes now. Overall, the process did appear to be wearing her down - but it was also wearing on the group.

If she hadn't suspected before, the 'hands off' directive concerning Dalroy was now obvious to Carlen and it would work against them. Dalroy was Carlen's personal enemy, one of Nolty's most powerful weapons, but she was stripped of ammunition and the incentive to push for a breakthrough. Her threat was thus severely diminished.

He was further galled by Carlen's subtle, but continuing resistance to himself. Apparently her initiation to the Cold Room had affected little result and he felt sorely cheated. The subservience of her present demeanor with Kick, Nolty decided was only temporary. Her trust of Jaim had run its course and her hatred for Dalroy seemed to strengthen rather than weaken her.

Nolty was satisfied he was the only one who could now affect a final and lasting impression on her. He was the focus of her watchfulness - the secret target of those elusive, intelligent, haunted eyes. By now, she certainly knew he was the center of the group's authority. She no longer seemed to have the drive to push him, personally, although she did try to use him as a balance against the others when the going got rough.

He had to shatter this illusion of him as mediator. She must be cast into doubt about every one of them before they would have the control he sought. There was still too much freedom in her mind. Every story had been too different. She was still too sure of herself. In herself.

He knew all about the rock hard resolution in her, which was now only barely obscured by a thin veil of vacancy. The existence of the Cold Room had dislodged her sense of propriety a few degrees, but the mere sights and sounds of torture were never guaranteed to shatter anyone who had survived the Conflict. Most everyone had been through too much. It was time to consider a new tack.

Nolty favored an approach which involved direct contact and simple, sustained cruelty. He wanted to stimulate in her a sense of futility. Accentuate her feelings of helplessness. Fuel the paranoia he suspected she was straining to control. He needed to drain the last of her physical energy and, more importantly, diminish her self-esteem. He'd put the psyche to work - full commission - to set her against herself.

Time was running out and, as vehemently as Nolty objected to deadlines, he knew he would have to find satisfaction with Carlen's case soon. Quite soon.

"On your feet, Carlen, and grab that railing! I'm going to give it to you good!" Kick was saying, when Nolty interjected so suddenly into the scene that all activity ceased at once.

The grapes and cheese were on the floor again; Carlen was on her knees, poised over the food, and Kick was standing, poised over Carlen - all frozen. Kick was the first to speak, uptight and jazzed.

"That's it?" He was incredulous.

"That's it," Nolty said.

Kick straightened up, flexing angrily. He spotted the upturned bowl on the floor and sent it smashing into the wall with his foot.

"Well you tell me, then. How you going to turn the Master's pet-huh?"

"Shut up, Kick," Nolty snapped.

Kick nodded. "Uh-huh. Well, all I can say is, if she's headed for the Stage, she better bloody well hit rolling!" He stamped out, banging the door so loudly that Carlen jumped.

"You're such a fucking Nazi, Nolty," she murmured.

"There are laws to illusion and reality, Carlen. Don't call me a Nazi."

"What then?" she parried. "You're certainly a candidate for Uncle Knuckle."

"I understand you call me the Keeper," he said.

What was this? Another of Jaim's revelations? Carlen tried to turn away.

"Look at me," Nolty said and Carlen obeyed. "I am your keeper, Carlen. It's a good thing you realize that. What you fail to realize is that you are a changeling. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Carlen nodded slowly. She didn't understand.

"You are going to make the change, Carlen. You will make it because you can. There are several things you can do. First thing - you can forget about getting out of this. You won't, you know. You can also forget about your old life - the old freedoms. It's behind you. You can forget all about who you were, Carlen, because you're not that person anymore and you never will be again.

"You're going to trade all your old ideas for a brand new outlook - like a snake shedding its skin. And, eventually, you will come to recognize your position. You understand?"

Carlen nodded. Oh yes. Clear now, Governor.

Very lightly, he ran his finger down the line of her jaw and Carlen realized with a bolt of sudden clarity just how much she loathed being touched by this man.

"I know you're still lying, Carlen. We all know it."

With that he got up and drew Jaim away from the area. The session appeared to be over.

Carlen released a sigh she didn't know she'd been suppressing. She looked down at her filthy hands, flexed her fingers and - remembered!

With special care, to keep her chains from ringing, Carlen stealthily turned back to the ruined food. She kept half an eye cocked on the men as her fingers worked, nimbly collecting up squashed grapes and morsels of crushed cheese from the floor and stuffing them as quickly as possible into her mouth.

Even though Carlen was not intentionally, or even subconsciously eavesdropping, she did pick up three words of Nolty's instructions to Jaim. What's more, the inflection in his voice when he said them suggested to Carlen that she was meant to hear.

Scared and busy as she was, she hardly paid attention, even to the fact she'd made out any words at all. She'd never heard anything of these secret exchanges before, and not for want of trying. Straining, in fact. But tonight? Tonight was a different animal.

Carlen was frankly relieved the session was over. Not so much because it had obviously gone badly for them, but because she was sorely in need of reprieve herself. Maybe they didn't know how very close they were to splitting her wide apart, but Carlen knew. At least she suspected.

She was all too aware of a system which could no longer digest even sparse amounts of food without pain or nausea. Of hands which shook so incessantly she kept them locked between her thighs during interrogation. Of her bareness which became a greater sensitivity every day due to the cold she so constantly suffered and the job the cement floors were doing on her legs and feet.

Her rage was still intact, but the fear was beginning to break through with a force that made her reactions unpredictable, even to her. She'd very much wanted to know what was going on with Dalroy, but she hadn't really meant to provoke the group the way she did. It was a surprise she got off so easily, although Nolty's speech didn't exactly fill her with inspiration. There was something behind it all, but Carlen was too tired to think about it. The main thing on her mind now was rest - in capital letters.

It wasn't until afterwards that she remembered. Not until later, in the Quiet Room, after the amenities. Such as they were. Toilet. One cup of water. A perfunctory wipe down with a damp cloth, after which the room remained well lit with Jaim there, in the chair, nothing more than patiently present. Watching. Waiting.

He didn't feed her, nor would he allow her to lie down. When she tried to move back to the corner, he forbade it and made her come forward and sit upright at the edge of the bedding. No dialogue was permitted.

It was not until then, as she sat there, dumb and still, that the words she'd overheard spontaneously played back through her mind, in Nolty's voice.

"...Cold Room... hours..."

They played over several times before she even listened to or made sense of the words, then the first question presented itself and Carlen's mind automatically took up the game. Questions. Answers. Speculations. Before she knew it, a terrible tightness was pulling at her insides.

COLD ROOM. HOURS.

What did the words mean? Did they pertain to her? Was it a directive? It became massive in her head. Her mind grabbed hold, manipulating it like a color cube.

COLD ROOM HOURS

Cold Room... for hours?

Office Hours

Coffee Hours

Lunch Hours

After Hours

Her thoughts ran rampant, initiating a dis-ease that was climbing to panic.

There was a small sound in the room. Carlen seized it with all her might to divert and, hopefully, put the smoking skids to her train of thought. She may have giggled, she didn't know, but the train had stopped and Carlen quickly slid in the next tape.

THEY'RE WORKING ON YOU!

A simple statement which she played over and over. In vain she tried to keep her mind on this, but there was a part of her which had already torn away and relinquished itself to abandoned paranoia. It tugged at the edges of her will, forcing her thoughts into unwelcome dialogues.

'Of course they're working on you! What did you expect?'

'But it's working. It's WORKING! They're

going to take me back to the Cold Room!'

Carlen wiped away a bead of sweat streaming down her neck.

'They're working on you and YOU'RE _LETTING_ THEM!'

'But they're going to take me

back there - I KNOW it - and

they're going to... going to...'

Carlen glanced up and, with total concentration, took note of the number of buttons on Jaim's shirt. Their size, their color, whether they had two or four holes in them and whether or not the threads would hold them in place another day or two.

Once her mind was diverted by the collection of this useless data, Carlen went to work on canceling out her feelings of subjectivity. She knew the topic was not closed, nor even detoured indefinitely, but she knew she'd go mad if she didn't at least try to deal with these ideas in a more objective manner.

No. It wasn't possible. They would never take her in there. Not the way they took poor Wilma. If they'd intended to do that, they would have done it long ago. Wouldn't they?

As it was, none of them had ever done anything to Carlen that would cause permanent damage, except, possibly, to her psyche. Wilma's pale hide had been indelibly cut by whips long before she came into the Cold Room. Contrarily, Carlen's cuts and bruises appeared and disappeared. Nothing stayed. Nothing was permanent, nothing but the inner illness.

What then?

'Why worry? Could be somebody else's death knell.'

'OR YOURS - IT COULD BE YOURS.'

Kill her? Would they? Or was death the thing to fear?

Jaim observed as another tear of perspiration assumed the track of the first down Carlen's neck. She didn't appear to have noticed it. She surely wasn't complaining about being cold now.

No. She was wondering how long they'd been sitting there like that. An hour? More? Less?

HOURS

COLD ROOM

Like me to take you down there one night?

How you going to turn the Master's pet?

You know the directive.

Take you down there.

You understand what I'm saying?

We know you're still lying.

You're going to make the change.

Take you down there.

Take you down.

Hit rolling - Better hit _rolling_!!

Carlen jolted out of the maelstrom of her thoughts and lunged across to the can with white-faced urgency. The cheese and grapes reappeared, undigested. Carlen stared at them in stupid despair. The manifest evidence of her grand deception.

She crawled back to her position, looking sheepishly up at Jaim to see if he would get up and check the content of her disposal. He never moved a hair and Carlen thought he probably already knew what was there.

Once again she tried to compose herself, but her thoughts were uncontrollable, as though in the throes of a tantrum. Explosions of aggression, chaos, noise and voices, like a tornado raging through her brain, sweeping up her thoughts and throwing them helter skelter. Carlen tried to take hold of imperative facts as they flew by in the polluted storm. Nothing stuck but one tired thought.

No permanent damage.

That meant something. It was important, but Carlen was too burned out to hang onto it. It swept by, with the rest, until she had fallen into a near trance of submissive confusion.

She jumped in surprise when, two hours later, Jaim leaned over, wrapped the blindfold around her eyes and attached the manacles closely behind her back. The draft in the corridor hit Carlen's skin like an icy blast. It made her want to cry.

The journey was a long one. Carlen was aware only of the cool, hard concrete under the soles of her feet. When Jaim stopped she nearly collided with him. The chain swung momentarily, then a low reverberation of sound moved past Carlen down the passageway. Recognition of the sound sent a shock of terror into her, and Jaim had to move smartly to catch the chain as she recoiled. Pulling quite hard, he urged her forward again, then he seized the manacles and pushed her before him through the opening.

CHAPTER 21 \- PERSONAL TOUCH

The smell of the chamber assaulted Carlen's senses as Jaim pressed her forward. The spilt and mingled excretions of terror and anguish permeated every crevice and every pore of every surface. The Cold Room.

Nolty was waiting for her. Carlen knew it. Tired and hysterical as she felt, she began focusing every shred of her energy into hiding these feelings from him. He would never see just how divorced she felt from any concept of liberation from him or her fear of him.

Jaim pulled her up with unnecessary roughness. Possibly he feared another struggle, but the concern was unnecessary. Carlen stood quietly, to all appearances perfectly composed. The blindfold was taken away and Carlen found herself standing beside The Block which had tasted Wilma's last tears.

They made her mad

They made her cry

They made her die

A shaft of light cut in through the bars from a street lamp in the compound. Four or five candles were placed around the immediate area, lending a cold intimacy to the scene.

Carlen squinted up into Nolty's eyes which seemed to mirror the shadows of the surrounding chamber.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

Scared to die and scared not to, fucker - only you'll never know it, she thought.

"You're the subject tonight, Carlen," he informed her - like it was news!

Carlen couldn't trust herself to speak. She dropped her gaze.

The chain changed hands and Jaim's footsteps moved away. A moment later the door moaned shut and they were alone.

Nolty turned Carlen to face The Block.

"Step up," he invited matter-of-factly.

Carlen stepped onto the small stool at the base of The Block. He pressed her down and secured her with the waist strap. Releasing the link lock between her manacles, he stretched her arms over the sides and secured them.

Lastly, he returned to the back of The Block where he separated her legs and crooked them into position in the hollows at the sides. Carlen experienced a surge of panic as her feet lost contact with the stool. The leather straps felt cold and uncompromising against her legs. She heard Nolty slide the stool away with his foot and she thought she had never in her sweet life heard a more frightening sound.

Then something peculiar happened. Nolty caressed her left thigh. The exact same spot Kick had caressed Wilma and in, what Carlen took to be, the exact same manner. This tiny gesture filled her with inexplicable horror. She could not get over the feeling he had done it deliberately because he knew she'd remember. Then, with no more ceremony or warning than that, he pushed into her.

Carlen groaned. This was the last thing on earth she needed just now. She was tense. So tense, and so utterly affronted by this profane attack. Yet, she knew it would probably be better if she could somehow relax and go with it. Up to this point, Nolty had shown no undue severity toward her. There was nothing to be gained by resisting him, and to expose her shame could only serve in further degrading her.

Carlen held on grimly, wrestling between the faction that thought it wisest to open up and play along, and the faction that wanted to clamp down and shout -

NO! YOU CAN'T DO IT THIS WAY EITHER!

Nolty knew precisely what she was doing every second. He could feel her attempts at relaxation. The tension, which countered it, and the small victories over it.

She was attempting a deliberate surrender. Surrender was good but it was not enough. Deliberate rebellion. Deliberate submission. These were the signs of a mind still actively engaged in the processes of decision making. There must be no decision in this mind. No question. Merely spontaneous response.

He withdrew from her abruptly. Wrapping his hands around her buttocks, he pressed her a little wider with his thumbs. Carlen wrenched forward, about half a centimeter, and held on tightly as he exerted the first pressure against the rear channel.

At first she resisted, furiously, crushed by a wave of profound humiliation, but the pain was so great, she immediately tried to succumb. It was too late. The muscles went into contraction, locking hard against the intrusion.

Nolty did not advance, but he did pause against her sudden cry of pain, before he withdrew to resume with the other passage. He did not move his hands, however, and they rested there as a reminder to Carlen that he would certainly try again.

They played the drama through a total of four times before Nolty could gain acceptable penetration. Each time he paused, listening to her groans of outrage and hostility, waiting to see if she might speak.

He could tell his last approach had pretty much dispelled any notion she may have had of him giving it up. She lay there, panting, praying for the last of the constrictions to give way. Nolty didn't wait, but pushed a little deeper. She cried out.

Nolty caught a whiff of her scent and fought down a sudden urge to ram her. Instead, he nudged her again, just a little. "Does pain stimulate you?" he asked in a curious tone of voice.

Carlen said nothing. She was too scared to move. Too scared to think.

He pulled away again and re-entered the forward passage. Next time the other would be ready. She would allow him in, perhaps painfully, but she would allow it. She'd allow it because she could do nothing else.

At any moment Carlen thought it would end but, of course, it didn't. Although Nolty's precise, almost mechanical rhythm altered very little, the man's control was boundless, his appetite seemingly insatiable. If she became sensitive or irritated, he applied highly effective lubricants. If his personal interest waned temporarily, he used other things.

He carried on silently, steadily, hour upon hour, abusing both channels freely and consistently, never actually hurting her very much, but just pushing further and further against the wall of her endurance. He knew the scenes of her previous experience in this chamber would be preying on her mind. No words now to cloud up the facile operation of that efficient little mechanism. He was perfectly content to let her own imagination do the real intimidating. His part in it was basically physical. An examination of sorts. Just another audit session. At least, this was the way he preferred to approach it.

There were many levels at work here. Some of them were personal. Some of them expressed doubt. There were still some kinks in her attitude that were like bends in a rocky river. Things did not sit right, although he kept watching and listening, searching blindly for some possibly imagined key.

Time was nearly gone and Nolty was driven by the spur of a possibility he may have missed. He did not want to fail in this case, but there was a part of him that believed, in some ways, he already had.

* * *

Carlen could not walk out of the Cold Room when Nolty discharged her just before daybreak. Jaim carried her to the Quiet Room in his arms.

This assault was the worst yet. Her arms and legs were useless, her vagina burned and her backside ached - not so much from the amount of abuse, but from the pain and cramps he'd instigated in the first place.

But what hurt her the most was his cold deliberation; his dispassionate persistence, which was somehow worse than Kick's boyish impatience. At least Kick abandoned himself to the passions of rage and lust. Nolty succumbed to none of this. All his attention had been focused on her and her reactions, and that was the hardest thing of all to take.

Carlen didn't know how she would ever face him again. To look into those eyes and see his knowledge of how he had leveled her.

CHAPTER 22 \- TILT

Carlen needed Jaim's help getting to the next session. She felt like hell. Her head ached, as did her back, arms and legs. The energy was sapped out of her and she couldn't decide from one minute to the next if she was too hot or too cold. Jaim noticed she was highly over-reactive to light and the slightest noise was an irritant. As they walked to the Workroom, Carlen became aware of a thin, watery leakage from her groin - the first sign of an infection taking hold.

For some reason, everyone seemed subdued. Everyone, that is, except Dalroy. There was life in her step as she entered the room and she seemed almost cheerful. Around her neck she wore Carlen's scarf like a banner. She took her seat, biting noisily into a fresh apple.

"How was your night, Carlen?" she asked, almost conversationally.

Kick looked around in surprise and the toe of Nolty's boot tapped to the floor. Carlen stared ahead, pretending not to have heard.

"Don't like that one-huh?"

Dalroy wasn't fussed, but Carlen was unsettled by her apparent knowledge of the previous night. Maybe the girl showed some promise after all.

"Picky this morning, eh change?"

The aromatic apple was tormenting Carlen. Dalroy bit off another chunk, savoring it, apparently oblivious to Carlen.

"Well, then," she said. "Why don't you tell me about your sex life?"

"What! You the only one who's interested?" Carlen retorted, trying to break the ice and spring a reaction from Nolty. Had the line been his idea? He'd seemed surprised.

"How many lovers have you had?" Dalroy asked in a speculative way, drawing Carlen's shiv from her pocket and buttoning it open to slice the rest of her apple.

"Don't know."

"Guess."

"Five."

"Only five! I don't believe it."

"I don't care."

"Were they male or female?"

"Male."

"You prefer men to women?"

"Yes."

"When did you last make love?"

"I don't know." Carlen said with mounting irritation.

"Estimate!"

"Seven months ago."

"Where was that?"

"In Greece."

"When did you lose you virginity?"

"When I was fifteen."

"How many years ago was that?"

"Eleven."

"Who was it?"

"A teacher at my school."

"Where did it happen?"

Carlen did not respond.

"Answer the question," Nolty said.

"At school."

"How did you like it?" Dalroy asked, smiling.

"I didn't like it. It was political." A stupid answer, but it fooled Dalroy and that was what seemed to be important.

"How many men have you had?"

"I already answered that."

"Oh yes. Five. Would that make Nolty number six?"

Nothing from Carlen.

Dalroy chewed thoughtfully on the last slice of apple. "Seven months. That's a long haul between stiffs." She strapped both sides of the blade on her pant leg before sliding the knife away in her pocket. "But maybe you're all caught up now-huh?"

She wiped her face, with a brief look at Carlen, then got up to deposit the apple core in the trash can. She stopped there long enough to light up the foulest cigar Carlen had ever smelt. A revolting item she'd dug up somewhere. It had a plastic mouthpiece.

Coarse. Deliberate. Vicious.

Carlen's stomach heaved emptily. The side of Dalroy Carlen liked the least was surfacing and, frankly, she didn't feel up for it.

"Won't talk to me?"

Carlen shifted restlessly.

Dalroy flicked her beady, rat-like eyes on Carlen and Carlen saw two things. First: all the fun had gone out, and Second: Dalroy was finally coming in for blood. She moved smoothly over to her chair.

"Come on, change, talk to me. Tell me about last night."

"What are you talking about?" Kick interjected.

"Carlen had a private little session with Nolty last night. Right, Carlen?"

If Carlen thought her stomach had anything at all to offer, she would have offered it then - all over Dalroy's proud boots. Instead, she waited until Dalroy's foot came up and caught her in the ribs.

"Right?"

"Yeah," Carlen admitted with a grunt. "That's right."

"What did he do to you, Carlen? You seem kind of quiet this morning."

Silence

"Did he hurt you?"

Silence.

"What's the matter, turn? Don't like taking it up the ass? Can't handle all that good male love you been hanging it out about? Or was it just a 'political fuck'?" She laughed nastily. "To win favor. You beginning to see how the game is played, change? Come on. Why don't you tell me?"

Carlen tried to relax her hands which kept curling into fists.

"They've all screwed you now, haven't they? You must have a preference. Who is it? Is it Jaim? Gentle Jaim."

Carlen suddenly realized Dalroy did not care for Jaim one bit.

"Nolty?" His name was a gun shot on her breath.

Dalroy paused, watching the flexes of Carlen's hands.

"It's Kick, isn't it?" she said, stealthily. "Tears you every time, doesn't he?"

"Kick couldn't stiff a chimpanzee," Carlen remarked caustically.

"Oooo! You'd be hard pressed to find one!"

"But a Black man's not hard to find, is it?" Kick interjected suddenly, his mood evidently changed. "You ever pulled a Black man, Carlen?"

"Hold on!" Dalroy exclaimed, to no one in particular.

Something in her tone made Carlen look up.

"What about it, Carlen?" she baited.

"What fucking difference does it make?" Carlen snapped.

Kick drew in very close. "My God," he said. "You really are a slag, aren't you?"

Carlen was a little shocked to see how deeply this issue affected him. "Your God, my arse!" she flashed. "What the fuck are you? Corkblack? Black face midnight raider? Fucking Angloid! Purity of the race! God save the Crown and Mother England!"

"Fuck the Crown," he said.

"That's what I thought," Carlen said. "You're a real prize."

"Well shake my stick!" Dalroy whooped.

"You never had any fucking stick," Carlen snapped at her.

Kick sprang from his chair and circled angrily round behind it before he swung back on Carlen. One finger uncoiled from his fist and leveled itself at her. "This bitch needs some head work," he said with hideous containment.

Nolty made a quick assessment of the situation. "Go ahead," he concurred with an air of indifference.

Just that fast Carlen saw her mistake.

Kick approached her like a prize fighter entering the ring to face an opponent. He snatched the chain, very near to the collar, and jerked Carlen up straighter. The spark in her eyes was all the impetus he needed. He landed her one terrific slap in the face and, every time she righted her head, he dealt another.

After twenty or so blows, he pulled her to her feet and dragged her back between the beds. With a savage grin, he swung her, full force, into the wall. He did this a succession of times, hoisting her to her feet before each cast, should her legs begin to buckle.

By the time he was satisfied with this, Carlen's face already showed signs of abrasion and swelling. Obvious to all, she was shaken.

He pulled her up one last time to regard his handiwork, then shoved her roughly on the bed. He began to loosen his pants and, through the haze, Carlen could see he meant to conclude the lesson with rape. Carlen looked around quickly. Tried to focus six floating Noltys into one entity she could make her plea to.

As it happened, Nolty was not even watching. His attention seemed to be fixed on the cigarette he was lighting. The first she'd ever seen him take. The odor of it aroused a frantic urge in Carlen to halt the proceedings in any way possible. The wall was coming up - top speed. She was dangerously close to giving way.

Ignored, injured, she turned to Jaim, who did happen to be watching, but his detachment was as impenetrable as Nolty's. Short of any measure necessary to prevent her leaving the room, Jaim was very far indeed from taking any action - on anyone's behalf.

Dalroy, on the other hand, was keenly involved. She seemed to be the only one having a good time. That is, besides Kick. He was in full swing.

There was no other choice.

"Nolty!"

She could see him better now, but the only thing actually clearer was his utter detachment.

"Please," she whispered.

There was the slightest tweak in his vibration. Carlen was sure of it. Even Kick had ceased all movement.

"Please?" Nolty mimicked in a tone that sent an electric shock through Carlen.

"Don't let him do this," she said, as evenly as she could.

Although Carlen didn't know it, Nolty was churning inside. At last, he thought, the cracks are beginning to show.

Except for one impatient shuffle by Kick, there was stillness. Finally, Nolty tipped his chair back against the wall at the foot of the bed and took a drag on the cigarette, a feigned look of disinterest on his face.

It was signal enough for Kick. His energy coursed up and he threw himself on Carlen like a dying man into the fountain of youth. Carlen reacted with every ounce of fight left in her, but there was no defense against Kick's brute strength.

He attached the chain of her manacles to the bar at the head of the bed to keep her arms contained, then reached down and grabbed her buttocks. He hoisted her pelvis up over his knees and, with a charnel cry, stabbed into her with all his force.

Carlen had put up a decent struggle, but her legs were utterly ruined after hugging The Block all night. She hadn't realized how much she had spent, and she hadn't quite realized how well Nolty had set her up for this. The instant of Kick's brutal penetration Carlen went rigid, a howl bursting out of her with the suddenness of a popping balloon.

Nolty actually smiled. The cries were still angry. True. Very angry, but it was now an angry desperation. Each one, in its way, a cry for mercy. At last. She was hurt.

Considering Kick's output in the Cold Room the previous day, it was no surprise to anyone it took him a while to complete the act. Every second of it was an eternity in hell to Carlen and everyone in the room knew it.

When at last it was over, Kick left her abruptly, off-handedly loosening her manacles from the bed rail before taking his seat. Carlen pulled her arms down with a groan and waited for the trembling in her legs to stop. It took all the willpower she had not to grab her burning groin.

"Get back in the circle," Nolty ordered coldly, resettling his chair.

Carlen managed to get her feet to the floor and stand up. No one moved to help her.

She made it to the edge of the circle but, unwilling as she was to make use of either Kick's or Nolty's chair, she tried to kneel without the aid of support. Her legs quaked halfway and she fell the rest of the distance. As gracefully as she could, she sat up and composed her hands in her lap.

"I want to hear about your crime," Nolty said.

"I already told you about that."

"Yes, but what you told us wasn't the truth, was it?"

Carlen was silent.

"Was it!"

"No."

"What's the story?"

Carlen tried to pull her thoughts into order. The slick moisture of Kick's deposit slid over her foot.

"It had to do with another courier," she began.

"It always does," Kick said with contempt.

Carlen licked her lips. She needed a drink. She needed something.

"Well it did!" she began, then broke off. The color suddenly drained from her face and she turned deathly gray. She lurched slightly. "Toilet," she whispered.

No one responded.

With more desperation, Carlen pushed the word out again.

"Toilet!"

Jaim leaned over with a sigh, picked up the chain and took Carlen to the toilet.

The sickness was rising like a panic and she hardly knew at first which end to put down. Quickly, she decided to sit, although she leaned over, her buzzing head tucked between her knees. Jaim didn't pressure her.

Minutes passed and Carlen sat, hands gripping her shins, trying to quell the writhing nausea. Dalroy's laughter carried in from the outside room.

"Having problems, Carlen?"

Carlen hung there, grimly clinging to consciousness as her body finally relinquished the stresses of the previous night and gave way to a diarrhetic release. The result hardly compared to the build up, but it was sufficient, and the numbness in her face gradually subsided.

Twenty minutes had elapsed by the time Carlen emerged from the tiny cubicle. Jaim took her to the sink, splashed her face with water, then took her back to the circle.

Nobody said anything for a minute. Nolty's toe tapped to the floor. "I'm waiting," he said.

Carlen sighed deeply. "I don't know what this has got to do with anything. I don't know what you're after."

"Just tell me the story," he said. "Don't leave anything out."

Carlen sighed again. "There was a guy. A courier, like me. He was pilfering on consignments. Stealing stuff, stretching expenses and taking payment for non-deliveries, things like that. The organization was on to him. They decided to set him up, make an example for the rest of us. They wanted me to be a part of the set up. I didn't want to place my position in jeopardy, so I agreed, only, I was the one who got the chop."

"Why?"

"Who knows? I mean, who the fuck knows with these people?"

"You'd had a prolonged association with this organization. Don't tell me you wouldn't know if you'd fallen from grace."

Carlen sighed. "I assumed they were after him. Straight up."

"What happened?"

Carlen began a long, convoluted tale full of intrigue and betrayal. It was a story she'd thought up for just such an occasion, but she was more than a little fazed and the details were sketchy and muddled in her brain. This was not going well, she thought.

Before she could conclude, Kick jumped to his feet with a surge of fury. "Hell, Nolty, she's right! What the hell are you after? Her story's rubbish and you know it! Get the beast in line or WASTE it!"

Nolty didn't say a word. He was perfectly still, watching, listening, auditing. If he felt the pressure, nobody saw it.

Kick lapsed back in disgust. His knee brushed Carlen's side roughly as he passed and she let go, for just an instant, and looked up to catch Nolty's reaction. He was trained on her, and his air of composure did not keep Carlen from picking up the current of his will. It was like a physical touch.

"Do you want to go another round with Kick?"

He proposed it like a two dollar bet.

"Why don't you do it yourself?" Carlen said.

"Is that what you want?"

"No," she said tightly. "I want all this to stop."

"Nobody cares what you want," Kick said flatly.

"I can't take this any longer."

"Yes you can," Nolty assured her.

"Well, I won't answer any more questions."

"You will."

Carlen was shaking her head.

"Alright," Nolty said. "Kick - take her."

Kick was ready. He seized Carlen under the arms and started to pull her to her feet.

"No!" Carlen shouted, dropping to dead weight. "NO!"

Nolty gave a nod and Kick dumped Carlen on the floor. She fell to her knees, her head in her hands.

"I don't know what the hell you want!" she cried angrily. "I don't know anything about the Women's Sector, I don't know anything about the city, I can't tell you anything about anything!"

"Except the details of your arrest," Nolty said pragmatically.

There was a pause.

"Are you going to tell us?"

Carlen was unresponsive.

"Sit up!" he ordered.

Carlen pushed herself up on quaking arms.

"Are you going to tell us?" Nolty repeated.

Carlen's shoulders were sagged. Her eyes had a glazed look. Nolty bit back the idea of a concussion.

"Carlen!"

"What?"

"Start talking."

She was a little slow on the up-take, so Jaim prodded her with a walking cane he'd found in some dark corner. "Sit up."

"Talk to me, Carlen!" Nolty barked.

"What the hell do you want from me?"

"The truth. That's all."

Carlen started to laugh.

Jaim jabbed her again. "Sit up!"

Carlen's head lolled over and the laughter sucked itself back. She shot Jaim a malevolent look and turned to Nolty with a sardonic smile. "What's the matter, Nolty? Don't you get it?"

The silence hung.

"I lost it! It wasn't drugs. It wasn't sabotage. It was me."

Nolty looked at her thoughtfully and finally leaned back in his chair. Very quietly he said, "Tell me what happened."

"They asked me to go to Tokyo. I refused to go."

"Had you been there before?"

"Yes," she said, proudly, he thought. "Seventeen times exactly." She laughed gruffly. "It's a hell of a place."

"Why did you refuse the consignment?"

"I... was afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Tokyo."

Jaim and Nolty exchanged glances. Dalroy stood apart, tensely looking on, smoking like a trooper. Kick was taking a piss.

"What made you afraid?"

Jaim had to prod her again with the cane.

"Why were you afraid of Tokyo?" Nolty pressed.

"I was afraid it would consume the last of my identity..." Her voice had faded to a whisper.

Nolty reached into his pocket and offered her a cigarette. When she failed to respond, he lit one up and placed it between her lips. The smoke enlivened her enough to take a couple of convulsive drags. Eventually, a very shaky hand rose up slowly and latched onto it.

Her gaze was still somewhere in the never-never between the legs of the chairs. He didn't have to press her further.

"I never wanted to go there in the first place. Somehow I knew it wouldn't be good for me. But it sort of pulls you in. You just hustle like crazy. And when you get out, you say to yourself, 'Fuck! I got out!' - and you feel that way every time... so you go back."

The cigarette ash grazed her thigh as it dropped to the floor. Carlen paid no attention to it.

"Tell me the rest," Nolty prompted.

"There is no rest. That's it. I couldn't go. I'd had it. Next time they sent me out with no shadow at my back. The Legion stopped me and there was no decoy. No protection.

"No glamour. No fanfare. No publicity. Retirement."

The cigarette dropped from her fingers, hitting the floor near enough to burn her leg. She didn't move. Jaim leaned over and retrieved it.

Nolty rubbed his eyes. It had been a long couple of days and he was ready to call a halt. She was about as close to the truth as she was going to get without what he liked to think of as a Full Work Up. However much she had twisted her story, certain facts kept reoccurring and thus became the truth. She certainly had been a courier. She had the polish. She was not a Veteran. Probably non-racist. Pacifist or activist, he couldn't tell, but she seemed to have no ax to grind - and she was tired.

He was exhausted himself, in the way these sessions always exhausted him. There was a world of creation in this woman and, although it was not his privilege to shatter it, the mere thought of it made him weary. In some way, she flattened the charge.

The question was, was it time to let her go? Was she ready? Had they accomplished anything? What should his recommendations be? Was he worrying unnecessarily? Was the situation as bad as he imagined? Was he too personally involved?

He shook his head. In any event, she would have to pass the Whipmaster's examination and, if Nolty's instincts about where she was headed were accurate, he knew there were good odds she'd be broken alright, and most probably insane by the year's end.

He knew Carlen had done virtually nothing to bring about this fate except, perhaps, the forgivable lapse of an individual caught in the wrong place in these worst of times. Naturally, he would never consider any action that would jeopardize his position in order to improve or alter Carlen's lot.

"Sit up, Carlen," he said.

Carlen pulled herself up wearily, to all appearances, half asleep already.

"Why did you lie about this before?"

There was a long pause, then her voice came dimly.

"I thought it was expected."

CHAPTER 23 \- INTERLUDE

When at last they scraped back their chairs and departed, Jaim helped Carlen to her feet. Her legs buckled under like rubber, so he caught her under the arms and hoisted her over his shoulder rescue style.

She could hardly sit up as he cleaned her and checked her over. She refused the food he offered so he put her straight to bed.

Carlen slept soundly for several hours. When she awakened, Jaim was right on hand with an ample serving of food. Carlen was grateful for his solicitude, but she was confused by the fact that he did not turn on the light, as he normally did. The room seemed strange and eerie in the light cast by the single kerosene lamp standing on the table.

She listlessly poked about in the bowl. The food was good and fresh and, although Carlen could appreciate this, nothing there appealed to her.

"I can't eat this," she said.

"I thought you were hungry," Jaim said, his tone tinged with concern.

"I am," Carlen said, "but... I think I'm almost beyond it."

"You have to eat," he told her.

"I know. I just can't eat this."

Jaim considered threatening her but decided against it. Her digestive abilities had been deteriorating for some time. Maybe he could find something more suitable.

By the time he returned, Carlen had already dropped off to sleep again. He placed the lamp on the table, knelt on the edge of the bedding and gently shook her.

Carlen came to like a sleepy child. "Time to go?" She seemed disorientated.

"Sit up. Time to eat."

She pushed herself up weakly and opened her mouth to accept the spoonful of chicken broth Jaim proffered. The soup scaled her tongue and she recoiled.

"Too hot! Too hot!"

"Okay. Okay. I'm sorry," he said, cooling each successive spoonful by blowing on it.

Carlen took only six mouthfuls of the broth before raising a hand in refusal.

"You have to eat more than that," he chided, but gently, aware that she was still only half conscious. "I've got something here. You like bananas?"

Carlen was unresponsive, so he peeled the skin back and held the fruit up to her mouth. Carlen lapped at her lips, tasting the sweetness but turned her head away, like an infant signaling it has had enough.

"I don't want to force feed you," he said.

"I don't want it," she said, despondently.

Jaim rocked back on his heels in exasperation, suddenly concerned that the high potency nutritional powders he'd supplemented her food with had not been sufficient to sustain her through the stresses of the past four weeks. She'd seemed so strong, yet now she appeared as fragile as glass.

"Well, I don't have anything else but this," he said.

"What is it?" she asked disinterestedly.

Jaim picked up the glass sitting beside the leftover broth. "Milk," he said, not really expecting a reaction.

Carlen's head came up with a snap and her eyes focused at last. The chain between her manacles rang as she reached out. "Give it to me," she said with a determination that surprised him.

She grasped the glass in both hands and swallowed down every drop without a pause. Jaim took the empty glass and wiped away her milk mustache with a little smile. He was tremendously relieved. Next time, he decided, he would mash the banana together with the milk. He was determined this girl would not slide away.

Over the course of the next few days Jaim managed to get Carlen back on solid foods which, in turn, stimulated her processes of elimination. By no means had she regained her former state of health but she was much improved, at least physically.

She slept, wakened, peed, ate, and slept. She dreamed. Profusely

CHAPTER 24 \- TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES

Carlen started out of a deep slumber, instinctively roused by the sound of Jaim's step in the doorway. As he entered, lantern in hand, something told Carlen this was not just another feeding session. The appearance of Nolty behind him confirmed it.

She sat up quickly and drew back to the corner when Nolty reached for the manacles. Rigid with the effort, Carlen resisted furiously as they pulled her to her feet. The scene was becoming a battle royal when Nolty suddenly took command of the situation.

"Loop the chain through the ring!"

Leaving Carlen to Nolty, Jaim crossed to the wall, already breathless from the altercation.

"Take up the slack. That's it - so I can get her back."

The collar yanked at Carlen's neck, compelling her to move. Nolty gripped her wrists and moved with her, pushing. Carlen's back hit the wall.

"Hook it!" Nolty barked. "Good! Now help me!"

Jaim laid hands on.

"Arms up. Turn her... Hold her... hold her..."

Nolty raised his keys to the manacles and, after a brief struggle, managed to release the linklocks.

"Right!"

A man on each side, they wrenched Carlen's arms down and back where Nolty quickly secured the bracelets together on a single link. The men stepped back with sighs. Carlen hung, face to the wall, the collar straining at her neck, helpless.

"Jesus!" Jaim muttered.

"You told me she was subdued."

"She was. I wouldn't have predicted this. Do you think we should sedate her?"

"No. We can't do that. We'll have to manage."

"Do you think she's up to it?"

"I think she's perfect," Nolty said.

Carlen was struck by an odd sense of dissociation. The men's voices seemed to come from a long way off, like strangers, talking about someone she did not know.

She'd been walking in the dream world for what seemed like a long time. This crashing in of reality was like a dream itself.

"Turn on the light," Nolty said.

A moment later the room was awash in yellow light. Carlen cringed into the wall, blinking. Nolty stepped in close, gripped her jaw and pulled her face around.

"Carlen. Do you know who I am?"

"Yes," she breathed.

"Who am I?"

"...the Keeper."

Nolty nodded. "You're coming for a walk."

She tried to jerk back. His grip tightened.

"All the fighting in the world won't help you now, changeling. You've come to term."

They blindfolded her.

Carlen fought them all the way. By journey's end, they had jerked the manacles so far up she thought her shoulders would dislocate. Her head was pulled back so far the collar was gagging her. Still she kicked.

How wild it was, coming awake to find this mad-woman in possession of her body, fighting Jaim and Nolty with aimless fury. She wanted to stop the tantrum but she could not put the paranoia down. It rippled through her like a euphoric drug, her body fatigued and energized at once, as though with some kind of seizure.

"What's this?" Kick asked, as they brought Carlen to a standstill.

"Just give us a hand," Nolty barked.

"Certainly!"

A third pair of hands yanked her ankles into the air from behind, tipping her forward. Three pairs of boots thumped against wooden surfaces as they carried her up some stairs then dropped her on her stomach. There was a softness under her. Furs?

As Nolty and Jaim unlocked the manacles, Kick stepped astride and dropped into a squat on her back, half winding her. Carlen's battling ceased for a moment as she strained to catch her breath.

"Hey! Alright, you fuckers! You don't have to kill me!"

"That's right, darlin'," Kick said in an odd voice. "We don't."

Someone was pulling at her legs. Lifting her feet, separating them. Someone else was pulling her arms, fastening her manacles to something. The pressure of all three exertions was tremendous.

When all hands lifted off, Kick got up and Carlen was able to catch a gulp of air and assess her predicament. She had no freedom of movement what-so-ever. Her wrists were attached by chain to some fixture in the blackness beyond her head and, unbelievably, it seemed her ankles had been vised into stocks. Carlen tried to move her feet, but even they had been secured in place, flexed and held against the vertical surface of the stocks by a leather strap across the ball of each foot.

Archaic? True. Effective? Absolutely.

Carlen honestly expected something spectacular to occur. All this show of force, the contrived discomfort, something big had to be up.

It was crazy enough to be a dream. Anything and everything happened in dreams and, even though she knew damned well it was a whitewash she was laying on herself, she was almost convinced it was a dream until she heard Nolty's first question.

"What is your name?"

Carlen gaped in amazement. "What the fuck, Nolty! If you don't know the answer to that by now!"

"Tell me," another voice charged. Not entirely unfamiliar. It was Him. The Whipmaster. He was sitting right next to her head.

Carlen sagged with a sigh.

"They already have all this stuff," she articulated with forced forbearance.

"Tell me."

So, this was the transfer of authority. Everything Carlen felt towards Nolty and every member of the Workshop; the routines of the sessions; the safe house of Jaim - everything, gone in a sweep. Those two words refocused everything - her entire world, rotated one nth of a degree, which made the difference of universes.

Carlen's viewpoint of this man had changed. In point of fact, she had pretty much forgotten him, in the same way she had forgotten the hatred she'd felt for Jaim when he earmarked her.

She had undergone a transformation. She had come to rough terms with some of the workings of this place. The Workshop, although undoubtedly operating under some loftier influence, functioned quite effectively as a unit in itself. It was easy to lose touch with the sense of an over presence. Undoubtedly the Whipmaster represented this presence, but the four entities he had turned Carlen over to had filled in the cracks of her existence. Without attendance by him.

Now he was in the Workshop. He was the Workshop.

Strange as it seemed, she had not thought of herself coming back to him. Not in this way. Not in any way.

It wasn't a dream. Just the start of another nightmare.

"Carlen."

"Is that your real name?" Nolty resumed.

"Yes."

"Any other names?"

"Christopher Robin."

"Christopher Robin?" the Whipmaster said with a smile in his voice.

"Yes," Carlen affirmed humorlessly. "It was my code name."

"What was your trade outside?" Nolty continued.

"I was a Runner."

"A Runner?" the Whipmaster interrupted again. "I thought you were a courier?"

"No one here knows the fucking difference."

"I know the difference," he said. "Which was it?"

"First one, then the other. I started as a Runner."

At this point Nolty dropped out of it. The Whipmaster took over, and this guy did not fuck around.

"I want you to tell me what you lied about during your last interrogation."

Sly one. Nasty.

Carlen balked. "I don't know."

"Yes you do."

Carlen tried to work out what all this could mean to them. Was it even worth trying to figure it out? Surely it was too late already. The last ball game, so to speak. One final season for a broken down player in line for the chop. What more could they possibly want, or even expect to get?

There could be only one more step beyond this. The Cold Room. Unless they had more than one location for their killings. Certainly! What about anywhere, anytime - anytime at all. At their leisure.

But first... First they must have their psychic blow-out. That was the Name of the Game. The mind you steal may not be yours to keep, but to have it and to hold it, until death hath parted it from the being who once possessed it. That was the very motive behind the game. The incentive. The exhilaration of the play.

Carlen sighed. Tried to regroup her thoughts. The obvious answers to his question were emblazoned on the forefront of her consciousness, but they were not answers she could give him.

"Nothing."

"Think again."

Desperately Carlen searched her mind for an idea, one simple lie - anything to throw into the silence. The only important line of the last session had been the circumstances of her arrest. Her last story had been accepted, or so she'd thought.

"Nothing," she said again.

There was a pause.

"And before that?"

Carlen swept again for the simple lies, the half-truths, but the lines had been so sporadic it was virtually impossible to get the details straight. All she could recall were snatches.

"The gun," she said at last.

Another pause.

"You already confessed to that one."

Carlen said nothing.

"What else was there? You're holding something back. What is it?"

"Nothing else."

"Think very carefully," the Whipmaster intoned ominously.

The more Carlen strained to come up with something, the more she realized she'd tightened up her stories so effectively she'd left herself virtually no more room to maneuver. Even a new lie would be dangerous if she missed the mark.

Could she get away with a reversal? Would it be worth the risk?

"Maude Murphy."

"How's that?"

"I said she was my cell mate in the County Hold. It was a lie."

Carlen waited in the silence.

There was a metallic clink, then a slight pressure was applied to the sole of Carlen's foot. At first almost cold, the sensation transformed into a sudden, searing pain that tore an instantaneous scream from the very core of her. A scream like nothing she'd ever heard in her own voice. When gradually it subsided, her pants carried on in counterpoint to loud, convulsive gasps.

"Do you want to make a retraction?" the Whipmaster asked, smooth as ice.

How the hell did he know? How the hell could they find out a thing like that? She sure backed the wrong horse that time.

"Yes... yes..."

Carlen rolled her face into the fur, trying to catch hold of her self-control. She realized the situation put her in mind of a story she'd read in an old Playboy magazine. It concerned a man who had been picked up by a secret agency in-

Nolty grabbed her hair and wrenched her head back.

"Don't do that, Carlen!" he thundered. "I warn you! You had better get your whole attention on what you're doing. Get your mind on track and keep it there!"

"This ain't no fucking rehearsal," Kick confirmed tightly. He was down near her feet. He sounded tense. Very tense. There was real trouble in the air - and didn't she know it.

She realized that everything up until now had, in a sense, been rehearsal. She'd finally graduated to the Big League and this was some kind of play-off. She lay there hurt, blind, panicked, and tried to work her thoughts.

"The school teacher..." she managed at last.

"Yes?"

"...he didn't force me."

No one spoke.

"I followed him around for weeks. I seduced him... not the other way around."

Carlen waited.

Apparently they bought it. Nolty let her head down.

"You said you never killed anyone. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"No combat of any kind?"

"No."

"Not with spies? Legionnaires?"

"No."

"Not with hijackers?"

She hesitated for just an instant. "No."

Kick touched the iron to her foot again and Carlen served a few more minutes in purgatory.

Then, something odd happened. Someone touched both the burns again and the pain abruptly subsided. Not entirely, but at least to an endurable level.

Carlen's cries diminished, her tension slacked off. She dropped her head to the pelts with a whimper of fatigue.

"Clear your mind," the Whipmaster said.

He gave her an extra minute to compose herself.

"Tell me what happened."

The sudden relaxation loosened the flip-pages of her mind. A preconceived story miraculously presented itself. A story she'd never used. She just let it roll. It gave her something to think about besides the pain.

"There was one hijack attempt that got a bit sticky," she began, unable to control the tremor in her voice. "They had organized a crude diversion and, while my flank man was dealing with that, two of them came after me. Luckily, I wasn't carrying heavy. I managed to slide back around the corner. Drew my gun. When they appeared I started shooting. All they had were clubs. They ran like rabbits."

"What were they after?"

"I don't know. I don't think they even knew what I was carrying."

"Which was what?"

"Two small discs."

"What were they?"

"Pre-Conflict tracks of 'Yellow Moon' and 'New Beginning'."

"Did you always carry such soft-core material?"

"Not always."

"Rarely, in fact."

"Right."

There was pause.

"Did you kill any of the hijackers?"

"No." Carlen laughed, a little pitifully. "I couldn't hit the broadside of a Control Center."

"Dalroy seemed to think you were pretty sharp."

"...I don't understand."

"The night at the Checkerboard."

"Pretty sharp? I was pretty drunk!"

She laughed again. It sounded frightened, even to her own ears.

Apparently he accepted it.

There were more questions, on other matters. Carlen did the best she could, sticking as close as possible to previous responses to the more important questions. Some of what she told them was accepted, some of it wasn't. Both soles of Carlen's feet had been burned several times. She thought the pain would drive her crazy. Minor, by comparison, was the throbbing in her shoulders from wrenching at her bonds.

Finally, there was a break in the questioning. Carlen lay against the pelts, glistening with sweat, heaving strenuously. She didn't know what the magic essence they'd used on the first two burns was but they were not generous with it. She was wondering how much longer it would be before she passed out. Everything seemed to be excessively quiet all of a sudden.

The Whipmaster spoke. "Tell me about Tokyo."

Carlen's breath caught. This could be it. The final, ultimate question. All the money on the line.

Carlen drew in one shaky breath, opened her mouth and started talking. She recounted everything about the city which could possibly drive the humanity out of any ordinary human being.

There was no danger of running short of material. Tokyo was undoubtedly one of the toughest cities on earth. All she had to do was instill the story with a nightmarish quality that would guarantee not only her credibility, but also their belief in her reactions to the memories she was conjuring. She rounded off the narrative with a few choice instances of the brutality of Japanese Police towards smugglers. Mostly rumors. By the time she concluded, Carlen had actually aroused a fairly decent reaction in herself to the horrors she'd depicted. It took everything she had.

Nolty and the Whipmaster were speaking, but Carlen didn't hear what they were saying. The pain was knocking all the intelligence out of her. If they asked her another question she didn't think she'd be able to answer.

In the extending silence, Carlen allowed her mind to slip into limbo. They could do no more to extract what they wanted. The pain was so acute, so much the focus of her psyche, that her psyche stepped aside from it. Transcended it.

Carlen was smart enough to know this would not do at all. If they wanted her back they could bring her back. They'd shown her that. The Workshop questioned people and they killed them. Or worse. Yet, this... This seemed like a special set-up.

There was that word again. Carlen threw it out of her head. She was no longer proud. No longer elite. No longer special, that she could see. She was just another strained, sterile mare, ready for the slaughter.

Hindsight was just another pretty pill with a bitter aftertaste. It was the questions in people's lives that aged them. Killed them off by inches. She had simply forgotten about him.

Are your lessons done?

They sure had taken her the long way down. She wished they would just kill her.

A sudden stab of pain in her right buttock aroused her exhausted indignation for just a minute before her head flopped to the pelts. Out cold.

CHAPTER 25 \- REINCARNATION

She was eight, and when they got this close she ran. She knew the way, and if she got too far ahead, her Mother knew where to find her.

The park was green with the fresh face of Spring, the breeze a warm caress against her face. Music in the wind now, in her head, in her heart, and all her senses fired to the foggy call of the calliope. Around the bend, the carousel in sight. The shining horses, turning. Black ones, brown ones, white ones - and there \- the grays, and that one, on the outside. By far the proudest and fastest was her horse, Thunder.

This was it. The spiritual high of the week. All the mini trials and tribulations of a child in a grown up's world lashed away by the speed of those turning horses and the honking music.

She rode and rode, three rides in a row, through the vast terrains of Joy and Escape. On to Freedom. Heart full of freedom. Head full of freedom. Pre-cious un-inter-rup-ted-

Seized. Pulled. The tender inside thigh sticking painfully against the painted saddle. Arms reaching for her favorite horse - which was now three feet away... now nine...

"Not, yet!"

The carousel fifteen feet away. Now twenty and still she was being pulled away.

"The horses! The horses!"

Were turning... Turning.

Restrained by resented, unseen hands, she stood and watched as bright licks of flame danced up from the floor of the spinning carousel.

"Mommy...?"

Unfurling itself around the floor of the carousel, the yellow heat lapped at the hooves of the moving horses, devouring legs, melting the colors, consuming their beautiful bodies.

"Mommy, the horses! The horses are BURNING! The HORSES ARE BURNING!"

We have to get out of here, her mind whispered.

"Come on," someone said.

"The horses are burning..."

"Wake up."

"Mother...?" she called but, before Carlen could even open her eyes, someone had pulled her upright. "I'm coming, Mother..."

The delicate fiber of the dream melted away and Carlen came awake with an overwhelming sense of loss, although the reason for it evaporated along with the dream. Slowly she gained her equilibrium, felt the furs under her legs and remembered where she was.

With some effort, she opened her eyes. Light poured into her mind. The blindfold was gone and it was some minutes before she could keep her eyes open comfortably. Another minute before they came into focus. She raised her head - and there he was.

Carlen stared in muted awe. Whatever she might have imagined, it would not have been the vision now before her.

He was sitting on the middle step of three that climbed to a huge, square platform that rose three or four feet up from the main floor. Carlen was on a rectangular platform to the side of it, much smaller and only one step high. He looked down on her as a king from a throne.

His hair was blonde and he had a bloody mane of it. He was stripped to the waist, and below he wore a pair of pants fashioned out of buckskin. Very unusual, as were his boots, also buckskin and soft soled.

Around his wrist was a loop of leather that braided into a short quirt with two limber lashes. Around his neck was a silver link chain. Hanging from this was the charm of an antique key. Also silver.

The bare simplicity of his appearance came as a complete shock to Carlen, who might have laughed in relief if she hadn't known a whole lot better.

He was strong, visibly strong, but lean and taut, like an Indian warrior. And he was clean. The cleanest thing she had seen in the city. His hairless skin looked almost bronze in the light from the candles and, like his hair, it shone, as though oiled. On his left shoulder, below the collarbone, was the same mark Kick and Dalroy wore, although the design was more intricate. It was the only symbol she'd seen so far that looked - complete.

When taken altogether, the sum of the parts did not add up to the Incarnation of Darkness. The face was not the face of The Goat. It was the face of a man. A fantastically handsome man. The type you would cast as the hero in a fantasy - not the villain.

Carlen was crushed by a sense of anticlimax, until she looked into the eyes of the man. They were translucent green and they were as cold as ice.

The girl who had wakened her returned, placed a bowl on the step beside the Whipmaster and unobtrusively withdrew.

The instant he moved Carlen had her confirmation. This was no illusion. With the litheness of a cat, he left the step and crossed to the lower platform where he sat before her, both legs folded, one laid flat, the other crooked up to his chest. He'd brought the bowl with him and began to hand feed her.

Once Carlen found the courage to break from his wintry gaze, she was too afraid to look into it again. She diverted her glance to the bowl in his hands. His hands were nearly as compelling as his eyes. Clean, capable. Long agile fingers tapering to well manicured nails. Extraordinary hands. Beautiful. The hands of a magician.

"You have a liking for horses," he said, the resonance of his voice vibrating inside her like distant thunder.

"Yes..." she replied guardedly.

"You were dreaming."

Carlen thought a moment. A dream. Yes. Not one detail she could recall. Only, he knew something.

He had stopped feeding her and his hands lay dormant on the pelts, to all appearances drained of their former life. Before Carlen could think to stop herself, she glanced again into his eyes. He was studying her, minutely.

She was going to speak - anything to divert this cool, niveous attention - when it was suddenly communicated that he was about to touch her. Almost before he could move, the plea breathed out of her.

"Please don't touch me..."

Barely audible, it was the strongest appeal she had ever made to anyone at the Zoo, and it did make him pause. For a moment. Carlen's eyes had closed and she seemed about to faint.

His hand curled around the back of her neck and he drew her forward slightly. Carlen came to the alert and once again found herself caught by those eyes, helplessly staring straight into the coldest, darkest place that ever was. She hung there, hardly breathing, defenselessly absorbing the first real surge of his power.

"Look - you're mine now. That's all you'll ever be."

Carlen took him at his word. She believed it. If he'd told her she was a Pegasus, she would have believed that too.

When at last he released her, she slumped with a sigh. She was cold. Emptied out.

CHAPTER 26 \- REPORT

Carlen kept her eyes strictly downcast as the Whipmaster resumed feeding her. The power was gone. He had drawn it back, dissipated it in some way. All was suddenly – becalmed. It was as though that soul-searing charge had never manifested itself. The ordinariness left in its wake was unreal.

As though passing through the dimensions of a dream, approaching footsteps echoed behind her. Then a voice that snapped the delicate threads of the currents in the room, despite its low, apologetic deference.

"I'll come back."

A small spark ignited inside Carlen. It was Jaim.

"No," the Whipmaster said. "Come in now."

Carlen saw there was still some food left as the Whipmaster withdrew to the step of the grand platform, taking the bowl with him. She kept her head down, but from the corner of her eye she saw Jaim take a seat on the step near him.

"Let's have it all," the Whipmaster said.

Jaim started speaking in a low, subdued voice. "No distinguishing tattoos, birthmarks or defects. No visible cancers, eczema, parasites or chemical reactions. No drug abuse. No apparent tooth decay."

"I noticed the dental work," the Whipmaster said. He sounded pleased. "Go on."

"Healthy appetite. Good digestion. Regular habits.

"Sensitive to cold. Urinating more frequently, but it's clear. Hair, nails healthy. Fast growing."

There was a tiny pause, then an inflection came into Jaim's tone that caused Carlen to look up.

"She's ticklish. Ribs, feet, abdomen, ticklish."

Carlen was a little surprised by Jaim's demeanor. He was not looking at the Whipmaster, or even at her, but down at the floor.

"At least, the feet were ticklish," the Whipmaster amended in a strangely cynical tone.

Carlen's eyes flicked over to him. He was watching her but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

Jaim showed no visible reaction to the cruel remark. He just went straight on. "Good muscle tone. Strong legs, back, hands. The skin is fragile, easily bruised, but reasonably resilient."

There was a brief pause.

"Character."

"Resilient also," Jaim replied. He didn't seem overly intimidated but the merest whisper of an implied "sir" seemed to punctuate his response.

"Behavior."

"Basically, controlled. Obedient with me. Quiet, passive following sessions. Completely non-committal regarding the others or their treatment.

"Progressively more difficult to waken. Dreams more prolific. Nightmares. Many still centered on the Mother figure. Many centered on escape, freedom."

There was another pause.

"Would you care to hazard an opinion?" the Whipmaster invited with a liquid reserve that did not veil the undercurrent of demand.

There was only slight hesitation.

"I'd say the resistance still exists," Jaim said very softly. "There are some very strong blocks. Deliberate blocks."

The Whipmaster shot Carlen a look.

"Any other deliberate actions?" he asked.

Carlen winced a little.

Jaim didn't speak immediately. He seemed to be reaching for exactly the appropriate phrase.

"Following the line," he said at last.

There was another pause. Carlen didn't dare look up. She knew the Whipmaster was watching her.

The men went on talking and Carlen continued to marvel at the information Jaim was relaying. He seemed to know everything about her. She was barbed by the clinical way he was discussing her, but she thought she detected an odd partner to this uncharacteristic coldness. Something that reflected a certain reluctance toward his task.

As he talked on, a new idea snaked into Carlen's head. If this was the kind of detail that was demanded of Jaim, what must the Whipmaster expect to learn from Nolty? Would he meet like this with Nolty? Had he already done so? And, if so, what could Nolty have told him?

Carlen realized she didn't even have the vaguest idea how long she'd been unconscious. Her feet were still tender but nothing like they had been. The throbbing soreness in her back and shoulders seemed more pronounced.

Suddenly she felt tired. Exhausted, in fact. Her thoughts shut down abruptly, like a beaten army too tired to march on. Her gaze drifted unselfconsciously into the space defined by the profiles of the two men, their voices no more than a calming murmur.

"Fit and healthy, then," the Whipmaster said.

"About the healthiest we've had," Jaim concurred, looking up at last. "One thing, though. There is a small venereal infection."

"Oh?"

"Very minor. She's been medicated. It should pass in a week."

"No problem," the Whipmaster said magnanimously, glancing over at Carlen, who was nearly asleep. "She'll be busy enough."

CHAPTER 27 \- BOOKS AND PARADES

The next morning, following a good breakfast, the Whipmaster gave Carlen three books.

"Apparently you have some intelligence. You have one week to read them."

Carlen looked at the titles. The Olympia Reader, Story of O and The Keys to Surrender. She was familiar with the titles. They were all on the Forbidden List.

"You mean-"

"I mean five days. Every word."

So, for a week she sat there, poring over the books. Every waking hour she held a book in her hands - which shook incessantly. Her eyes, which had grown unaccustomed to daylight, burned and watered so effusively that frequently she could not make out the tiny print on the page before her.

She hated the books and she despised the chore. More than once she tried to put them aside, but the Whipmaster tolerated no break in her reading unless she was specifically interrupted by him - and he interrupted her frequently. Between chapters and passages he often called on her to pay attention during presentations, short interrogations and floggings. The man was a poet with whips. His personal collection rivaled that of the Cold Room.

Carlen chose to read the two slim volumes first, leaving the heftier collection until last.

The Keys to Surrender, the most modern work, was a book she had often transported but never read. A real brain-snapper that detailed the techniques of crime control employed by the NCL during the early days of its formation. A highly volatile work, in that, despite State reassurances to the contrary, things had not really changed that much. Some of the accounts given in this book made the Workshop look like Playland.

The second, a fictional work of eroticism by an elusive authoress, was a much older work, and a complete change of pace. It was the story of a young woman who was enslaved by a secret society in mid-Twentieth Century Paris. The most remarkable things about it were its telling through the sensations of the young woman and her complicity towards her maltreatment. Although no longer a really popular work, this gracefully written book was still what it had always been - a genuine underground classic.

The third book she was pressing to get to was the traveler's companion. A beefy selection of pornographic sequences taken from literary works which spanned the centuries. Carlen recognized many of the titles as books she'd carried in the past. A veritable feast, the book contained scenes of homosexuality, rape, seduction, sadism, masochism and torture. A real Carnival of Carnality.

Some of the pieces were truly erotic, although Carlen could hardly allow herself to admit that. Some were outright cruel. Some had the same theme in common - that women are subject to men, existing, in natural fact, only for the pleasure and use of men.

The constant reoccurrence of this particular ideology, first touched on in the French novel and now reaffirmed in the collection, began to irk Carlen. She latched her angry eyes onto the Whipmaster as he passed her platform on the third afternoon.

"Is this the way you feel about women?" she demanded, brandishing the book in accusation.

In a flash, his hand snapped around, catching Carlen across the face with the quirt. She recoiled with a gasp as he turned his glacial glance on her.

"How I feel about women is none of your business," he stated icily. "Don't ever ask me a question like that again."

As he moved away, Carlen could feel the welt tightening down the line of her jaw and across the corner of her mouth. It was a really lousy place to strike someone like that and Carlen truly hoped the mark would not last.

* * *

Late that night, Carlen was surprised by an appearance by Nolty with yet another of the compound prizes. Although this one was quite special and Carlen didn't have to be encouraged to look at her.

The girl was one of the most beautiful Carlen had seen anywhere. Asian caste; long, long black hair; perfect, if petite figure, and deep, black eyes.

"This is Nolty's little beast," the Whipmaster told her.

He was seated beside her and he had Nolty bring the girl onto the platform so that she stood not inches from where Carlen sat.

The Whipmaster touched the girl's thigh which had been branded six times with a small, straight iron in a precise pattern that laddered down her leg.

"Do you see these?" the Whipmaster asked.

"Yes," Carlen replied, confounded by the sudden, inexplicable intimacy of the scene.

"What do you think?"

In the candlelight the girl's skin was tawny. Her eyes glinted with dark, hidden mysteries. The scars were perfect and they appeared to Carlen almost like an exotic tribal tattoo.

Hardly aware of what she was going to say, Carlen spoke. "They look almost natural."

To Carlen's astonishment, the girl spat on her. The Whipmaster laughed and placed his hand on Carlen's head with an almost friendly familiarity.

"She'd hardly agree with you. She wears them for an excess of pride."

Something died in Carlen as the girl was taken away. This girl's situation might be the one most closely linked to her own, but there was no comfort to be gained from it. There was no common ground. Not really. Quite apparently.

No comfort with the guard, or with any of the other women. No comfort anywhere to be found, except in Him. The touch of his hand on her head was reassuring. She had scored a point, even though it had been unintentional.

Carlen wondered why she didn't just go mad then. All the time she resisted the input, the impact, the inference, the ideology, the pressure. Yet, despite her internal rebellion, the texts were embedding themselves in her mind, and the seemingly endless parade of compound victims appeared to her in the dark and in her dreams. If she allowed herself to think about it, or her reaction to it, the most unimaginable terrors rose up in her. So she just put it away. The main thing was the Whipmaster and the reaction he saw in her.

* * *

In the book of collected works, Carlen came across an excerpt from the French novel she had just read. She thought, to save herself time, he would permit her to skip this part. When she questioned him about it, he told her that she was not to skip a single nuance of the selection. He said, in view of the repetition, she should be all the more familiar with the import of the work. In fact, he felt the excerpt in the collection was the clearer and, therefore, better translation from the French. Carlen read the segment again.

* * *

It was near three o'clock, Carlen's lunchtime, when he passed the edge of the platform on the fifth and final day of reading. Carlen didn't look up from the book, but she could see he still held the whip he'd been carrying all day.

Her heart broke rhythm when he paused at the corner, turned and came back, stopping in front of her.

"You skipped a section."

"No... I didn't."

"You did."

He leaned down and flicked back a large group of pages.

"The segment on Spartacus. That's an important one."

"I see," Carlen said, not looking up.

"I don't think you do," he said, touching the end of the whip to her chin. Carlen considered ignoring the unspoken command, but dared not. She raised her head.

"I know all about your little games in the Workshop," he informed her. "I warn you - don't play with me. You have four hours left."

Carlen gazed down at the book in her hands.

Yeah. Four hours, one of them daylight, if she was lucky; eyes that felt like piss-holes in the desert sand, and nearly two-thirds of the big book to go. She'd never make it.

Carlen read while she dined. She carried the book to the can. Locked out everything but the printed word. She didn't even pause to consider what the sentence could be if she failed to meet the deadline.

The section on Spartacus was interesting, as it turned out. It depicted the uprising of slaves who, in these segments, were now the ones wielding the branding irons. The importance he seemed to place on the piece struck Carlen as enigmatic.

Carlen was startled by the intrusion of the girl who brought in her dinner. Carlen had actually forgotten all about food. She glanced into the bowl with sudden interest, instinctively reaching for a piece of fruit.

Suddenly he was there, crouched by the edge of the platform, his hand on the bowl, moving it away.

Just as suddenly Carlen remembered. She saw her thumb was making a damp imprint on the open page. Dinner time. Nine thirty - or later. She'd missed the deadline.

"I'll give you until morning to finish," he said, "but the extension will cost you your dinner. Perhaps the pangs of hunger will keep you alert."

He gave the bowl back to the girl who left.

With a silenced sigh, Carlen read on.

CHAPTER 28 \- STROKES

Daybreak found Carlen collapsed on the pelts, asleep, the completed book still in her hand.

The women wakened her, gave her a breakfast of warm oatmeal, sugar and milk, and a piece of bread. They also brought coffee. The aroma of it was irresistible to Carlen and, against her better judgment, she drank it.

After breakfast she was given a sponge bath. The Whipmaster was not present.

Carlen was just beginning to feel half like herself when the women attached her manacles on the single ring behind her, stood her up and released her collar chain from the ring in the wall above the small platform. She nearly balked when they directed her across the narrow passage to the grand platform and conducted her up the steps.

They settled her down in the center of the top level of the platform, near the wall. Her lead chain they locked onto the end of a chain that hung from a ring in the wall quite high above the grand platform. She knew all about that ring. From the lower platform she'd been able to see it.

Beneath her legs was a thick covering of animal pelts and bolted to the end of the platform, the Stage, as she came to know it, was the bottom half of the multi-slotted stocks her feet had been vised into for the branding. Directly across from her, in the rectangular archway, was the presentation area, and beyond that The Wall, where Dalroy and God knew how many others had endured the caress of the Whipmaster's lash.

To her left was the wall containing pegs where the Whipmaster's assemblage of whips was displayed. Below that was another low platform, identical to the one on the right.

Above her head, in the wall behind, were the only bars in the chamber. Heavy, thick bars set at ceiling height. They let in light and air from the compound - light, that is, but only daylight.

From here she could see the whole thing. This was His spot. The Upper Stratum. The position from which he ruled the compound, the Women's Sector. The city?

The women carefully blindfolded Carlen and left her alone. The silence and the dark soon went to work on her. Her mind was plagued by scenes of terror and suppression from the books she'd just read and she prickled with suggestible anticipation.

There wasn't a sound in the chamber apart from her own shallow, irregular breaths and an occasional tinkle from the charm on the earring as her head twitched with the small nervous flexes of her body.

The coffee circulated efficiently into her system, the caffeine rush coursing to the nerve endings. Already she was uneasy in the stomach and she was starting to feel wired. Anxious. About ready to start moving around.

Then she detected an almost indiscernible flex in the planking under her knees. There was absolutely no other indication, but Carlen knew, with dead certainty, that he had come. He was on the Stage, possibly very near.

Despite the blindfold she could feel him watching her. His aura was liquid sensation and no physical touch could have made it any clearer.

She tried to hold on to herself. Tried not to move or give the slightest hint she knew he was there, while every instinct, every nerve, every impulse screamed at her to pull away, run and hide herself from the keen chill of that gaze.

She thought she had it under control but, when he touched her cheek, she snapped her head away with a nervous cry. Without a word, he touched her again and Carlen drew back further, shuffling around on her knees to seek out the relative shelter of the wall. She was trembling.

The wall was not as near as she'd thought and she stopped. Again she waited in agonizing suspense, certain at any moment he would throw her down and force his way into her.

Minutes passed. He did none of these things. Carlen was convinced he would do them, or something a whole lot worse. Nothing hurried here.

She subtly began edging further around, trying to sense the wall behind her. She was not close to it. In fact, it seemed like light years away - possibly altogether non-existent.

The third caress, across her left shoulder, caused Carlen to shudder. It had been as gentle as the first two, but Carlen could not be convinced he didn't intend to hurt her.

She cringed away, but had given up trying to find the wall. In her confusion she'd lost her sense of direction as well as her confidence. She feared crawling too near the edge lest she topple over and, being unable to save herself, strangled by the collar she knew to be attached by the chain somewhere above.

Perhaps he would not allow her to fall, but in order to prevent it he would have to touch her. He might take some action in any case, if she moved around too much. So she just dropped over, her breasts compressed against her thighs, every muscle of her body taut in steely defense. She thought if he touched her again she might scream.

She didn't scream. Not then. Not even as the fingers traced the curve of her spine. She buried her face between her knees, teeth clenched, forcing down explosions of apparently inappropriate emotion.

All at once the manacles sprang loose and Carlen's rigid arms dropped awkwardly to the pelts. He'd opened the linklock.

Very slowly, Carlen began to sit up, cautiously drawing her hands toward her knees. When she had come almost upright, he abruptly seized her left wrist and twisted her to the wall. It had been only inches away.

Carlen began a struggle as he took the right wrist and raised it above her head to meet the left. He latched them together again, making an addition of a link from the chain attached to the ring above. He was not unnecessarily rough with her and his movements were so quick that Carlen knelt, stretched up against the wall, breathless with surprise.

When he touched her shoulder again Carlen tried to retreat, but there was nowhere to go except into the wall. He touched her shoulders, her neck, her back. The touches were soft, feather light like the strokes one gives a wounded bird.

He touched only the neutral zones of her anatomy, keeping clear of any areas of personal sensitivity or ticklishness. He touched her thigh, her calf, her ankle. He touched the scars on the sole of her foot. Carlen flinched visibly. It surprised him. The pain was certainly long gone out of them, and so, presumably, was most of the feeling. At least the physical feeling.

He went on stroking her like this until Carlen lay limp into the wall, totally subdued. It had taken an hour and a half.

Carlen, almost dizzy with relaxation, was not even aware of the break in his attention. She had drifted into a semi-sleep state, finally allowing her mind to let go the horror for just a few precious minutes. She had almost forgotten who the owner of the hand was, or that it was a hand at all. She'd gone with a physical sensation that had transcended into a mental relinquishment she had not known in weeks. Hell, months. She was near nirvana.

That was the moment he chose to deliver her from this falsely induced peace, this respite, this imagined escape. Carlen hardly had time to hear and recognize the warning whistle before the pain tightened across her shoulders like a hot wire. She gave an ear popping yelp, barely stunned awake when he struck her again.

The shock of the whipping was so intense Carlen could not catch her breath until he broke off some minutes later. She hung there gasping, every nerve newly sensitized, every tension fully restored, and when her breathing calmed, the hands were there again. The fingers, ever so softly, ever so sweetly, tracing the lines of the stinging welts crisscrossing her back. Carlen arched into the wall with a frustrated moan.

He continued with this until she had once again succumbed to a semi-trance state. It took a long time, but ultimately she sagged in soft repose, submissively allowing his tender caresses to soothe the pain, to mingle with it, to trade places with it. As soon as he was sure he'd regained her trust, he picked up the whip again.

The second beating brought her nearly to tears. She knelt there afterwards, wrenched up on the chain with both hands, releasing her gasps in sharp, pressurized spurts. She was angry.

He didn't challenge the anger, but waited for the void of silence to draw the fury out of her, leaving only uncertainty, tainted by a few shreds of impotent resentment. She hardly resisted at all as he drew her legs out from the wall, turning her to face him. She sat in rigid stillness, her mouth set in tight resolve, yet a small cry of discouragement escaped her as his fingers traced the line of her collarbone.

The days following were filled with his caresses. These gentle caresses which were sharply contrasted by the beatings. Beatings he administered with a variety of implements.

The pony whip was his favorite and the one he began with: three feet long with a thin, birch rod core, braided over with soft black leather. This was the whip he so often carried around the chamber with him. He also had a bare birch rod which he applied across the well fleshed parts of her buttocks.

Across the tops and backs of her thighs he engaged a thick, brown, braided crop that contained a stiff leather core. Too blunt an instrument to cut, but it left black bruises behind. With the light flexible quirt at his wrist, he marked her breasts and the inner flesh of her thighs.

He never used anything heavier. Nothing that would cut or scar her. Never anything like he'd used on Dalroy.

He restricted her food during this period, always hand feeding her himself, yet, as had been the case during her week of reading, he allowed her all the liquids she could tolerate. When she needed to relieve herself, he placed her on the can himself and gave her the paper to wipe with.

He did not speak to her and, if she attempted to speak, his fingers were immediately in her mouth, constantly touching - her tongue, her teeth, her lips, her face. He hardly left her alone - turning her this way and that; restraining her for punishment, releasing her to be caressed.

Only occasionally did he permit her to drop into brief naps and, if he wanted sleep himself, he left her bound in positions of such discomfort that it was difficult, if not impossible, for her to rest.

Carlen was rarely aware of falling asleep, but much more of being wakened by the hands, exploring, revealing, giving, demanding. She existed in constant dread of the whips, but the caresses were charmed and she was seduced by them – again and again. They reached into the softest parts of her psyche, and not long after her initial guardedness did she begin to enjoy and even come to depend on these tender sessions.

As her oppositions began to melt, his advances became more direct and more erotic. Although he kept his own sexuality hidden from her, he moved more of himself closer to her and she began to accept the current of his power, which flowed through her. His affections became an elixir that soothed and softened her frayed, brittle nerves. She began to respond to the sensuality in his more suggestive explorations of her. At times she emitted low, unconscious moans, becoming almost fawning towards him. When he was unresponsive to her demands for extra attention, she was hurt and resentful. She wished for the whips to burn away the anxiety for yet a sweeter caress.

This psychological hunger gradually reverted to a physical hunger that stealthily transformed itself into sexual hunger. She was starved and fatigued, and undeniably confused, but there was something alive in her and it burned. Like the fuse of a bomb it burned, and it demanded release.

CHAPTER 29 \- BANISHED

Carlen was wakened by light. The blindfold was gone and daylight poured into the chamber through the bars overhead. She sat up, shielding her sensitive eyes, and spotted the Whipmaster seated nearby.

"Down there," he said, indicating the lower platform.

Carlen looked at him with uncertainty, then slowly got up and descended the steps to the floor.

The Whipmaster had unhitched her chain from the one on the Stage and now followed her down to secure it once more to the ring above the lower platform. He made her kneel facing the main body of the room.

"Stay there. Don't move."

A darkening dread seeped through her as Carlen watched him walk away. She was puzzled over what this sudden, seeming demotion could signify.

For three days he left her there. Ignored. The women bathed her, brought in regular meals and supervised her toilet routines. But that was it. The Whipmaster was there. He came and he went. He conducted interviews, negotiations, trades and punishments, but he paid no attention to Carlen. He didn't even look at her. All that was left as a reminder of his recent attentions was the interlacing of his personal inscription on her body. He had marked her practically everywhere.

Now she was expected to sit there, fully exposed to the view of every authority figure that passed through the chamber, chained and striped like some punished, unruly animal. Just to sit, waiting upon his next display of interest in her. She was tormented by a sudden hot resentment she hardly knew how to categorize. It burned inside her like yellow fire.

When her legs grew too tired from maintaining her position, Carlen slowly eased herself over to one side, straightening her legs, just a little, to restore the circulation. Even the execution of this small action terrified her. She was afraid he'd notice and reprimand or punish her for moving. He didn't. As effectively as he had embraced her in his aura, he had withdrawn it. She might as well have been invisible.

Only the women corrected her during this period and Carlen, writhing with uncertainty, dared to question one of them in the Whipmaster's absence when she brought the evening meal.

Carlen had never spoken to any of the women before, aside from matters pertaining to the routines they performed, and those dialogues were piloted entirely by their questions and their orders.

Carlen assumed personal dialogues were forbidden, but it was not the reason she forestalled speaking for so long. Opportunities were rare, it was true, but they did present themselves. Carlen had never taken advantage of this because, fairly or not, the compliant servility of these women aroused her contempt. The prospect of speaking to one of them was distasteful to her.

Now though, her impulse was beyond control. The peace should have been welcome after the pressures she'd been under, but three days of this suspense was intolerable. The pain and bruises were fading and Carlen was getting restless.

To her relief, the girl she saw most often and disliked the least came in with the nine-thirty bowl. A slim, dark haired, heavy breasted girl with strong, well defined legs and shoulders, and a painfully narrow rump. Although the girl's body did not match the distinctly feminine conformation of Carlen's, there was nothing Carlen could see wrong with her. She looked to be a top quality piece.

The chamber was practically dark, except for a small seepage of light stealing in from the compound. The girl placed Carlen's bowl in front of her, stood a fresh can on the end of the platform and serenely crossed to the back corner. She squatted down and began lighting the candles on the Whipmaster's table.

Carlen picked up the bowl and drew back to the wall where she could get a look at the girl's face, at least in profile. She dared not cross over to her, but she knew the girl would be at the table for some minutes. There were about thirty bloody candles on that table, the only supply of light in the chamber at night.

"Tell me what's going on."

The girl didn't flinch. Not a bit. Her movements merely became more measured.

"You're very direct," she said softly.

"Just tell me."

The girl didn't look at her. Come to think of it, none of them ever looked her in the face. It was kind of like she wore the mask of death or something.

"I can't tell you anything," she said.

"You mean you won't."

"Do you want to use the can?"

"Fuck the can!"

"I won't be back till morning."

Carlen gave an angry snort and allowed the girl to help her balance over the pot on her prickling legs. The girl took the can to the archway, came back and quietly waited while Carlen finished eating.

"Come away from the wall," she said, directing Carlen back to her position at the edge of the platform. She took the empty bowl and moved off into the shadows.

When she halted in mid-step, Carlen looked up expectantly. The girl turned only half way around.

"Don't make it hard on yourself. For the present, you'd do well to satisfy every expectation. Sooner or later he'll demand the impossible."

She started away, but paused again by the archway, still in profile.

"I have to tell him you asked me this."

"Shit. Why?"

"It's the directive," she murmured and disappeared.

A short while after, the Whipmaster returned. Carlen quickly averted her eyes as he crossed to the table to pick something up. He approached Carlen and stood looking down at her. That lean streak of pride caused her to look up. There was displeasure in his eyes.

Carlen flinched, anticipating a blow as he reached toward her, but the punishment was worse than that. He wrapped the blindfold around her eyes again. Carlen groaned softly.

* * *

She quit trying to figure out the whys and wherefores and tried to stick to the tangibles. Her posture. The manacles. The blindfold. These things were the actual. The reality. The blindfold was a punishment. The punishment for questioning that tattling girl. This much she could be sure of. This she could face and deal with.

She let go the uncertainties, focusing entirely into the present and the acceptance of her current disgrace. She donned it like a suit of armor and it protected her - until the next afternoon.

Carlen was caught completely off-guard when, as he passed, the Whipmaster abruptly reached down, took her head and bent to kiss her. It was a possessive, demanding kiss, so deep it had Carlen panting in seconds. She attempted to pull away but he held fast, insistently urging her to yield to the electrified currents he was pouring into her.

The kiss laid waste to her senses and, just as she began to think he'd hold her there forever, a flash of unearthly light flooded her mind. She sucked a sharp breath and suppressed it under immense pressure for a second. He pressed her jaw more widely and she sagged, relinquishing a low muffled moan as her strained thighs began to applaud the onset of an erupting orgasm.

He felt the shuddering begin, waving up her spine. Felt the shock of the first contraction as her head nearly wrenched free of his grasp. Yet he held her, one moment longer, just to be sure.

As the full force of it hit, he released her. Carlen contracted forward with a groan that contained a strong element of surprise and lay there, shuddering for some minutes.

He would have liked to take her then, to pounce on her pleasure - possibly the only sign of it she would ever exhibit - but he knew it would be wrong. She had to have this all to herself with no involvement from him. She must be given the room to question herself over it, to blame herself - and she would. He knew she was ripe for the turn, but left her another day to stew over it.

She tried not to. Every moment she worked at pushing thoughts of him out of her mind... and every diversion came straight back to him.

She thought how much like an Indian he seemed. A White Indian. To be sure it was a very strange prospect in these times, but the image stuck none-the-less. She supposed it was his strength, his fluidity. His self-possession. His hardness. Even in mere buckskins he had the bearing of a prince.

At times, he reminded her of a tiger. Proud. Assured. Magnificent -

Carlen caught herself and forced the image of the tiger to carry her thoughts back to... the cat hairs in the log splinter... The log splinter. The log. The cage. Dalroy. Nolty. The Cold Room. The irons. The books. The whips. The Whipmaster.

Carlen put herself through hell trying to banish him from her thoughts, to extinguish the memory of the response he'd extracted from her. She was aggrieved by her display of weakness and deeply ashamed.

She asked herself over and over again: Why? Why would someone like him even deign to kiss a creature he maintained in her position? She even tried to pretend the question hadn't been answered.

CHAPTER 30 \- THE MASTER

Although Carlen was distraught and uncomfortable all the following day, it passed very quickly. Activities in the chamber had gone on as usual, but things seemed strangely subdued. The vague cathedral atmosphere the chamber sometimes took on began smoking in. By Carlen's lunchtime things had become very quiet indeed and they remained that way for another hour. No lunch came.

Carlen's nerves were a wreck. The restraints had been transferred behind her back since she sat up that morning. Her legs were cramped and there was a constant pain in her shoulder joints. She felt more than a little like busting out.

At last there was a sound. The women came in. Carrying water. They left it... by The Wall. Then the booted footsteps of men. Across the chamber. Onto the Stage? Across the chamber again. The women approached quietly, came onto her platform. They helped Carlen stand and, much to her surprise, they unhitched the chain from her collar. They directed her off the platform and led her about ten steps across the floor. Then their hands abruptly left her standing in black space.

Before Carlen could ask herself what would happen, the women turned her around and released her again, for a moment, before they turned her to face front again. Carlen thought it an odd little dance.

Someone touched her face. Carlen drew back irritably. The hands came. Neck, glands, mouth, tongue, teeth, gums. Quick hands. Expert hands. But they weren't His hands. They seemed vaguely familiar, but only the Whipmaster and Kick had ever touched her mouth. Show and fucking tell. A presentation. To whom?

Carlen gave a startled groan as the linklock was suddenly released. She nearly screamed as the women raised her arms and bumped her back into the wall. Panic was taking hold as they secured her bracelets to the chain overhead. This was The Wall. There wasn't another fastening in the room where the subject stood with that cold bare floor underfoot. Presentation, hell! This was the end.

One of the women grasped Carlen's right knee and she felt the hands of the second on her left. As they drew her legs apart, another hand touched the top of her left thigh. That other touch.

Carlen began to tighten up. The second hand of the other touch contacted her groin. A left-handed person? Carlen arched back in preparation to buck every mother-fucking hand off.

"Carlen, relax," said a voice so close it had to be attached to the hand that wanted to invade her. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Jaim?" she breathed, relaxing slightly.

"I've only come to check you out. Just relax."

He gave her no time to think it over. Carlen tensed as he made a careful examination of her internal condition. As promised, he didn't hurt her, and he made no more of it than necessary. All the same, the intrusion came as a shock to Carlen who had not been handled this way in some time.

The thing that hurt was the memory it revived of the Whipmaster's kiss. She felt herself contract slightly and she knew Jaim would be aware of it. Carlen twisted her head away, any ideas of asking Jaim anything completely knocked out by his touch and her shame.

It occurred to her then that He might be watching, maybe directing the whole thing from the middle step at the front of the grand platform. Observing. Silent. Beyond the reach of her suspicions or perceptions.

When Jaim stepped away Carlen felt newly stripped. Newly violated. She forced her legs to relax as the women placed them down. The rage burned.

She listened for Jaim's report, but there was none. Only the sound of his footsteps, departing. Carlen did not cry out as the women lowered her aching arms from the wall, nor when they bent them behind her again. She went very quietly as they stood her in a tub of warm water and began to wash her.

It was a prolonged ritual. They lathered her twice. Everywhere. The wretched creatures raised her arms up behind her to reach her armpits. She remained silent. They shampooed her hair, cleaned her ears, the ring of the earring. They cleaned and clipped her nails - fingers and toes. They even brushed her teeth. All the time Carlen was wondering why they would remove the chain from her collar.

They directed her out of the tub and, as they toweled her down, she suddenly realized they must be standing in the presentation area. It struck her odd. The empty space behind. Duel exits. Somewhere beyond - Outside. If she could just get outside. Two meager women to overcome? Piece of cake!

Right. Handcuffed behind. Blindfolded before. Naked to boot. Outside. Right. The rage burned on.

The women turned her a quarter around and Carlen thought she sensed the openness of the archway behind her as they walked her forward. Then the draughts were everywhere - and nowhere. Her sense of direction was lost. They stopped.

"Step up."

Carlen raised her foot into the black void in front of her.

"No. Higher. That's it."

A step came up under her foot and she sighed as the women stepped up with her. It was her platform. Dinnertime.

"Again," the girl said.

Carlen's heart skipped. She raised her foot, realizing she could detect no fur pelts underfoot. She had a sudden impulse to reach down and check with her hands. The girl pulled her arm.

"And again."

Carlen's foot caught crossing the stocks and she fell to her knees on the second step. The women helped her up and all but carried her onto the Whipmaster's stage. They led her a few steps across, turned her, obliquely, and made her kneel. Carlen was only too glad to get down. Her legs were quaking.

She hardly noticed as the women released her bracelets and reattached them on the long chain at the front. One of them attached a chain to the collar. The icy touch of it against her shoulder shocked her awake.

Chained up, on the Stage. Nothing was said. The women withdrew. They took the water.

Carlen's arms, hanging in this most natural position, was pain. She didn't know what would be expected of her, but if it involved raising her arms she didn't think she could do it. Standing, she feared, was also out of the question.

Silence, her familiar companion, dropped over her. There was nothing left but the pain and the game. As if on automatic pilot, Carlen's mind plowed into the routines.

Was she alone? Would they leave her alone, manacled this way? At all? Was she expected to move or be still? Did it matter? Was this the commencement of another test? Another torment?

As the aching in her shoulders eased, Carlen began moving them to alleviate the pressure exerted on her wrists by the chain strung across her thighs. With a couple of small swings she managed to flop her hands onto her lap. She flexed her fingers and made small exertions on her arms, resting frequently from this exercise.

She had to assume she was not alone. Too much attention had been paid to her, particularly security-wise. Somebody had to be there. Carlen could hear no sound. No sound what-so-ever. It had to be the Whipmaster.

It galled her the way he could leave or enter the chamber without her knowing. He could be inches away and she could not tell unless he touched her.

Anyone else. Anyone! She would find out. Some way. Not him. He had that uncanny gift for withdrawing into himself, sucking his vibrations out of the very air so that nothing could be gleaned by even the most acute sensitivities.

Carlen's wit was plenty sharp. Experienced and well exercised. Still she was baffled by this entity which impinged itself and dissipated at will. Yes, he fired the fear in her alright. Her brow prickled with newly forming salty drops. Unconsciously, she raised a hand to wipe at them.

"There's food on the table in front of you."

Carlen's arm froze in mid-air. He was sitting directly across from her.

"Don't touch the blindfold."

Her hand dropped and caught on the edge of the table, the crash of the chain causing a sonic boom in the crackling silence his pauses created. Her fingers dug into the surface of the table as she tried to get a reign on her speeding pulses. When would she learn?

"The bowl is near your hand." His voice was velvet.

The deadweight of Carlen's arm was painful to lift, but she raised a tentative hand forward and gratefully met the edge of a thick wooden bowl. She paused there and nodded slightly as a signal to him she would begin in a moment.

For no logical reason, her mind was suddenly awash with the sounds of the streets. Not these silent, lifeless streets, but the streets in the outside world. The Real world.

She remembered the night of her arrest. The crowd. The excitement. Flashing lights. Sound. Commotion. Drama.

At first, it seemed to take her like something she couldn't control. Like the derangement in her head the night Nolty took her in the Cold Room.

The noise was deafening and the roar comforted her. It was exhilarating. It veiled her. She only feared it was the madness, come at last to claim her, and that he would somehow misunderstand when his voice failed to carry over the conundrum.

"Eat."

Silence snapped back into place around her. Carlen automatically lifted her hand into the bowl. She didn't bother about what it was. She grabbed the first thing.

Turned out to be cheese. Cheddar. Cheddar reminded Carlen of Australia. A lot of red hot material came off that island. Heavy place, but terrific.

She reached again, this time for something with moisture in it. Her mouth was horribly dry. Apple. Fresh.

"What did you think of the books?"

Carlen's munching slowed. A distant voice echoed in her memory... 'What did you think of the playroom?'

She pretended not to notice the atmosphere of initiation weaving into the chamber. His influence saturated the very air she breathed.

"Interesting," she said noncommittally.

"You can do better than that."

"I don't know what you expect me to say."

"I expect you to give me an opinion."

Carlen's hand dropped haltingly to her lap.

"Something wrong with the food?"

"No."

"You're not hungry?"

"I don't know."

"You need to eat more."

Carlen remained motionless.

"I insist."

Carlen hesitated, then reached listlessly into the bowl again. She avoided the cheese. It did remind her of Kick. She located a piece of bread and settled for that.

He liked the way Carlen's hairline glistened, perspiration mingling with the dampness of her washed hair. Her jaw line was composed but she seemed haggard.

She appeared to be distracted by something. He wondered if sighted she might be more alert. Undoubtedly! He could snap her to so rapidly she'd appear schizophrenic. It wasn't what he wanted. He did, however, require her full attention.

"Sit up."

There was a smoothness in his voice that was almost a purr. It was disarming.

He saw her lips tighten ever so slightly, but she slowly corrected her slouch.

"You seem distracted."

That just about clinched it for Carlen. It was all feeling a little too much like the atmosphere of the Workroom and, although she didn't like it one bit, she began punching in the mode.

"Not at all," she said.

"How are things on the streets these days?"

"...which streets?"

"Tell me about The City," he suggested. "You've been to New York?"

"Oh yes."

"How is she?"

So. He had a love for cities.

"She holds up."

"What about Outside generally?"

"A madhouse. That's all. Like in here."

He let it slide.

"What about the Women's Sector?"

"I don't really know anything about it."

"You know more than you think."

"What do I know?" Carlen knew it was stupid as soon as she'd said it.

"What has Dalroy got going?" he asked.

"...she's a Spiker."

"Well done. What else?"

This was really something.

"Nothing much."

He paused. "You would lie for her?" he asked in a strange tone of voice.

"No."

"Then why?"

"...only to keep you from knowing."

The silence roared. Carlen capitulated.

"She's got food. Tons of it. That's all. All I know of... I didn't know about this little carnival."

"Don't play the cynic with me."

Carlen blanched slightly.

He was watching her very closely. He could see practically all of her over the low table between them and he could see her in fine detail. He knew she would be surprised by the amount of light in the room. If she knew.

He studied the tilt of her head, the set of her jaw, the tension in her lips. He noticed the damp spot between her breasts. Those breasts - her nipples standing in tight, crinkled fists, sensitized by the chill in the room.

Her thighs, white, taut, still laced with his precise strokes. Her shoulders, softened forward slightly. A prideless, yet subconscious pose to protect the breasts. Those breasts. He could almost taste the fluid weight of them.

Those breasts. So full and yet delicate. The one thing that made this steely woman appear vulnerable. Most remarkable was that she didn't appear to be aware of it.

"Nolty tells me you're stiff-backed."

She tried to conceal it, but he saw her twitch at the mention of Nolty's name.

"Is that right?" he asked.

Carlen didn't know what to say but she knew she'd better say something. "I don't imagine that's all he said."

"Don't play with me. Is it true?"

"...If Nolty said it, it must be true," she replied in an unreadable tone of voice.

"Do you intend to fight with me?"

"I don't know what you want."

"I would have thought it was obvious," he said with smooth condescension.

Carlen was remembering the feel of Jaim's hand between her legs. It wasn't really a mystery, the significance of that.

"Nothing is obvious to me anymore," she said.

"He also mentioned you were evasive."

So. He had been in conference with Nolty. Probably all along, now that she came to think about it.

Carlen didn't attempt a reply, although she had stopped eating again. Instead, her hands were waging war in her lap.

"Keep still," he said, and Carlen ceased all movement. He had her attention. "I think you know better than to run the games with me."

Carlen was silent.

"You might as well know. I'll expect a lot more of you than Nolty did."

There went her hands again.

"You resisted him. If you attempt to resist me I will take recourse. Unlike Nolty, I am not subject to restriction in my treatment of you. I think you understand this."

"Yes."

"Finish your meal."

It was obvious she was all keyed up for something drastic to happen, yet, somehow uncaring. He thought probably her responses were more brittle than she intended. Already he could see there would be as much skill involved in undercutting her anticipations as in slamming down her rebellions.

For the present, this simple threat appeared to be enough to jar her into the appropriate frame of mind, although he knew enough about her to know it would not suffice for long. She would not be easily won. This was no ordinary woman. No ordinary criminal.

But for tonight... Tonight she was unsure of herself. Self-conscious and somewhat foiled by the void of her blindness. She had only the weapon of her wit to defend herself and she wouldn't dare push that too far. She didn't know him well enough.

There was a piece of cheese left in the bowl. Carlen knew. She'd checked. She knew how many she'd eaten also, because every one of them had stuck in her throat. Her stomach was at war, her heart was pounding fit to break out and there was a terrible windy rush in her head.

She was chewing slowly. Chewing, because he wanted her to eat. Slowly, because he wanted her finish.

She was about to reach for the last piece of the cheese when he touched her breast. Her jaw tightened but she didn't move. At last he had come around beside her. At last he would make his move.

His touch was seduction itself. The touch of the sorcerer, delicate, illusive, and full of inference.

The hand moved to the other breast, only the palm of it, stroking, suggesting, as the fingers of his other hand began inscribing gentle circles on her back. Carlen's skin came up in a sudden rash of gooseflesh.

The mage was at work, conjuring, manipulating, deceiving. Vaguely she thought she'd better make some show of resistance but, then, she did not want him to hurt her. This was the one who gave the order to burn her feet. There was no feeling left there.

This was preferable to branding. Obviously. Even rape was preferable to branding. Wasn't it?

Or, perhaps he did not intend to take her tonight at all, but meant only to drive her back into that spellbinding limbo as he had done before. Then would come the whips. How was she to endure that again? That situation had been unreal and what he had done was unfair.

The forward hand transferred back to the left breast. More familiar, more demanding. Carlen was hardly breathing.

It would have been so easy to evade these enchanted caresses. So easy to throw off the relaxed, open hands of this affecter. So utterly impossible to face the unknown consequences of such an action and only slightly less impossible to sit still and passively submit.

The hand left her breast, an instant later lighting on her thigh, the thumb smoothly stroking. Oh yes. He would certainly take her tonight. He must! Mustn't he? She couldn't wait another day in this cursed suspense. Could she? She would rather have it over and done... Wouldn't she?

The hand slid down to her knee and drew her leg out to a wider angle. The chain adjoining the manacles slipped down between her thighs, chilling her.

Carlen obliterated the confusions. Allowed him to obliterate them for her by stealing her entire attention. She focused all her concentration on his presence, refusing herself the luxury of lapsing into unguarded relaxation in the face of the his dissembling tenderness.

The hand behind her snuck up under the collar and found her neck. Number one control center. She felt his breath on her cheek. The other hand was stroking her thigh again. Very intimately. His extended fingertips grazed the inside of her opposite thigh as the hand slid up the near side leg. It turned the corner, the fingers folded under, and he contacted the part between her legs.

Carlen stiffened, hands fisted, but she remained stationary. He thought for an instant she might sob, although an instant later wondered what had made him think so. He began stroking her there. Subtly, unobtrusively, teasingly. Resist him now! her conscience urged. Stop him! But it was too late. She realized the moment she'd allowed him to touch her at all she had given up any right of refusal.

His breath was on her face again. She made a small subconscious effort to evade him, but he had her neck and, with no difficulty, he coaxed her into a deep submissive kiss. The hand went on stroking and the pressure went right on building.

Carlen's mind was a muddle of shock and indignation. He was trying to catch her out again. Damn him! Why? Why should he bother? To test his power? Well, he wouldn't do it! Not again.

She was about to make her break when he abruptly drew his hand down between her legs and took the chain. The kiss broke off and, in a single movement, he raised her arms above her head and rolled her back onto the pelts. Her legs fell into awkward array, but before she could move, he'd arranged them to his satisfaction and taken position between them.

Carlen was calmer. The universe stopped its spinning, the subtleties evaporated, and the one thought in her mind as her back met the skins was, Jaim's exam must have come up A-OK.

Yet, as she expected he would, he did not take her then, but knelt, with her spread before him, and went on exploring and teasing her with his hands.

Laid like this at his knees Carlen felt revealed and ridiculed. She knew he was playing with her, yet she didn't move her arms from where he had placed them or attempt any action to stop him. She tried to lie limp and appear inert, unmoved, but it was pointless. She was responding. She knew it and she knew he knew it. Already her thighs were pressed in subtle resistance against his knees. She would have given anything to control it, but it was completely involuntary. She rolled her head over with a moan of discouragement, thinking - if he didn't get on with it soon, she would lose grip and do something really stupid.

When at last he lowered his weight onto her, she relinquished a low sigh. She accepted the feel of him against her like it was predestined. So it had been.

She did not flinch at the first indication of pressure at the awaiting opening. At last it would begin. At last.

Yet he paused, and Carlen waited, afraid yet anxious for the pain he would undoubtedly try to cause her. But when it came, Carlen was amazed and a little appalled at the ease of his swift entry. She was more amazed still at the result of his equally quick and complete withdrawal. Her legs went rigid and an odd little sound caught in her throat.

He covered her gaping mouth with his own and eased himself inside her again. It was the final straw. Her muscles contracted around him, her knees flexed and clamped hard against his thighs. She arched with a pained cry as the waves rippled up her spine and the involuntary struggles commenced. She was on her way and, as before, no force on earth could have stopped it.

This time he did not draw back and watch her struggle with it alone. He stayed with her, moving slowly, steadily, sensually, until the last of her quivering ebbed away into soft, mute compliance.

She'd opened perfectly and lay in soft repose accepting his attention without struggle, completely undermined by the delicacy of his approach. Carlen was hardly even aware of it when he withdrew, kissed her shoulder and left her, having taken no more pleasure from her than the knowledge he had moved her again. What a passionate woman she was.

When Carlen came to herself some minutes later, she hardly knew whether to be angry, ashamed, or just plain relieved. There was nothing for her to protect or nurse. He had not hurt her in the least. The only thing left bruised and burning was her pride.

He had beaten her again, with hardly an effort. The fact was, he had known and she hadn't, and this affronted her more than Nolty's attack in the Cold Room. That had been more than just hard to live with, but this? This was impossible. He weaved her up in his web of magic and she had fallen straight into it like a child virgin. She had not contested his right to do it. She was too emotionally exhausted to try. At least, this is what she told herself.

She told herself a lot of things. She told herself things could be a lot worse. She told herself if she played along she'd be alright. After all, the man was comely. He was clean. He was the reigning king, and there was a certain electricity in his aura. This had been more than simply inevitable... hadn't it?

The fact was, the man was dangerous. Much more dangerous than she'd thought. He was a seducer. Hell! He could seduce a she-cat right down from a tree, or the birds from the skies, or the stars from the heavens. How cold and satisfied he must be feeling now.

He left her alone no more than an hour, having sat back the whole while watching her confusions at work on her.

She tried sitting up, lying down, curling into varying positions of tight defense. She had spent half the time listening to see if he was there, the other half cursing herself for not knowing or, at least pretending not to care about it. Once she even reached onto the table for something. He didn't know what. He didn't ask, but merely watched with cool fascination when she came up empty and withdrew again, her mouth compressed in frustration.

He thought she would speak but she never did. He thought, if it were within her power to do so, she would have completely ceased her odd little pantomime. She was nervous and embarrassed but much too proud to admit it. The most curious thing of all was that she appeared to be afraid, although she didn't seem to know whether she actually needed to be.

She was genuinely surprised when he seized her, abruptly pushed her down and took her the second time. There was nothing polite or subtle about his approach, and he felt the first flex of resistance in her arms as he laid her back, although he quickly realized it was only the resistance of someone unexpectedly caught off balance.

As before, she received him without difficulty and, despite the rough approach, she yielded to him with almost sacrificial forbearance.

He displayed absolutely no finesse, no delicacy and no respect. He took her with a contrived nonchalance which was not only undeserved but insulting and dehumanizing.

Although not unusually so, the channel was narrow, and it was shallow. She was not constructed to withstand the unbridled abuses of a man of his stature. He made a point of demonstrating his easy potential for hurting her.

Still she lay there, suffering his ill use, apparently unmoved by his deliberate provocations. She made sounds of discomfort throughout the assault but, not once did she verbalize a complaint.

He did not keep her long and, although he made no display of pleasure, he made it obvious to Carlen he had achieved completion. Just as coldly he withdrew and left her.

Carlen drew herself in and lay listening. When she felt reasonably sure he had left the Stage, she found her direction and crawled to the wall where she curled up, her back pressed against it.

* * *

In one way at least, the results were better than he'd anticipated, but she was much easier than he'd expected her to be, especially the second time. It appeared she'd given away any ideas of fighting him tonight.

He knew this could not last indefinitely. He intended to insure it wouldn't. She'd have to fight him with everything she had before he could hope to conquer her completely. It seemed that she was going to force him to force her to it. It shouldn't be too difficult. There was a rich cargo of aggression in her, just below the surface. He'd already caught glimpses of it and, from what Nolty had said, it wouldn't be too hard to fire it up.

Only, the timing would be crucial. He must push neither too fast nor too slow. One small step at a time. It was a challenge he looked forward to. There would be no instant conversions here. Not with this one. This one was nobody's dancer. At least, not yet.

* * *

Carlen was awakened next morning by the women who brought her breakfast, the can and a small enamel basin of water to bathe her. They took off the blindfold and, as Carlen fed, she glanced around in vague confusion. The chamber was empty, the table had been removed from the platform and now stood on the floor against the wall near the presentation area. As Carlen thought back on the previous night she could not entirely satisfy herself it hadn't all been something she dreamed or imagined. The touch of the women was a welcome confirmation of reality.

As they prepared to leave, Carlen experienced a sudden spark of panic at being left alone in the vast space. The dark haired girl, the constant one, the one Carlen had once questioned, saw the shadows collecting in Carlen's eyes and she paused.

"Why don't you try to get some more sleep?" she suggested.

Carlen glanced up, very surprised and a little disturbed to find the girl looking straight into her eyes.

"There's time," she said, and somehow Carlen found reassurance in the remark.

The girl helped her lie down, pulling the chain out of the way so Carlen wouldn't roll over on it. Carlen closed her eyes and, soon after, was fast asleep.

About mid-afternoon the girl came back and shook Carlen awake.

"Your lunch," she said, placing a bowl and a cup on the pelts. "There's a fresh can and paper by the wall on the second step. I'll pick it up later."

When she'd gone, Carlen took advantage of the privacy to avail herself of the can before settling down to eat. She was not halfway done when the Master came in.

He went straight to his table, tossed down a ring of keys, poured a sturdy jolt from a silver flask into one of two cups which partnered it, and took it in a swallow. He glanced at Carlen only briefly, as if to satisfy himself she was properly settled, before he went to the bell and rang it. Almost immediately a naked woman appeared in the archway.

"Go tell Nolty I want to look at Four, Six and Nine. Tell him to come in as well."

"Kick wants to see you."

"He can wait. Go."

The girl left.

Carlen watched the Master turn and slowly approach the platform. He did not look up as he stepped onto the second landing and sat down, his back turned. Seconds ticked by and Carlen became absorbed in the progress of a lock of his hair which had separated from the fall at the back and was moving in sliding transference over his shoulder. He was assembling his thoughts and Carlen didn't make one move to disturb his silence.

A few minutes later Nolty came in with two of the Spikers off the truck. With them were three naked, blindfolded women. They looked to Carlen like ruins.

The Master stepped down to the floor when they entered, but didn't approach until they were assembled and still in the presentation area. He looked all three women over but he didn't touch one of them. He stopped at the third.

"This one over its bout of flu?"

"Yes. A slight cough but it's fading," Nolty said.

"Good. Don't want to be accused of any germ warfare."

Nolty made no reply but the corner of his mouth turned up just a bit at the remark.

"I think they're as ready as they'll ever be. They're going off-side."

"Fine. When?"

"Dispatch them tonight. No need to take them in. Someone will be waiting at Park Corner at eleven o'clock."

"Do you want me to send a Collector?"

"No. No, this one's grace. Just make sure they're all marked. We'll soon know if they turn up somewhere they shouldn't."

"Fine."

Nolty signaled dismissal to the group and the Spikers none-too-gently led the women away.

"Oh, and Nolty?"

Nolty stopped and turned.

"You might get them cleaned up a bit."

Nolty nodded and left.

The girl reappeared.

"Tell Kick to come in," the Master said.

Carlen could see Kick was busting out over this prize. She was strong, healthy. Newblood, Carlen guessed. Kick was having some trouble keeping her still.

The Master looked her over carefully but he didn't turn her or touch her. The extended silence seemed to cool her action. Within a few minutes she'd come to a complete standstill, although her chin was jutted, her ear cocked, the sure sign of a dumb Newblood. Just what Carlen was when they first brought her in and planted her on that spot. That seemed like centuries ago.

"This is a nice one," the Master said.

"Yeah. It is. Only, it's a Legionnaire."

"A Legionnaire!" the Master rejoined smoothly. "And what sort of crime are we talking about?"

"That's it. No crime. She's a hound. Dances for the State."

"A spy."

"I think she's been looking for you. She's been hassling everybody."

"Is that so?"

The Master stepped forward with easy grace and pushed his hand between her legs. Here we go, Carlen thought. The girl arched back but made no sound. He wasn't hurting her - yet.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.

"...Who are you?" she countered, once she was sure she could control it. Thought she was James fucking Bond.

"If you don't already know who I am, why have you been asking around for me?"

No reply.

"What did they send you in here to find out?"

Still nothing.

"So..." he murmured, very low, very dangerous. "You want to play in my yard?"

Carlen watched the tension shoot from his shoulder down into his hand. The girl screamed. Carlen couldn't see exactly what he was doing but it was sure darkening her lights.

He eased off and the screaming stopped.

"We'll find you out," he told her. "You're not the first Legionnaire we've had in here and you won't be the last. You're just another dumb State dog who's sniffed her way down the short road to hell."

"We've got a nice place for loves like you, once we're through with you," Kick cooed.

"Why don't you show her the Cold Room?" the Master suggested. "Let me know what you find out. Then we'll send her over. She can make her State Report on her knees in the Alley."

There was an evil glint in Kick's eyes. "Sounds fair," he said.

He wrenched the girl by the collar toward the exit. The 'other' exit. The one Carlen assumed led to the interior.

"Good catch," the Master commended. Kick smiled.

The Master was washing his hands when Nolty came in. They spoke in undertones for a moment, then the Master said:

"You go ahead. I'll be right there."

The Master dried his hands and, before he left, he turned to Carlen, who had not moved an inch since he came into the chamber.

"Don't pull on that collar," he cautioned. "You'll only irritate your neck and that, in turn, will irritate me."

Carlen had never seen the collar she wore but, if it was engineered anything like the bracelets she'd been issued, she knew there was no hope of getting free of it without the use of a key, or maybe a razor.

Once the master had gone, however, she did look up at the ring in the wall behind her. The chain was soldered directly to it and that chain seemed like it had been hanging from that ring forever.

Something he'd said that afternoon stirred in her head.

"Not the first... not the last."

Around seven o'clock Carlen's attendant came in. She exchanged the cans and came up for the bowl. She was surprised to find the remains of Carlen's lunch still lying in the bottom of it.

"You didn't finish this."

"You should have brought it earlier. The atmosphere in here during the afternoon is hardly conducive to good digestion."

"Do you want to finish it now?" Was she coaxing?

"No."

"I'll have to tell him about it."

Carlen only shook her head with a patronizing smirk.

"He wants you to start eating properly."

"To fatten me for the kill?"

That one really flattened her. Without another word, she walked out, just a little stiffly.

Not long after, two of the compound men came in. Their sudden appearance was no great delight to Carlen, who was doubly disturbed when they picked up the low, rectangular table by the left wall and carried it onto the Stage.

One of them had a blindfold stuck in his belt. The other had a box of matches. While the one with the matches lit the candles on the dining table, the other deprived Carlen of her sight. One of the women came after and left some things on the table, placed Carlen in position and left her.

Carlen waited patiently for the Master to come. To her great relief, he did not conceal his arrival. She heard him ascend the steps and take his seat opposite.

"Well, you have some manners, at least," he said. "There's sausage, bread, even some fresh cabbage. Enjoy."

He turned to his food with good appetite but Carlen remained motionless.

"Why the blindfold?" she asked, stony low.

"Questions already?"

"Is the blindfold a punishment for something?"

"If you prefer to view it as such."

"That's not an answer."

"I'm not obliged to answer your questions."

Carlen fell silent.

"Eat your dinner."

She began to eat.

After a pause the Master said, "All that time, running all that material, you must be pretty knowledgeable about music."

"I wouldn't say that."

"You wouldn't?"

"No."

"You told me you were exposed to the materials you carried."

"Some. Not all."

"You said 'Most of them'. Those were your words."

Carlen said nothing.

"Did you know the names of the groups whose discs you carried?"

"Some."

"Tell me."

Carlen sighed, as though bored. "Oh... Fast Lane, Hot Flush, Yellow Moon, New Beginning."

"Go on."

"Cloudburst, No Trace, M-16, Hang Fire, Land Mine, Territory," she said and paused.

"That's very heavy material you're talking about," he remarked.

Carlen made no comment.

"Don't you think so?"

Carlen shrugged. "If you say so."

"Was all the music so modern?"

"No. As a matter of fact, there's a lot more old music floating around than films or videos. You'd be amazed how many records."

"No. I don't think I would," he said. "Did you carry any classical music?"

"I said I was Underground. No classical music."

"What about something like the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange or Apocalypse Now?"

Carlen paused. He was trying to walk her into something.

"You know, I really don't know."

"What I'm talking about? Or if that kind of material is circulating?"

"...If the material is in circulation."

"What kind of music do you like?"

Carlen shrugged. She knew his conversational tone was a lure.

"Any of the groups you mentioned?" he suggested.

"I suppose."

"Which?"

"...Yellow Moon..."

He waited.

"Cloudburst... Territory..."

"Very radical."

"Not really."

"Territory."

"...If you say so," Carlen conceded. "I prefer Yellow Moon."

"Cloudburst, you mean."

No, he wouldn't be fooled.

"...Yes."

"Why?"

"I think the songs are well written."

There was an odd smile on his face. "Do you?"

"Some of them. I think they showed insight."

"Songs by Sebastian," he said, surprising Carlen.

"Yes."

"Is it true no one Outside knows who he is?"

"Or where," Carlen affirmed. "I imagine he's a pacifist."

"He's probably nothing like you imagine him."

"...probably."

"Territory did some songs by the same composer."

"...I believe they did," Carlen replied as if disinterested.

"Those vids and films you carried were mostly Wildtracks, weren't they?" he asked.

Carlen hesitated.

"Come on. Answer."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"The further underground, the more secure the root."

"Don't be obtuse."

"The CASH."

"That's risky trade. Weren't you afraid of getting busted?"

"Everyone's afraid for some reason," Carlen said.

"The transportation of Forbidden Materials is smuggling. The distribution and trading of Wildtracks is sedition."

"You know your law." Here it comes, she thought.

"What were you picked up with?" he asked.

"Only a couple of audios."

"Why was that?"

"I don't know why," Carlen said with an edge of impatience. "Perhaps they were trying to be kind. I don't see what difference it makes."

"Then I'll explain it to you," he said coolly. "Someone tried and found guilty of smuggling might walk in here whole. Whereas, someone tried and found guilty of sedition might be missing something. I believe the difference is five fingers."

Carlen said nothing. Point made. He thought she was lying. Let him. He couldn't prove anything.

"Now, you might have transported all those goodies without ever seeing or hearing any of them. You might have. Maybe even could have. But, it seems to me, operating in that kind of business has advantages besides high pay, ugly hours and a rotten, lonely lifestyle. It seems to me the major draw to a line like that is the line itself." He paused. "Do you know what I think?"

"That's an interesting question."

"I think you are highly politically oriented or, at the very least, you're into violence. What do you say?"

"I can't help what you think," Carlen said.

"What a bullshit artist you are."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

"And remarks like that will get you in trouble."

Carlen backed down.

After a moment he said, "I understand you came to the park of your own volition."

"Is this the same conversation?"

"Did you?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"I was in the neighborhood."

"Why?"

"I'm just a born tourist."

He paused, as if to give her a moment to think this whole thing over.

"Didn't Dalroy try to stop you?" he tacked.

"Of course she did."

"Why didn't you listen?"

"Because she's a weasel."

"Why did you come?"

"Just to see the damned park. To get away... be alone for a while."

"You prefer to be alone?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"...I don't know why. ...Too many people."

The answer disappointed him. It seemed he'd done worse than pick a leader or a rebel for this conversion. He had chosen a loner. What could he do about it? Nothing. There was no one to replace her. She had everything he was looking for - including the self-reliance. He would find the way to turn her.

* * *

Carlen woke with a start when the women came in at breakfast time but there was no dream quality about it. The sun was up, the chamber was light, the bath water was cold and Carlen felt used.

The blindfold and the questioning at dinner. The cold intercourse that followed. She was not hurt, not stimulated, just coldly used. If it were at all possible to fuck her with more dispassion than Nolty had, then he'd certainly found the way.

Carlen performed her part in the routines of can-breakfast-bath with apathy, more oblivious to the humanity of the women than they were to hers.

Nothing was said and, when the women had gone, Carlen sat in despondent repose at the wall, staring around the chamber. For the first time, she took in the details of the furnishings which lent the chamber its quality of function and identity.

The main chamber was a large, square room with high ceilings which was divided from the presentation area by the wide rectangular archway. The walls of this archway were so narrowly constructed that they hardly formed a line of demarcation, let alone a successful division between the two areas. None-the-less, these narrow ledges of wall did form two corners on the chamber side, and both these petite corners were furnished.

The right-hand corner was occupied by a tall, slender table which served only as a stand for an antique china hand basin. Down below, a shelf was fixed between the legs of the stand. On the shelf stood a bottle of grain alcohol, disinfectant for the basin water. From an oversized concrete nail in the wall above hung a big white towel, immaculately laundered. A fresh one every day.

This small ensemble fit the dimensions of the corner precisely and near it, on a metal bracket set into the archway itself, was the bell. A proud, brassy ship's bell.

The corner on the left was occupied by the iron stand. A crude, yet oddly ornate object that stood on three curled wrought iron feet. Not something readily available at the local bargain center. This was either another antique, or something that was created to specification.

Near the iron stand, against the left wall, was the "dining table", empty, except for ten or twelve short stout candles of varying size, the leakage of which had melded into a solid base at one end of it.

Next was the smaller platform on which stood a large wooden trunk. The whips were on the wall above and, in their midst, one more heavy ring had been sunk in the wall.

Against the wall on the right, mirroring the one on the left, was the other small platform. On the floor against the back wall was the Whipmaster's table which, like the dining table, was rectangular and cut down to coffee table height. Nearly one third of this table was taken up with candles, all clumped at one end. Like the candles on the dining table, they'd been placed directly on the surface of the table and had melted down, merging into one solid mass at the base.

The remaining area of the table was strewn with a variety of items, both of a business and personal nature. Apart from a small carved wooden chest, the silver flask and its two matching cups, there was a collection of jars, several boxes of matches, a saucer which served as an ashtray for the dead matches, some coins, some keys, one or two linklocks, an unopened pack of cigarettes and, dropped in a careless heap over the chest, Carlen's blindfold. The only untidy corner of his life, it seemed.

Carlen pulled her eyes away from the table. She did not want to involve herself in an inventory of these details. She did not want to know this chamber that well or become too familiar with the activities that transpired here. Most of all, she did not want to become familiar with the inner workings of the Whipmaster. She was not interested in learning to live with the idea that he might keep her here indefinitely, although it was the only question that surrounded her all day. It smothered her like a cloud of black smoke.

She wanted to just close her eyes and forget the whole thing, but she couldn't. Anymore than she could stand up and walk the hell out of there. All she could do was sit. And think. And wait. Wait for Him. It was his will that bound her to this platform, imprisoned her in this ungodly place. If there was any conceivable way out, it had to be through him. This was where she would have to find the strength to wage her war. A war that was probably futile. A war that would probably be the finish of her.

Carlen was alone all day. Her lunch came in at the usual time and she made a point of finishing it quickly, before the commencement of "business hours". But there was no business in the chamber that day, and Carlen sat in solitude with her thoughts until the light began to fade and preparations were made for dinner.

Carlen made a sound of irritation as the blindfold was once again applied. The girl brought up the food.

"Start," she said. "He'll be here in a minute."

So Carlen started, trying to relax and prepare for the ordeal ahead.

A few minutes later he did come, but Carlen was not made aware of his arrival until he snapped one of the carrot sticks they'd been given. Vaguely she wondered if his diet consisted of the same things as hers.

It went on like that for some time - the munching of carrots and the silence, until Carlen could no longer tolerate it.

"Aren't we talking tonight?" she asked.

"Be quiet."

"What? No questions?"

"Shut up."

Carlen's mouth snapped shut. OK. Fine. Life was a whole lot easier without questions anyway - and so was eating. Or... was the silence really more difficult?

He didn't give her a lot of time to puzzle it over before he abruptly pulled her away from the table and pushed her down. The rape was quick and harsh, as if executed to demonstrate some point. There was still a piece of carrot clenched in Carlen's fist when she sat up some minutes later and resumed her seat at the table as to his direction.

Dinner went on as before. It seemed like a very long time before he finally spoke.

"Something on your mind?"

Carlen was somewhat rattled, but she was determined not to miss one single opportunity.

"I want this blindfold off."

"Why?"

"I'd like to see you coming for a change."

He smiled at that but, of course, Carlen couldn't see it.

"You can take it off," he said.

Seconds clicked by. The silence hung. At last, Carlen began to raise her hands.

"-as soon as you describe your favorite sexual act."

So that was it. Another lure. Another game.

"I'm sure you've already figured that one out," she said.

"Whether I've figured it out or not isn't important. I want to hear you say it."

Carlen wasn't in a mood to play. "I like making it standing up in antique London phone booths."

"I'll remember that remark," he said with an edge.

There was a pause.

"Stubborn. Tell me."

"...on a ship. At sea."

"That's a location, not an act."

"An act with a man who loves me."

"That's a choice of partner, not an act."

"...an act of love. Any act."

"Any act?"

Was there a smile in his voice?

"An act of compassion," she said.

"Is that something you've always sought? Or only something you've come recently to stand in need of?"

Carlen was silent.

"Or are we still talking about the same thing?"

"You work it out," she said tightly.

So. This was the mood she was in. Couldn't say he hadn't been warned. All was well.

"Do you think you can find your way over to the wall?"

She was startled. Cautious. "Yes... Why?"

"Why do you think?" There was no mistaking his tone now. "Go."

Carlen did hesitate, but soon began edging her way back to the wall, her movements a plain expression of her indignation. She pulled against him with angry snorts as he raised her arms and attached them to the chain. She steamed like fury at the cuts of the whip. But she did not lose her cool and she did not yell. She didn't even try to squirm out of range of his blows. She was like stone.

When he had delivered thirty or so blows, he turned her out from the wall and bruised her thighs prying them apart. He wedged his knees between them and forced her with his hand. Carlen dropped her head back with a gasp, trying to rise up. He shoved her down and Carlen gasped again.

He drove her like this until she finally relinquished her anger and focused her exertions into coping with his rough intrusion. As soon as he felt her begin to relax, he withdrew his hand from her groin and thrust his fingers into her mouth.

"You'd better find a more tactful method of asking favors of me," he said.

Carlen was fighting off the temptation to bite his hand.

"You have a lot to learn. Tomorrow you begin bathing yourself. I expect you to keep yourself clean. Remember."

An instant later he was gone. Carlen turned in to the wall and pushed with all her might, trying to hold down the shouts of outrage.

No one came until much later to release her restraints, remove the blindfold and douse the candles. Carlen lay down with a sigh and fell immediately asleep.

* * *

She was alone again all the next day. Alone for breakfast, alone for bath, alone for lunch and left in utter privacy for the can.

She lay down for most of the day, but the sleep she needed so badly was elusive. She stared across the empty chamber, her only companion being the harsh knowledge that the day would pass and the next confrontation would commence.

* * *

The major surprise at dinner was the absence of Carlen's blindfold. She was the first to the table which gave her a chance to check out the setting and the food before he came in. As she waited, she realized a small flicker of confidence. She drew a deep breath and tried to relax - and forget about the previous night.

Yet, the instant he stepped through the darkened archway, she knew. This wasn't going to be a different night. It was the previous night. The nights before it and the nights to come. They were all the same night.

Her confidence flagged further when she realized she couldn't even bring herself to look up as he approached and took his seat. He was very cordial.

"Are you more comfortable now?"

"Yes," she said, knowing it was a lie.

"Have you seen the dinner?"

"Yes."

"How does it look to you?"

"Fine."

"Good. Eat."

One thing she did find out. The Master had a knife. And a fork. It seemed he preferred to use his fingers, as she had to. He also had a plate, a china one, rather than one of the enamel or wooden compound bowls. He drank water, like she did. All this she was able to take in, but she could not look up at his face.

The Master observed her discomfiture with placid interest. He knew she had thought her sight would help her but now she was frightened. More foiled by her sudden sight than by the blindness because it meant she would have to assume some responsibility. She was less the victim now and, as a result, less identified. It was time for a little push.

"Have you been to Paris?" he asked.

"Of course."

"How are things there?"

"Very tight."

"What about the city itself?"

"Well, you can still see what she must have been like when she kept herself up. It's old but beautiful. I love it."

"Did you have a lover there?"

"...yes."

"What was he like?"

"...which one?"

"How many did you have?"

"Two."

He smiled. "Simultaneously?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. They were cousins."

"Cousins!"

"Dark, handsome, cultured. Rich. They shared a flat on the river."

"Somehow I don't picture you part of a menage-a-trois."

"Why not? It was wonderful. They had an incredible set-up and they were into everything. Bondage, especially."

There was a pause. "You're lying."

"What makes you say that?"

"You never wore chains before you came here."

"How would you know that?"

"That question isn't worthy of you."

She knew he was angry. He was curling the anger around him like a coiling snake, meticulously arranging his emotions for precisely the correct frequency.

Carlen was a little cross herself. She was growing dead tired of this line of questioning and wouldn't look far for an excuse to tell him so.

He didn't look up but Carlen sensed a tough one coming.

"Why are you testing me?"

"Am I testing you?"

His eyes flicked up. "Why did you tell me that story?"

"To entertain you... tease you... make you jealous that someone might have touched me before you... To make you stop asking me questions like that!"

He deliberately left the silence open for her.

"You expect me to go on, day after bloody day, accepting all this, like some docile dog, mechanically spitting out soul stripping answers to your stupid questions! You think you can..." And so it began.

He just let it roll. There was nothing he could do immediately that would not come off looking like a short blow a little too late. She was testing it to the limit, playing like a chessman, trying to view moves and moves ahead. She was going to try and out-maneuver him, pull him out of step, get him constantly changing course. The fascinating thing was, she was doing all this automatically, before she even knew it consciously. It wasn't deliberate, only practiced.

For the time being he let her run it. He learned quite a lot that way. He was bound to. She led an active mental life and he was the only person who talked to her. She could not afford to go silent because it would mean giving up the only weapon she had.

"Well, the news is, I don't CARE anymore what you want to know, and I don't give a shit what you think of me or my potential to become your little pet!"

"Shall I tell you what I'm going to do to you tonight?" he interjected softly.

Carlen shut down abruptly as though he'd touched an off button. It always came back to threats and realities.

"I assume you'll do as you bloody well please," she said, now angry with herself for losing control.

"At least you've come to understand that," he said.

Carlen said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on the table, her jaw tightly clenched.

"You have some very bad habits. Should have been knocked out of you in the Workshop. It looks like we have to deal with them now."

He waited but Carlen made no sign.

"All these lies," he admonished. "I can understand you lying to protect yourself, but fabricating stories just to provoke me? That's going to get the hell knocked out of you."

He paused a moment. "You know, I've got a model and a method for keeping a piece like you on your feet for better than three hundred. You don't do any walking the morning after, but nothing is broken."

Carlen finally looked up, incredulous.

"Oh I mean it," he said.

She recoiled slightly.

"Don't tell me lies, turn. That's a very dangerous thing to do."

Carlen's eyes dropped and he was disappointed to see she appeared to have struck her colors for another night. She took more of the whips, a succession of three rapes and then he left her.

He was afraid to stay. Afraid he was too angry to stay. Angry with her stubborn silence. There was no screaming or begging or crying. She didn't even curse him.

He realized she would have to be forced every night. She demanded it. She could be left only long enough to catch her breath, her state of mind. Long enough for the pain to settle in so she would realize he actually was hurting her - little by little, despite her attempts to submit.

She was still much too easy, and he knew he would have to start making her feel like she might not cope with another attack right away, or even for a couple of days. Then strike again, and again, and eventually she would stop coming back, opening and lubricating like a horny teenager indulging in sex for the first time.

Not that he couldn't understand it. This was a release she'd needed for a long time. He knew he was butting against hard emotional barriers. Virulent hatreds she'd accrued since the day Dalroy turned her over. Possibly much earlier ones as well.

She was still trying to control them, but underneath... Underneath she was aching to strike back. It excited him. Her emotional pitch was exhilarating.

He knew there were numerous defenses women employed against the assaults of men, but everything moved in cycles. She'd come to a bad day and, when she did, it wouldn't take a great deal to get her where he wanted her. On that day he would break away another piece of her confidence. She would be forced to surrender - not necessarily to him, but to all the feelings she was now repressing. And that would be the first vital step in her conversion.

CHAPTER 31 \- HEAT AND ICE

Around sunset the next day Purdy and Stellen were brought in. The presentation area was cast in a strange light afforded by two flame torches set into brackets in the wall on the other side of the archway. The Master had instructed Carlen to stay alert and watch presentations in the afternoons, so she watched, but it was no pleasure.

It seemed the women were brought in straight off the truck. They were still in their street clothes, although they were blindfolded and collared, their hands shackled behind. They looked like sub-standard mock-ups of Shay, but with none of her style or smarts. They did, however, seem to have a keen understanding of where they were. In attendance were Kick and another Spiker from the truck. Nolty was also present.

"My, my," the Master began. "Haven't we waited a long time for this. Let me see... This one's Purdy, and you're Stellen."

"Are you going to kill us?" Stellen asked aggressively.

"Is that what you're hoping?"

"Are you?" Purdy asked, more tentatively.

"Certainly not right away," the Master said.

"Aw come on!" Purdy whined. "It was only one shipment - and we didn't get it anyway!"

The Master smiled. "I can see we're going to learn a lot from you."

"Can it, Purdy!" Stellen snapped.

"And you're the bright one of the group," the Master said.

Stellen clammed up.

"Now," the Master continued smoothly, "before we commence any instruction, there is one small matter that needs clarification. Where is Shay?"

It was the kind of silence that sounded like people had already retracted statements out of it. Purdy shifted nervously but didn't speak.

"Of course," the Master said. "I assume McLeary is already dead."

Still nothing.

The Master looked at Nolty. "Where were they picked up?"

"Along the Ledge," Nolty replied. "The warehouse."

The Master nodded. "Searched?"

"Oh yeah," Kick answered.

"What have they got?"

"Everything. Food, clothes, fuel, weapons."

"Guns?"

"Some. Ammo. The lot."

"Secure now?"

"Oh yeah."

The Master shook his head slowly. "My, my, ladies. This is really hardchange."

Purdy shifted with a frightened peep.

"Shut up, Purdy!" Stellen snapped. "So what?" she barked at the Whipmaster. "You've known all about it for ages. You never did nothing about it before."

"Not quite all," he amended. "But you knew it was grace. Trouble is, you got yourselves all fouled up. Lost your sense of direction and started crossing my supply lines. Not a very smart move at all."

A sudden blizzard of rage seemed to blow up inside him.

"What made Shay so suddenly stupid?" he demanded into the frozen silence. "You girls think you've got some combustion going? Want to start taxiing yourselves around in cars?"

His mood switched again, his tone edged with chilling condescension. He snatched the front of Stellen's shirt, breathing his ice breath on her face.

"Going to raise some bon fires, were you? Declare some wars? Or what?"

Stellen maintained her front. The roar echoed to silence.

He released her, moved away. The smooth containment returned. "Tell me, Stellen, how long have you been in Newcity?"

Kick yanked at her manacles when she hesitated.

"Four years," she answered.

"Four years. And in those four years of precious experience, do you think you've seen the worst that goes on here?"

The girl's jaw tightened suddenly. "No," she said, real low. "I suppose not."

"Well," the Master said softly. "You just hang on to that thought, because it's just beginning for you."

He gave the slightest nod and Nolty stepped in and unbuttoned Stellen's shirt. Purdy could hear Stellen's struggles but she couldn't tell what was going on. Perhaps her own ideas of what was happening were more frightening than the present reality. Perhaps that was the point.

When Stellen was stripped as cleanly as possible to the wrists and ankles, the Whipmaster approached her. He wasn't secretive about it. She knew he was there.

"Well," he said. "You're not beautiful, are you?"

Purdy whimpered. A real tough guy.

"It won't take much to make you bleed," the Master went on. "Nor your friend here. Only, she's going to spend a little time in the Workshop, to see just how far out of her mouth she can hang it.

"I'd like to get this little pocket rebellion all wound up. This 'celebration of the self' should make quite an interesting story. Purdy's going to fill in all the details for us. Kick has a nice way with scared bitches who don't know which way is up."

"Purdy - don't you say one fucking word!" Stellen said ferociously. The best of friends.

"I won't," Purdy murmured.

"Not until she's asked politely," the Master said with a smile. He placed a hand on Stellen's breast - not because he desired it, but because he knew it would disarm her. "It's only a matter of which of you breaks first."

He withdrew his hand abruptly and stood back.

"Take her now, Kick," he said with a curt nod at Purdy. "You," he addressed Stellen, "are you going to stay with me."

Kick and the other Spiker exchanged prisoners and Kick hauled Purdy off with undisguised anticipation.

Carlen looked on in numb horror as Nolty and the other man threw Stellen to the floor, pulled away the rest of her clothing and readjusted the shackles at the front. They stood her up, spun her around and shoved her into The Wall. They stretched her arms up and secured her to the chain hung from the ring there. Chain was also used to secure her ankles together.

The Master chose the black stock whip, as Carlen knew he would. She was pretty sure it was the same one he had graced Dalroy with - and Dalroy was one of his own people.

Carlen had wondered how Dalroy ever made it to the first interrogation session that day. True, she had moved with an uncharacteristic stiffness and she had made a point of turning the back of her chair forward. Carlen remembered that, but Dalroy had not been incapacitated.

Yet this whip, like most of the whips in the Cold Room, was specifically designed to cut. Carlen was coming to understand it was in his expertise that the difference lay.

He only asked Stellen one question and he only asked it once. When she refused to answer, he acquainted her with every subtlety of inflection that whip was capable of. By the time all the daylight had drained out of the chamber, Stellen hung, buckled into The Wall, unconscious.

Her back, rear, and legs were heavily interlaced in a tattoo ranging from purple bruises, the ridges of thick red welts, on to blood blisters and open cuts. She'd told him a number of things. None of them were true.

It was the last interview of the day. A ruthless day. The flogging eased some of the tensions Carlen saw building in the Master over the course of the afternoon. It was a genuine pity she wasn't able to take advantage of this but, by the time they sat down to dinner, her acid was just coming to the boil.

"What happens now?" she asked, with a lot more cool than she felt.

His eyes flicked up with only half an interest. "I don't understand."

"Stellen."

"She recovers."

"And then?"

"The same again."

Carlen's gaze dropped. She watched her finger which was rubbing against the side of her bowl. She watched that but she didn't see it.

"What was in that shipment, anyway?"

"You're full of questions this evening."

"Well?"

"Gasoline."

"Oh, gasoline!" she reiterated with blistering sarcasm. "Couldn't function around here without that, now could we?"

"Is that another question?"

"No."

There was a pause.

"You're in quite a mood tonight," he remarked.

"It's not every day you see something like that."

"Are you personally involved?"

"No."

"Then you shouldn't concern yourself. You have trouble of your own."

"You're it," Carlen said under her breath.

He ate the last crust of bread on his plate. Took a sip of water. "I take it you don't like me very much tonight."

"I don't like you any night."

"Not even when I break your ice?"

Carlen's arm hit the table with a jarring crash. "You son of a bitch."

He knew it then. He had her. Her scent was sour and so was her temper. The flogging had incited her.

Very carefully he said, "Do you want to call me that again?"

Carlen didn't speak but her eyes were blazing.

With that marked, effortless grace, he rounded the table and knelt very near to her. "Do you?"

Carlen felt the drum vibrate inside her. She sat mute, rigid. Stared ahead.

"Well, I want to hear you say it again."

Carlen hung on.

"Say it!"

"You're a blood monger."

He slapped her, hard, but Carlen retained her seat.

"Say it again."

"Blood monger."

Another slap.

"Again."

Nothing.

"Say it again."

"...blood monger."

He slapped her again and grabbed the collar as she started to tip. He encouraged her over and held her down.

"Again."

Carlen was a little scared. Tried to beg off.

"Come on," he coaxed. "You're not finished yet. Say it again. Say it!"

"Blood monger."

A forehand and a backhand. "Again? ...Well? No?"

He lifted his hand and Carlen flinched.

"Now I'll tell you once, turn - you ever say anything like that to me again and I'll burn you." His eyes dropped momentarily, following a line he traced with his finger over her left breast. "I'll do it myself and your eyes will be wide open to see it." He looked up. "No salves. No dropshots."

So that's what they'd done. Doped her afterwards.

As if he would burn her there. He wouldn't. Not unnecessarily. It would never be necessary. Carlen believed he would and that was enough. She believed he was Satan.

He released the collar and left the Stage just long enough for Carlen to regain her seat. Her face was hot and sore and there was a ringing in her ears.

The Master returned with fistfuls of chain and what looked like another set of leather manacles he'd taken out of the trunk below. Carlen jumped as he dropped them to the Stage with a thud. He knelt down and threw back two pelts, one on either side of her extended legs, exposing the boards underneath. Carlen's perplexed features straightened to instant understanding when she looked at the two spots he'd bared. The bastard had rings set into the surface of the Stage. Hinged, mooring rings which lay flat and unnoticeable under the fur pelts, but flipped up with well oiled proficiency when required.

A fresh shock of fear hit Carlen as he took a bruising grip on her left ankle and wrapped a strong, leather manacle around it. With the use of some chain and a non-locking clip he secured her ankle to the ring. He seized the right ankle, drew the leg out to a very wide angle and was about to secure it in the same manner.

With a sudden burst of strength, Carlen yanked her foot free and tried to roll away. He caught her instantly, throwing her back and pinning her by the wrists in a movement. Carlen stared up at him, panting, her eyes sparking with rage.

"So. You're ready to start fighting, are you?"

Carlen gave a mighty wrench but it was no damn good. He was far too strong.

He reached over to uncover another mooring ring near the edge of the Stage. He pulled a linklock from a pouch in his boot and attached the chain of Carlen's manacles to the ring. He then pulled her remaining free leg, to make her taut against the first two restraints, before securing her right ankle to the third ring.

Carlen went on struggling but the only thing she could move at all was her head, and even that was tightly sandwiched between her arms. She was drawn, no two ways about it, and when he knelt between her straining thighs, she ceased this futile thrashing and stared up at him with wary cognizance.

There was a new look on his face. A fresh look. The look of a man standing on the crest of a hill, inspired and invigorated by the sight of the dangerous, lofty peaks of a mountain he's about to scale. His energies were keen and raw. It made Carlen feel tired and anxious. This was all his way. Easy for him. The son of a bitch!

"You're pretty high tonight. A little full of yourself," he said smoothly. His hands shifted down his thighs another inch as he leaned closer. "But what you should have asked yourself, was - are you prepared for the consequences of this little show of temperament?"

He reached forward and slid a long, slender finger up inside her. Carlen pulled at the restraints as he made one small, cool play at her before he withdrew. He raised the hand to his face and sniffed it. A tiny crease formed between his eyebrows and he gave a slow, condescending shake with his head. "The news is... you're not."

That night it started out painfully and it went on that way for some time. He wasn't especially brutal, but Carlen was uncommonly sensitive. As he had thought, it suddenly came home to her that she was hurt. The fact that it had been getting progressively worse every night had been a lot easier to ignore, as long as she'd been able to show him easy and natural access. Now, every little thing he'd done on each night, although not a devastation in itself, had solidified into one enormous block to the only action she'd been able to take all week. Accommodate him with comparative comfort and safety.

Tonight she was tired and angry. She was frustrated and she was afraid. The conflict of these inexpressible emotions was draining her. There was no control. Not mentally, not physically. He was fucking her again and she was constricting like a Chinese raffia finger puzzle - just like she had around Kick after her night in the Cold Room with Nolty. They broke off a huge hunk that day.

"Having difficulties?"

"Guess!"

"Want me to stop?"

"Yes."

He gave a low chuckle. "Can't stop now, changeling. I'm sure you understand that."

"Please."

"Please. Sounds nice on your breath. I wasn't sure you knew the word." He hadn't paused and she was beginning to really labor. "Say it again."

She balked, but not for long. "Please."

He looked down with a benign smile. "You give in too easily," he said and pushed.

Carlen actually cried out. He went on for a few seconds then gave her another push. Again she yelped.

He thought at last the shouts would break but it wasn't to be. Fully aware of the danger, Carlen used every millimeter of play in her body to open her arms just wide enough to turn her head and muffle her mouth against her shoulder.

For the time being he left her to it. It did nothing to alleviate her discomfort. The shouts were still there. He could hear them in her throat, in her lungs... in her heart. Cursing him for straining her when she felt like this.

Eventually though she did come around, as he suspected she would, wetting him down like a summer shower, although she was in spasm so there was no relief in the constriction. He continued on without pause until she relaxed slightly. Then he rolled her over, restraining her the same way.

He didn't wait, but took her immediately from this angle. She was utterly rigid when he lay down and he smiled a little as she suddenly fell nearly slack with relief when he chose the forward passage. He'd never positioned her face down before and it gratified him to see how much it bothered her.

He didn't stop when her fluids evaporated again, but pushed on until he sensed she was exhausted and incapable of recouping her temporary flow. Even then he didn't quit until he had replenished her with a small token of his own.

He drew away slowly, rocked back on his heels and just looked at her for a moment. The resignation in the drape of her body told him she had packed off to limbo. Forgetting him. Perhaps replacing him in her mind with something or someone else.

Small thing. He wouldn't allow it to overrule his good judgment. He knew what he wanted would come in the next few days.

He leaned forward, cupping his hand over the curve of her buttock, his thumb rested in the crevice. Carlen's head came up with a snap. He couldn't see her face but he felt her body come back on alert.

"Nolty said you had an appealing ass. I must say, I agree with him."

Carlen's head flopped back to the pelts with a quickly smothered groan. The hand lifted off and he was gone, but Carlen could not see around well enough to confirm his departure from the chamber, so she could not relax. She lay there, for hours, sweating over his casual remark.

* * *

She was left that way until dawn, but the women didn't come. He did.

Eventually Carlen's head trips had drained her out and dumped her into a fitful sleep. She didn't stir until she felt his hand on her ankle. She came awake with a start to discover him releasing her legs from their restraints. He released her arms also and, as Carlen sat up, his eyes flicked over to the wall.

"Go clean yourself up."

Carlen felt like death warmed over but he looked calm and refreshed.

Without a word, she crawled over to the wall and listlessly dipped her washcloth into the enamel basin. The constant girl came and left two food bowls and two mugs on the far corner of the Stage where the Master took breakfast as he observed Carlen in the process of her morning bath.

When she'd finished Carlen didn't approach him, but stayed where she was, legs folded over to one side, back to the wall, eyeing him with dark suspicion. He'd never appeared in the morning like this before and Carlen was sure it meant trouble.

There was coffee. She could smell it. Coffee would have been a Godsend. She needed something to revive her. It couldn't have been much after six o'clock - three or four hours earlier than her usual wake-up time. She wondered if he always rose this early - or if he ever really slept.

"Why are you sitting over there?"

Carlen's head reared back slightly.

"Fear?" he said as though a little amazed.

Carlen made no response but the chain of her manacles was gripped tightly in her hands.

"Fear of what?" he asked.

The woman was motionless but everything she felt was registered plainly on her face.

"Those mooring rings frightened you."

Bloody right they did, she thought but said nothing.

"Don't you want some breakfast?"

Carlen felt incapable of making a decision on that score, so he made it for her.

"Come and eat."

With supreme reluctance, Carlen crawled over to the corner where the Master sat. She stopped about three feet away but he indicated for her to come closer. After a brief hesitation, she complied and accepted the bowl he offered her.

He reached out a hand. Carlen averted her head in subtle avoidance but his hand followed and stroked her cheek. Just to touch her. Just to be sure she felt touched. Handled. She gave a shaky sigh and began to eat.

For a few minutes he said nothing, did nothing, and Carlen threw her entire concentration into the consumption of the food. She ate with a careful, measured deliberation. He didn't hurry her. He knew she was nervous and he didn't want to induce any unnecessary indigestion or vomiting. She had nearly finished by the time he spoke again.

"Sit up," he coaxed.

Carlen obeyed.

"Get your head up."

Carlen raised her head and her eyes flicked up.

"That's it."

Oh yes. Those eyes. He could see she didn't trust him this morning. She did not understand this situation.

He took the last piece of bread from the bowl and fed it to her. "Thirsty?"

Carlen nodded.

He handed her a cup. She accepted it with both hands. He could see why. She was trembling.

His cup had contained the coffee. Hers contained milk. She took a sip, then lowered the cup in doubt.

"Go on," he urged.

"There's something in it."

"It won't hurt you," he said. "Drink it."

Carlen didn't look convinced but she raised the cup to her lips. She had taken about half when she attempted to lower the cup again. He touched the bottom of it and pushed it toward her mouth.

"All of it."

Carlen didn't resist but he could see she thought he was trying to dope her. Oh so cautious. He checked his inclination to smile. He wasn't going to tell her it was only a vitamin supplement. Her uncertainty sharpened the edge of her apprehension.

He took the empty cup and bowl and set them aside. Carlen flinched as he reached for the manacle chain. He raised it over her head, draping it around the back of her neck to confine her hands.

"Lay back," he said and helped her roll down.

He pulled her feet out and placed them flat on the Stage, her knees crooked and separated. Very carefully he spread her with one hand while, with the other, he sought the entrance between her legs. At the first contact Carlen bolted.

"No - please don't!"

"That will do absolutely no good," he cautioned.

Carlen gasped, her eyes snapping shut. He heard her teeth clench as he worked the middle finger of his hand into the restricted passage. Even the insertion of this one finger was painful to her. She needed help but he wasn't going to give it to her. Perhaps later, but not now.

"You don't think you'll open again this morning."

"No. I can't!"

"We'll see," he said.

He worked slowly, patiently, keeping her legs wedged apart with his elbows. There wasn't a great deal of strain in her thighs but he could tell the internal restriction was not all involuntary.

"You're going to have to do better than that," he said.

Carlen moaned, her wrists pulling against the chain strung around her neck. As he commenced a slow movement with his hand Carlen began to pant. The constriction began to ease slightly. He took immediate advantage and worked a second finger in beside the first. Carlen bolted again with a yelp and he pressed his other hand against her abdomen to prevent her from arching away.

It was a pity, but she was going to be badly hurt this morning. Regrettable, but necessary. This sensitivity was the very breakthrough he'd been waiting for. He would be as gentle as possible, but it was now she must be made to see the futility of fighting him. To fully see it.

When he achieved reasonable leeway with his hand, he did not bring a third finger into play, but withdrew his hand completely. Carlen fell limp with a sigh. Her breathing regulated slightly and she opened her eyes. The Master was watching her with cool intent, but his hands were loosening the ties of his pants.

"My God!" she breathed in frightened disbelief. "Haven't you had enough?"

Carlen was blur of sudden movement as she attempted to wrench the chain from around her neck, at the same time trying to scoot away from him. But in her panic she could not get the chain loose and her feet slipped out of control on the slick furs. All too late, she realized, as she felt his hips drive her legs wider apart.

"No!" she shouted, suddenly furious. "NO!"

He caught her wrists just as she shook the chain free of her neck. The breath gusted out of her as he dropped his weight down.

"You're going to find I don't take no for an answer," he said with icy indifference.

It took more than one push to get inside and he was heartily gratified by her full throated shouts. He kept her arms pressed well away from her head so she could not stifle the cries and, by the time he completed this assault, the first evidence of tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.

He worked her like this on and off until late afternoon. As he'd anticipated, she opened again and lubricated, quite effectively, but once she did, her panicky submission evaporated and the anger came on. She was ready to do battle.

She opened and didn't close again. Not that afternoon and not that night. She accompanied him straight through. Accompanied, hell. He had to stay nimble to keep pace.

This one was certainly no stranger to good, hard, sustained sex. He was sure there had been more than just five lovers in her life, and he imagined many of her affairs had been brief, spontaneous encounters. No time for hellos or good-byes. No time for the luxuries of love, affection, or even acquaintanceship. Relationships to which the memory of respect was always attached, but only in terms of performance, endurance, release, and the absence of any quality resembling clinging or permanence.

He wasn't sure what the outcome of this unusual encounter would be, or how long this spurt of wild energy would last her, but for now she was hot. About the hottest woman he'd ever tried.

He could not criticize her sense of timing. If there was ever a night he felt prepared and willing to keep her until dawn, this was it. He felt keyed up, at war, internally. A turbulence he hardly knew how to define. He was hungry for a degree of contact it was virtually impossible for him to find or claim anymore.

He'd given up such luxuries long ago. Long before his imprisonment. Long before his arrest. He hadn't even met a woman like Carlen since... he had given up women. That is, willing women. Women at their best.

It had not been a thing of preference. It had been a thing involving... what? Survival? Yes. It had been a matter of survival. A young man. In a man's world.

If any of them had stopped to think in those days. Those ripe, rich days when they'd all been so fat. So spoilt. So utterly primed for the slaughter.

Now he specialized in women. He owned women. More women passed through his hands in the course of weeks than any normal modern man could expect to enjoy intimate contact with in half a lifetime. It was a unique position, no mistake, but in truth he took more charge from the power than the availability of all that tail. Pleasure, simple genuine pleasure was the one thing which was absent. Glaringly absent.

The strange thing was, he hadn't noticed the lack. Not until the moment he realized the first burn to see Carlen's eyes. To catch sight of the life force within her.

When she'd first been presented, she had appeared the same as any other raw piece brought in for his inspection. There had been obvious differences, of course. Her physical fitness. Her physical completeness. He knew right away she was potentially the most valuable piece of property he was ever likely to handle, and maybe that's all it was.

Maybe the tilt of her head had nothing to do with it. Or the sound of her voice. Or the smell of her. Maybe these things didn't enter into it. Maybe it was just a lucky break that she stirred something in him. Something fresh. Something inexplicable, at least in terms of the times and stations in which they existed.

Whether or not she sensed this, he could not tell. In any event, it was not a thing he could control. Besides, it was too late. The relationship between them had already begun. The patterns were taking formation and he knew their experiences together would go on winding them closer and closer in.

The contract was accepted. At least by him.

CHAPTER 32 \- FLOOR GAME

He allowed her to sleep through the next day. He spent part of the time just watching her, adrift in the dream world. Even when she slept she was active. Exhausted as she was, she never gave it up for a second.

He was fascinated by her energies, and a little amazed at the fight still in her. Although she had never demanded kid gloves, he had prescribed short measures for her - all along. Runners had stamina and that was useful, but it was not inexhaustible. By all rights she should have been run out now. The mental stress of the Workshop. The lack of sleep, starvation, fear, uncertainty. The constant scrutiny, criticism, the pressure, the pain.

She wasn't. She'd rammed her way through another wall. Transcended one more level. He was awed by this. How exquisitely well the human body functioned under stress. He had heard it said of actors: a director quoted as stating an actor could not function at peak efficiency if he was not pushed to the edge of exhaustion - madness, actually.

He could understand this. Those precious moments when the emotions, both light and dark, are pressed the closest to the surface. The moments when they become the most readily accessible, most readily released, the most readily touchable. The focus of all that power floating free and loose, so promptly stimulated.

* * *

He wakened her after dark, and when she'd done bathing, they sat down to a late supper. No table. They sat at the corner of the Stage with only the cups and bowls between them.

There was also a coolness. She was not the same timid thing he'd taken breakfast with the previous morning. Her confidence was slightly restored and she seemed calm, reserved.

The release of the previous night had eased her pressure. It looked as though she was trying to clamp down on the emotions again. She was going to require a little push. His voice was hardly an undercurrent.

"I've tried you several ways. Tonight I want you to make the choice."

Carlen was clearly shocked, but she didn't give him her eyes. "Why would you suggest a thing like that?" she asked, very low.

"Don't answer me in questions."

The sub zero tone in the command stung her.

Carlen could see the circle he was drawing around her. It was growing smaller and tighter every day. Every moment. All the time he was getting closer.

She could see it happening and it filled her with desperation. She was wondering what to do. Wondering how long she could withstand the tests of this man, go on tolerating this unreal situation. Wondering if there wasn't some way she could break it up.

"Are you going to make a decision?"

He waited and, sure enough, Carlen looked up. Directly at him. Openly. Very intently.

She tried to project - beyond this demand, to the next demand, and the next. Asked herself what he might actually do. And, How far would it go? What on God's battered earth did he truly want?

"A decision. Now."

She didn't doubt in the least he was serious, but she made him wait a long time for her reply. It was a reply she lived to regret, but not until later.

"Take me any way you please," she said evenly. "Only first, bring the stock whip up here."

Despite himself, he felt his shoulders tighten. The energy she had accumulated to make this challenge was hitting him in rushes. Didn't she have a temper. And a nerve.

"For what purpose?"

"You know what purpose."

She read it in his eyes. For an instant, his guard dropped and it looked like he might give way to temptation, but he repressed the urge very nimbly and Carlen saw at once she had failed to budge him.

"You once told me you liked taking it standing up," he said, cool as you please.

This time, Carlen was the one caught off balance.

"I can't supply the phone booth," he said. "But I'm sure we can improvise something."

Carlen made no attempt to hide her gathering clouds. She was furious.

"You didn't think I'd remember. I'm surprised you don't know me better by now. Well. Why don't you get over by the wall?"

"No."

His eyebrow arched. "No?"

Nothing more came out of her mouth, but her answer was repeated plainly enough in her eyes. She knew it was wrong but she'd said it anyway.

He hardly knew which one of them was angrier. For her, that was good. For him - not so good. He took a moment to remind himself, once again, not to lose his temper. Then he made his move.

There was hardly a moment to flinch as he grabbed the manacles with one hand, the collar with the other and propelled Carlen over to the wall. He pulled her to her feet and shoved her against the cement. He attached her arms to the chain overhead and leaned into her to still her thrashing. When she paused for breath, he pushed away, his hands on either side of her.

"You want to make this difficult? Fine. Your choice. As to the whip... No. You can't have that..." His hands were on the ties of his pants. "...but I'll see if there isn't some other way I can oblige you."

He wrapped his hands around her thighs and Carlen tried to fight, but the wall was a vicious bed against the high raised vertebrae of her spine. He impaled her there, exploiting his extra height to make the best advantage of the awkward positioning. Carlen howled, positive he was finally out to kill her. She didn't struggle, but she was tense. So tense. And she was scared. Scared witless.

Her sudden terror was exciting to him, although, feeling about her as he did, a part of him wanted to reassure her that under no circumstances would he allow his control to slip so that she was irreparably damaged.

He kept the knowledge to himself and, making a conscious effort to hold nothing back, took from her every ounce of pleasure he could bleed from the encounter.

When he finally turned away, closing the unique triangular flaps at the front of his pants, Carlen lashed out with her foot, striking him in the hip. "God damn you! Why must you always restrain me?"

He turned around very slowly.

"Or are you afraid to try me face to face - one on one?"

"She doesn't like restraints."

"Come on! Why don't you try? Just once!"

"You can't win that way," he said, almost sympathetically.

"My God! Give me a chance!"

So here she was. All ready to push back. Her eyes were open, wild and angry. She was prepared to speak up and demand a sense of fair play. He wondered if she would accept defeat gracefully.

"You'd like the restraints off tonight?"

"Yes," she said with finality.

His head turned, ever so slightly, then he descended the steps of the platform. Carlen watched him take down the pony whip, and when he returned she assumed he would turn her to the wall and beat the living tar out of her. But he didn't.

Instead, he opened the linklock holding her to the center chain. He made her kneel, opened the linklocks on the manacles and removed the length of chain between them. He twisted the small rings open, slipped the bracelets off Carlen's wrists and set them aside. He pulled the collar around and opened the linklock which secured it to the center chain. His finger hooked into the collar momentarily. "This stays on."

He rested back on his haunches and regarded her. "We'll make it a game, shall we? If you can make it down to the floor and past the archway, you win. If not, I win." His hand grasped the whip as he stood and stepped back slightly. "All you have to do is get past me."

After a moment of stunned silence, Carlen tried to get to her feet. He pushed her down.

"No. Your starting position is on your knees."

"That's not fair!"

"You want more freedom. You've got it. I didn't say I was going to be fair."

Carlen heard the unmistakable roar of ice floes cracking.

She feinted right and like a flash the whip was there. She feinted left and the whip was there. No way she could break without feeling the cut of the whip.

What if she balled up and rolled? Ah - no. It was a long, terrifying drop to that cold, hard floor. The condition she was in she might break something. She'd have to try to run... or crawl.

"You have five seconds."

Carlen glanced up in question.

"Every time you fail, or lose, or hesitate too long, I'm going to take you. A little deeper and a little harder every time."

Carlen was going to protest, but there wasn't time.

"...four ...three ...two ..."

She broke right, catching a cut across the ribs and arm. She recoiled with a yelp, but she tried again. Twice, in the same direction. The same result. And he was not playing nice. Those cuts burned. The pain tickled at the edge of her fury. Like that low chuckle, sounding from miles away over a field of ice. Like the look on his face tonight, something more like one of Kick's masks. Enjoying this, Carlen thought. The son of a bitch was enjoying himself.

Carlen tried several tacks, some of them genuine breaks, some of them not. She couldn't fool him. He seemed to know exactly where and how hard to strike to make her retract. If she tried to bull him head on he leapt back on the feet of a cat, cutting her one as she dumped her precious energies into hollow space. It was a vicious game and he was vicious at it.

Following fourteen or so genuine assaults, Carlen retreated to the wall, puffing. He'd sliced her down both sides and her face had been struck three times already.

"I can't play anymore."

"You can."

"No."

"You have to."

"Damn you!"

"We play when I feel like it. Those are the terms."

"You and your fucking-"

"...four ...three ..."

Carlen reared back and made a move. Any old move. Just something to make him think she was going to jump.

It turned out to be a slow slithering along the wall. Towards the step. Yes. The step. The floor. The archway... The trouble was, he was moving too. Right into the path of her hopes.

Hopes? What hopes? Only the hopes that she could avoid another cut from that whip, or getting tired, or admitting defeat, or having him on her again. There was no foolish hope in the world of getting near that archway. In any case, he'd never stipulated what her 'prize' would be if she could manage such a feat.

All the same, she slithered herself right down into a complete impasse with him on the first tier where she sat, crushed into the wall, her breath pent against the possibility his knee might brush her breast.

"Well. Do you give up?"

He'd expended hardly any energy at all. Carlen was exhausted. She was also cornered. She knew what the consequences would be if she dared scoot one toe out between his legs, over the ledge, to touch the floor. She wasn't going to do that.

"Yes. Alright! I give up, you-"

"You have something to say?"

"No, damn it."

He seized the collar and unceremoniously hauled Carlen back up to the Stage. He shoved her down and took her directly on. It was a raw uncomfortable intercourse that made Carlen cringe. When he released her, she snapped shut and rolled into the wall where he left her to recoup.

* * *

It was still dark when Carlen reemerged from sleep. The Whipmaster was seated near her, his back to the wall, his legs stretched before him. He had a bowl on his lap. He was eating. Looked like sausage. Carlen sat up slowly.

"Do I get something to eat?"

He didn't even look over. "You should have eaten more at supper."

"Supper was interrupted."

He took another mouthful. Carlen's stomach growled. She wondered what the hell the time was.

"First we play," he said, wiping the grease off his fingers with Carlen's wash cloth. "If you play well, I may give you something to eat."

Carlen watched miserably as the bowl disappeared over his legs and out of sight onto the second step.

"I'm even going to improve the odds."

His legs curled under and he rolled out to the center of the Stage where he perched on his knees and toes, his hands rested on his open thighs. There was no whip.

"I'm hungry."

"You know the terms."

"I'm not up to this-"

"You're not? You're not? This is what you wanted. One on one, you said. Face to face."

Carlen glowered.

"If you don't play, I win by default."

Crazy. The S O B was crazy.

"Well? What are you going to do?"

Another eight or so alarm bells went off in Carlen's head, but she took position. This might be an easier game. At least he'd brought no weapons. There was the quirt, of course, but that could never be considered a comparison to the full swing of that pony whip. She praised the heavens daily for his sense of control over that mutilating little beast.

This was hand to hand. Something completely different. Maybe she'd have a chance this time.

Predictably, she tested left and right advances first, but, with hardly any movement at all, he always seemed to arrive up in her path. So she decided, rather than attempt to skirt him, she'd tackle him directly, thinking he might jump back, as before. Make an opening.

Just another mistake. Instead of dodging her, he met her full on, grabbing her arms and tossing her back. No effort at all. As Carlen knocked into the wall, one of Kick's little asides jangled in her brain.

"Bloody well better hit rolling!"

Fucking A.

She lay there as long as he'd let her. Which wasn't long. There seemed to be a waiver on his patience tonight.

"Five... four..."

Carlen sat up and knelt around to face him. This game was going to be rougher than the last. But - it was her chance. Her one chance to throw everything she had at this man.

In those few moments she thought what a bloody miracle it would be if she could assemble all the anger inside her and will up every shred of strength there was left. And what if she could turn on him the burn of every battle she had fought and every measure of courage she had ever shown? If she had all this on call as she knelt there and squared up to those dangerous, expectant eyes...

The instant before she struck, he caught the briefest glimpse of the savage inside her. She came straight on, her fury like a wind before her. She went for his throat. She caught him, too. He went down under her, although he had her on her back in seconds. Then the fight was on.

Carlen fought like a wildcat. Squirming, thrashing, twisting, kicking and pushing him until she actually had run him out of breath - and she dropped in a heap on the pelts, gasping.

"Had enough?" He hadn't even broken a sweat.

"Yeah," she replied tiredly.

He took more time with her following the second round. His energy was aroused, and so was his imagination. He propped Carlen on her knees with her face to the pelts. He dragged her arms back and seized her wrists, hence, taking control of all the leverage between them.

It was a ruthless approach, something which would have been impossible if she'd been shackled and, when he did this to her, she wanted to call him names. Names that never escaped a holy man's lips. She didn't dare.

By the time he'd had enough, dawn was winking in through the bars overhead.

"Clean yourself up. Then you can eat."

"I need to rest."

"Eat first."

The water was cold and unpleasant, but at least it revived Carlen enough to sit up and accept the bowl he gave her. Unfortunately, she was too tired to enjoy the food or take very much of it.

"You put up a pretty good fight," he commended.

All Carlen heard was sarcasm.

"Yeah. Really got you on the run now, haven't I?" she replied, every muscle in her body talking about the strength and speed of his hands, the rock hard solidity of that chest and abdomen, the awesome power in those legs of his. It was the first time she had ever actually laid hands on him...

"Don't ever touch me again," he said as though reading her thoughts. The coldness of the remark snapped Carlen's senses like a rubber band. "Now, if you should lose your head and forget this, remember - any little scratch or bruise will be repaid in kind."

A small rough laugh broke loose inside Carlen. The idea of his thinking her capable of putting the slightest dent in his iron clad defenses was the funniest notion her weary brain had grappled with in weeks.

"You can rest now."

* * *

It was sunset when he shook her awake again. The first reaction Carlen realized was dull confusion. The second was a sensational thrill of fear. Mindless, heart thundering fear.

Despite the rest, she felt more tired than before, and inside... inside was this nameless, incapacitating fear.

Her hands felt strangely flyaway, still free of the weight of the shackles, and the collar chain did not catch behind her as she sat up and drew back against the wall with a sigh. Why these things should suddenly seem more noticeable than before, she could not fathom. Unless it had something to do with the new and unfair stipulation he'd made in the rules of the game.

He was right next to her, seated against the wall just as before. He held something out to her and when she failed to respond, he nudged her arm with the back of his hand. Carlen's head snapped around nervously. It was a piece of bread.

As she ate, she stared out across the expanse of the chamber like a sightseer taking in a strange new landscape she'd traveled a great distance to see. That archway was further away than it had ever seemed before. Carlen was beginning to allow a small glimmer of light on the idea she would never see the other side of that archway again as long as she lived. She thought that if he asked her to get up now and walk right out, she wouldn't be able to get up enough steam to stand.

"Game's not over," he said.

"I think it is," she replied, frankly believing it.

"You acted as though you didn't believe me when I said you couldn't win. Changed your mind?"

"You've got it set up all your way."

"I never promised you differently, did I?"

Carlen sighed. "No."

He was silent for a minute, then quite softly he said, "Are you going to make your move?"

Carlen glanced around in surprise. "What? Now?"

"That's the offer."

Carlen looked out across the chamber again. "No. Hell, I don't even know what I'm competing for."

"It might be your freedom. That's what you want, isn't it? Your freedom?"

"Yeah! And all those who believe that may now shoot themselves in the head!"

"I see you haven't lost your sense of humor."

"I really hate you," Carlen said, her voice leaden with defeat.

"I don't think that's strictly true," he said and Carlen didn't know how to respond.

He gave her another piece of bread and placed a cup of water beside her. Carlen's heart was hammering again, but her mind was virtually a blank.

"Well? Aren't you going to try it?"

Carlen jumped again. She felt really spaced. "I don't stand a chance."

"Don't you?"

Was he trying to convince her, or just goad her into another stupid move?

Very low he said, "You must be extremely anxious to get past that archway by now..."

As usual, the sadistic son of a bitch was right. It was a very desperate hour and Carlen was a very desperate woman.

There were tears standing in her eyes as she made her first lurch forward. He reached out, caught the collar and hauled her back to the wall. Never even dropped the bowl off his lap. Carlen was already breathing hard. She waited a few seconds, roughly swiping at her eyes with her forearm to clear her vision.

She made the same move again and, predictably, he caught her, as before. This time, though she didn't hesitate, but jumped a third time, knowing he would not anticipate the same move again. He didn't. Carlen felt his fingers tip the collar, but they didn't catch. She'd made her break.

She dragged her reluctant body across the Stage toward the stocks, too panicked to go for the side stairs. It was a bad decision and it was damn nearly the finish. He caught her ankle just as she gained purchase with her hands on the stocks. He dragged the leg out, his mistake, and Carlen made use of the extended position to wrench her foot free before he could get his other hand on it.

In another jump of pure electric fear, Carlen hoisted herself awkwardly over the stocks, landing on her back on the second tier, her head and shoulders leveled dangerously over the first. And now he had hold of her foot again!

Carlen twisted her torso over in a frantic effort to dislodge his grasp. It didn't make him let go, at least, not until she'd dragged her foot so far along it was now caught over the corner of the stocks. His grip was slipping, but Carlen's foot felt like it was breaking.

She stretched out, pushing with her other foot, and found she could reach the floor with her hands. The floor! She shut her eyes, reached back and gave a mighty push against the side of the second step. Her foot snapped loose and she half slid, half rolled down to the floor. An odd thought knocked inside her head as it bumped against the cement.

'Remember - the ice is slippery.'

Her body ignored the unbidden advice. It knew that archway was only feet away, now. Only a few feet.

Feet.

Yes, feet. That's what Carlen had to find was her feet.

Yeah Yeah - elbows, hands. Yeah Yeah - knees, feet. Legs. Legs. Get up. Get up!

She raised her head. The black, hollow doorway to freedom was only feet away, yawning expansively, as though bored with the spectacle of this crazy beast, its eyes tormented with the desire to get into the unknown depths of its next swallow.

Only feet - but Carlen couldn't seem to get up. It was just so hard so hard so hard. She'd hadn't done any real walking or running in so long so long.

So long - that's what it'll be, old girl, if you don't get your-

At last she gained a rickety sort of balance and, sure he'd have her any second, she lunged for the archway. It actually came nearer, too. Very near.

He caught her around the waist just as Carlen's fingers hooked onto the edge of the archway. There was a terrible wrench on her shoulders as he pulled her back. Carlen hung on fiercely until he jerked her around to the right and she lost purchase. Her arms still reached into the increasing distance as the archway receded to its former unattainability. The shouts cut loose.

"No, damn you! NO! Take your hands OFF, you son of a bitch! Let GO of me, you coward! You CHEATING COWARD!"

The Whipmaster was completely intent on keeping Carlen's feet from touching the floor as he wrestled her across to the secondary platform at the right of the Stage.

It wasn't easy and he was certainly in no mood to appreciate the comical aspects of it. She'd got her ray of hope and containing her now was like trying to control a wet angry cat. She clawed his hands, pried one of his fingers loose, apparently intent on dislocating it. For a moment he genuinely feared he'd have to let her go.

"YOU BASTARD! YOU CHEATING BASTARD!"

With one final swing, he managed to catch her feet on the edge of the platform and topple her to the pelts. He dropped on top of her, pinned her wrists.

"Enough. Enough! It's over! Over."

Carlen's curses ebbed away. She tossed her head, even banged it a couple of times, but eventually fell still, her sides heaving with the dying rage.

"What's it going to take with you?"

The note in his voice made Carlen look up suddenly and risk the touch of those eyes when she felt so, so...

There was something completely new and different there.

Heat. Yellow, blazing heat. Tiger eyes, she thought dimly.

She'd frightened him. She certainly had. Though, what a pity it was he didn't look or sound half as desperate as she felt.

When he released her wrist to untie the fastenings of his pants, Carlen gave up the last gasp. Her fist hit his shoulder with a smack. Her voice was hoarse and savage.

"Don't... Please don't!"

"No. We play by the rules, turn. To the victor go the spoils."

Carlen's fingers flexed open in a small gesture of unmistakable defiance. He sensed the danger in her, but only used it as a boost to his own.

"Take your hand off me," he said, and a moment later, Carlen's knuckles fell back to the pelts with a dull thud.

When he pushed, she dug her heels in with a strangled sob of defeat and lay perfectly rigid, sure that if the bleeding hadn't started yet, it certainly wouldn't be long.

He came very quickly, rocked back on his heels and stood up, almost in one movement. The abrupt ending to this struggle and the sudden absence of his weight caught Carlen in an inexplicable void of emptiness. She looked at him, standing there, his eyes alive with the first honest anger he'd ever graced her with, and she never felt so alone in her entire life.

He was angry because she'd frightened him but, all the same, he'd pushed her. Over another ledge. Himself, too, judging by the look in his eyes. A look she'd caught in Nolty's eyes once or twice.

Damn these people and their expectations!

"Get back on the Stage."

And damn their performing animals.

He didn't move, but made her draw back in order to get clear. As she pulled her legs in she noticed it. The blood. The gash in her foot the blood was spilling from. A very nasty gash. Lots of blood. Some of it on his buckskin boot.

The sight of this and the push he issued were sufficient to spill just enough terror into her system to get her moving again. She scrambled for the stairs on her rattling legs and crawled up to the Stage with him close behind.

As soon as she'd gained the top, he seized the collar and shoved her back into the wall. Carlen braced herself against the fury, but when she looked up she saw that the fire had gone out. The green had once again replaced the yellow and the cold front was really coming down.

"The other night you challenged me to ruin you and don't you think for one moment I don't know why. You want time off. You wish I would leave you alone. Even for a little while. Either that, or ruin you for good.

"Well, that's not going to happen. Now you can pray every night to any God you please to deliver you from this, but every day you're going to wake up right here, next to me, and I'm going to remind you that this is the real world and, one way or another, I'm going to impress on you the importance of learning exactly what I expect of you.

"The first thing you're going to learn is the virtue of restraint. The appropriate restraint is always necessary. It keeps us from doing things we might live to regret. Don't be confused. You are not confined here by chains. It is my will that keeps you here."

"I know that," she said.

"Then accept it! Accept it."

When Carlen next opened her eyes the manacles were back on her wrists - attached by a single ring.

The game was over. He had won.

CHAPTER 33 \- DARKENING OF THE LIGHT

Over the next three days he kept Carlen running four directions, allowing not the slightest concession. She slept when permitted. Wakened if he touched her. Bathed when she was told. Used the can at his discretion.

Whippings resumed. Harsh, exacting punishments over the smallest infractions. Carlen continued with her resistances, when she felt strong enough, but nothing escaped him.

There were no formal dinners or dialogues. Food was brought in and left on the corner of the Stage. Mostly the Master dined alone, not by choice but mainly because Carlen was too intimidated to approach until he had finished and withdrawn. Then she would crawl over to pick through the leftovers.

He made sure there was always food for her and, although he kept close track of her eating habits, he made no overt show of this supervision. He could not force her to eat indefinitely, and he was pleased to see her instinct for survival was strong enough to risk what she imagined to be the "stealing" of his remains. He did require her to request water when she wanted it, to reinforce her dependence on him.

There was no business transacted in the chamber. No one else entered but the constant girl who moved in and out, unobtrusively attending to the replacement of empty food vessels, Carlen's can and bath water. She lit candles on the Whipmaster's table at night - much fewer, these dark nights.

The Master rarely left Carlen alone in the chamber and then for brief periods only. He spent each night with her and slept on the Stage, embracing her throughout the night. He stayed close. Kept himself exclusively to her. The task was not onerous to him. On the contrary. He took pleasure from it. Immense pleasure.

For Carlen, the hours were filled with nothing but the sounds of the chains and her cries, his whips and, occasionally, his words. She knew she was existing in simulations of scenarios from the books he'd given her. Needless to say, the books left her less than prepared.

She might have taken anything from him over this time but he demanded one thing only. Sustained sexual contact. He pushed her through wall after wall of endurance, driving her with equal force into submissions and rebellions until she was hardly able to distinguish or consciously choose between the two.

With extraordinary poise and dexterity, he turned even her most violent resistances into a smoothly executed ballet as he manipulated her positioning to suit him. If she got too comfortable or too rhythmic, desensitized or overused by one approach, he changed position and every position was progressively more awkward and more demanding.

Despite this, there were times when she became almost totally silent, even during the most rigorous sessions. Her breathing normalized and she became relaxed and pliant in his hands. He knew what it meant. She was resting. Somehow she had found a position in which she could accommodate him satisfactorily. If he permitted it, she could coast like this almost indefinitely, mechanically absorbing his energies while restoring her own.

Naturally, allowing too much of this was out of the question. He worked constantly at keeping her conscious of herself and what was being done to her and, if he caught her drifting into the comfort zone, he nudged her a little more deeply which invariably brought her around with a cry.

The left over horror of the Workshop rapes made it hard for Carlen to continue coping with his constant attacks, no matter how simplistic or matter-of-fact. When he was with her, she was afraid. When he left her, she was more afraid because she knew he'd be back.

The sex wasn't so bad to begin with, but he was not easy to accommodate and his energy was sapping. He never seemed to grow tired and this struck Carlen as amazing, although there was no mystery to it. The simple fact was, she tired easily. He was fit and strong and she was weak. Growing weaker. Nolty had left her with nothing to combat this man with. The Workshop had taken too much, transforming her into the perfect subject for his brand of terrorism.

Although he did not tear her the way Kick had, he did achieve deeper penetration. He could have pulled back, even a little, but the pain seemed to be what he was after. The pain and the constant struggle to alleviate it in any way possible.

At times Carlen thought he was out to finish her. She couldn't be expected to go on for long if he insisted on damaging her this way. Later, she'd discover he hadn't damaged her at all. Residue pains would prove to be some ordinary quirk in her intestinal rhythms or a mild sensitivity due to over tiredness.

It was never quite the same twice, although, at times, there seemed to be no end to it. And all the while he watched. He monitored her attitude, her progress and especially her eyes, which she tried to hide from him.

It was all there, in her eyes, all the time. The one thing she could not control completely. He could see how she felt - about him, about the situation, about herself.

Sometimes... Sometimes she was so fearless it took the breath out of him. He was beginning to understand Nolty's minor obsession over her. This was a defense that seemed to transcend knowledge or intelligence or even consciousness. Impossible to describe or even sight for very long, just... something... sometimes... that look in her eyes. The unshockability. The unshakeability. He thought it must be akin to the look with which Jesus hooked Pilate.

It appeared she had the patience to withstand the pressure, pain, and humiliation in order to force responsibility of action and consequence away from herself, back onto him. The courage to not just blindly accept his authority but to actively demand it. This was the mark of a truly great slave. It was a good sign, but it was not everything.

Carlen shared none of these perceptions of courage or unshakeability. Moment by moment she felt herself losing ground and, even though it was he who had reduced her to little more than a spiritless receptacle, she knew it was only his dedicated attentions that kept her buoyant in the sentient world. Every nerve in her body was subject to his tantalization, every emotion a response to his actions, and there were moments when these sensations aroused in her the need to read his reactions.

She'd open her eyes and there he'd be, poised above her, his shoulders still and strong as bronze. She could detect no pleasure in his expression, nor anger, nor even a trace of passion's glaze. Just the green ice, bearing her down against the pelts. Watching. Auditing.

His concentrated energy served only to accentuate the discomforts of her punished body. The pain in her hips and shoulders, the occasional prickling paralysis in her face and hands. The hot flush of her perspiration and the chill of its cooling evaporation. Arms too weak to pull loose of the iron fists that kept her pinned to the boards. Legs that lay beyond control, dead, limp things that now twitched incessantly. The constant hammering, hammering, and she too enfeebled by now to even attempt to dislodge him. And her own rhythmic cries, pitiful, plaintive whimpers that sounded foreign to her ears.

"We're going to keep at this until this is all you know - about yourself or anything else," he told her. "You're going to give yourself up to me like you never thought you could give yourself to anyone."

Carlen desperately tried to cover the panic his pronouncement aroused in her.

"You're dreaming," she said tiredly, but it was she who felt trapped inside a nightmare turned to reality. He only laughed.

* * *

Carlen fancied smoke settled in the room when the Master left the Stage. He rarely left the chamber completely these dark days, but she knew he sometimes sat and observed her from varying positions around the room. She didn't like it but she was learning to live with it.

She had no idea how long she'd slept. The light was dim. Only a few solemn candles burned from his table down below. She could not see if he was there or not.

She squinted around for a bowl and spotted one set on the left hand edge of the Stage. She inched over and stuck her hand in. Melon. Potential ecstasy. She took it slowly, in spite of her excitement. Slowly, as she did everything these days.

"Bath first."

He was seated on the lower platform, in some dark shadow he'd created. Carlen put the melon back in the bowl.

Bathing had become the most arduous voluntary task Carlen performed. She'd never stopped to think how much dexterity was involved in the simple chore of cleaning the human body. Particularly considering how he kept her shackled these days \- her wrists always joined on the single ring at the front.

She hadn't recognized the privilege afforded her in the past by that foot length of chain between the bracelets. This strict restraint now she knew was employed to make a point.

It was the smaller things she'd come to appreciate. Things like the fact that she wasn't starving all the time. There was plenty of good food and he allowed her to eat pretty well any time she pleased.

The questions had stopped and this was a relief. And she was appreciative, silently of course, when he took her straight on, instead of forcing her into positions of strain and discomfort.

And the punishments. Although sometimes quite ruthless, they were not quite as arbitrary as they had initially been. Now he kept them more tightly related to infractions of hers. Some deliberate. Some not.

All small things, now monstrously important.

When she'd done bathing and toweled off, she went straight back to the bowl. Although she was aware it was placed at the edge of the Stage so she would be in plain view of him, she made no attempt to move it or herself from his sight. This, she knew by now, was one thing that displeased him and, as much as she loathed his constant surveillance, she was very much less inclined these days to incite his cold anger. She ate quietly, slowly, her eyes and thoughts centered only on the food.

She had adopted a seat he considered improper for her. What's more, she knew it was improper. She had forgotten herself. Again. He didn't say anything, but left her to it, wondering if she would come to and correct herself. Or, if she did realize, if she'd simply leave it, afraid to move lest she draw attention to her mistake. By the time he got up, she'd made no indication she was even aware of her error.

Carlen was about to take her last bite when he stepped into the periphery of her vision. He was on the second landing, right beside her, the whip in his hand. She made no sign she was aware of him and raised that last bite full to her mouth.

"You would keep me waiting?"

She hesitated but allowed the primal need to overrule. She lifted the melon to her mouth. Touched it to her lips.

"And consciously disobey me?" There was no anger in his voice, nor even impatience. Only the mild surprise feigned by one who is secure in the knowledge he has control.

Carlen paused and finally her hand dropped away. A huge tear welled up and spilled onto her leg.

He touched the whip to her shoulder.

She sat up rigidly, quivering at the feel of the leather against her shoulder. He was not simply going to come down on her this time and somehow that made it worse. The silence. The patience. His wretched patience.

Scenes from the books he'd given her played over in her mind. She knew what was happening and, by thinking this, she could somehow keep things real.

Oh yes, she knew what he was up to. What he was trying to do. She'd seen enough Wildtracks to recognize brainwashing techniques when they were rammed up her ass.

Patty Hearst, Cassandra Delaware, Issie Gable, Lindy Hamilton, not to mention a dozen others who had gone off since to Black rebel gangs. Not many were as lucky as Hearst or even Gable, who spent the remainder of her days behind the walls of an insane asylum. And what of Lindy Scott Hamilton?

Yes indeed. Little Lindy Hamilton, who was kidnapped off the street and kept prisoner by a powerful Black gang in L.A. Kept prisoner for two long years. Kept for ransom after ransom, every cent of which had been spent on Black guns.

They called it a political abduction. It was financial. She was just a rich bitch from the Hills. She'd probably never even rubbed elbows with a Black man, let alone given thought to the concept of prejudice towards one.

The actual details of what those gang members did to Lindy over the course of those two years never really came out. Some said they tortured her. Some said they maimed her. There was one story circulating, even still, that she had given birth to a Black baby while in custody of the gang. Some said they turned her - from bigot to tearaway. Nobody knew for sure, but almost everybody was agreed that she'd been a bigot - hence the common usage of the term "lindy", to describe good, upstanding, Black hating White folks.

Carlen thought most of the rumors were rubbish. The girl had gone through hell, pure and simple, and Carlen had seen both the films they'd made based on the case. Devastating.

Hard times. Hard faith. That's the way it was.

She knew what he would expect. But it didn't help. Not tonight. It didn't help. She swallowed in an attempt to find her voice. "What do you want?"

"Lie down."

Carlen slowly rolled over on her hip, taking care not to knock the bowl onto the step. With the frailty of an invalid, she lay back on the pelts. She started running a tape, over and over in her mind, like a hypnotic salve. A command. To herself. Two words only.

BLIND OBEDIENCE

She looked straight up into his face and played it, again and again.

"Roll over," he said and, as Carlen began to move, pushed her with his foot. Carlen plopped onto her stomach with a grunt. She wanted to cry but she just kept playing the tape.

"Are you going to lie quietly or must I restrain you?"

Carlen wanted to be strong. To prove her strength and show him she could cope quite well with his stern management. To be just as hard and detached as he was...

"You'd better restrain me," her mouth said.

She didn't have to ask what the punishment was for. Neglecting bath before food and placing her foot down on the second step were two good enough reasons for fifty searing lashes.

* * *

By the end of that gruesome three day spell, Carlen was battered from top to bottom. Even by the candlelight she could make out dark patches of skin encircling her wrists, on her forearms, her elbows and upper arms. Her thighs were mottled with his stripes and fingerprints, and her knees were rubbed raw. There were other places she couldn't see on her face, her back. More than likely not one centimeter of her back had gone unmarked by his whips. Her sternum was badly bruised, as were her ribs and pelvis.

And her groin... Pain was seated in that one spot, like a hot rock, dully burning. A pulsing ache, calmly rooted there like the center of everything.

Carlen could hardly lie on her back or on either side. She could not sit or kneel comfortably. She could lie on her stomach, her neck twisted to one side. Or she could stand, openly exposed to this room... This dreadful chamber. This watching prison.

So she simply crumbled on her ruined knees, her side pressed into the wall, and wept. Openly. Wretchedly.

She could not alleviate the pain, or forget it, or transcend it. She was too damn tired to even try to get used to it.

CHAPTER 34 \- TO KILL A KING

Carlen's storm of tears drenched the Whipmaster in relief. At long last, the tears! Free, unabashed, uncontrolled. Tears of grief. Tears of exhaustion. Not tears for him, but at least tears she did not try to hide from him anymore.

It was time to back off - because Carlen was too tired to go on. If he continued driving her at this pace she would break - and he did not want her broken. He didn't want to entirely divest her of the qualities that had kept her intact this long. Her will, for one. The incredible will power she engaged, not only in her ongoing resistance, but also in her new and subtle efforts to comprehend her situation.

The resistance he'd expected, something vital to her sense of proportion, but this other... this conscious effort to "follow the line", as Jaim had put it. Not obedience, exactly, but an attempt to recognize precisely what was expected. He hadn't anticipated this in counterpoint to the resistance. Not from Carlen. Of course this particular element of "dawning acceptance" was not unusual in a turn but, in most cases, it signaled imminent collapse of the self will.

But Carlen was not collapsing. Quite the opposite. She was adapting. At times she seemed inert but, consciously or not, she constantly assimilated everything going on around her. It was true she had learned how and when to cut herself off, but she seldom did it. She did something else, sometimes, but not exactly that.

He could see the changes daily, the gradual softening around the edges, and he was pleased to see she did have the ability to respond to command when it suited her. There was not even a question of her sincerity, or lack of it. When she was in control of herself, she deferred to him totally, adopting an almost perfect measure of restraint and respect.

He had to guard against this. Not be fooled by her premature attempts to appease him.

* * *

They were dining one evening, together. He had managed to coax her out to the corner of the Stage when a late supper was brought in. There were four bowls and a good selection of food. Some of it hot.

He didn't flatter himself too much at his success in getting her to come near him to eat. She never came near him voluntarily, but he suspected the aroma of the hot food was about all the temptation she needed, besides the low-key invitation he issued.

She refused to look at him while they ate but that was usual. She was angry with him most of the time anymore and made full use of any subtle resistance which seemed safe and reasonable. Keeping her eyes averted - obviously averted, was her current favorite. Adopting an uncaring or slightly aggressive tone with him was another.

He hadn't forced the issue. It seemed she was getting used to him. At least in the context of his present demands on her. He was wondering just how secure she was feeling with it all.

"You're like that woman in the book," he said.

This 'surprise attack' technique of his really touched Carlen off. "I'm nothing like her."

"You are," he insisted. "Proud. Passionate. Willful."

"She was not willful. She was utterly submissive."

"She used her will to gain that submission."

Carlen was looking down at her bruised thighs. A terrible sadness suddenly came over her, like a tiny surrender. "I suppose you expect me to wear these markings with pride. Like the girl in your book."

"Wear them any way you like. They're not for show."

He was waging his wars in the modulations of conversation. She hated it when he did this.

"The woman in the book gave her consent," Carlen pointed out.

"And an ignorant woman in a segment out of the collection learned satisfaction can be found in submission, if that is where it is sought."

Carlen understood the reference but, in this case too, it was a circumstance between a husband and his wife - by consent. It had been a conflict not so much of wills or even desires, but of cultures.

Carlen was too tired to argue the toss. Too tired to go on feigning ignorance to the points he was making and the responses he was trying to extract from her.

"You and your bloody books," she sighed.

"They make you think, don't they?"

"Do you give all your turns books to read?"

"No. Why?"

"You're really obsessive about it. What do you want me to say? What is it you want to know?"

She should have known he'd be ready. And man, was he ready.

"The Spartacus segment. Which role did you identify with when you read it?"

Carlen looked up, stunned by the question. Her eyes darted away, her forehead slightly creased. He was encouraged to see he'd caught her imagination. She was actually thinking it over.

"Well?" he prompted.

Carlen centered back to him automatically. "I don't think I can tell you that," she said enigmatically.

"The fact that you won't tells me enough," he said.

Carlen's expression turned to one of surprise. He'd got hold of the knowledge before she had.

"Have you got some fantasy about burning me?" he asked.

Carlen laughed shortly. "Hey, I'm a realist. Don't you know that yet?"

She was playing the bravado, but he heard the tremor in her voice. She'd slipped. She knew it.

"Oh, I haven't found out half of what I'm going to know about you," he said sleekly.

"There couldn't really be that much left worth knowing," Carlen said with weary bitterness.

"You might be surprised," he said.

"Sure to be."

"You might even discover some things you didn't know."

"About you?"

"About yourself," he said.

"...anything's possible, I suppose."

* * *

The next morning Stellen was brought in again. She was thinner and, despite the period of recuperation, many of the marks from the first flogging were still very much in evidence. In particular the open cuts, which were now halfway healed into tight, crusty scabs.

She was put straight up against The Wall. Ten days had gone by and Shay was still on the run. Every hour Carlen had watched the spring of the Whipmaster's rage wind itself tighter.

"Stellen," he greeted coolly. "You know where you are?"

"Yes."

"And what's about to happen?"

"...yes."

His arm was relaxed. The lash of the whip lay in a dormant coil on the floor. His head was dropped over to one side in the unconscious pose of one who is not yet fully attentive to business already commenced.

"Tell me where Shay is."

Silence walked into the wake of this conversational, almost half-hearted demand. He left the silence open for quite a long time but nothing was sucked into it.

"Stellen," he said, again in that weird undertone.

His wrist flexed slightly, dancing the whiplash into a new configuration on the floor. It wasn't a show to anyone in particular, but more, Carlen thought, a small personal twitch of his own. All his attention seemed to be focused on that whip. Carlen wondered what was truly going on in his mind.

"Tell me where Shay is, Stellen."

"I don't KNOW where she is."

"Then tell me what you do know."

"She's hiding, you bastard! Hiding from you!"

"Who's hiding her?"

"I don't know, damn it! I don't know."

"Hardchange, Stellen..."

Stellen pressed her forehead into the concrete with a frustrated whimper. "I already told you, you mad bastard. I don't know. I can't tell you."

There was a tiny pause, then the Whipmaster's energies surged up with the power of a cyclone. He beat Stellen that morning like Carlen had never seen him beat anyone before.

Carlen felt the burn of it down her own back. She felt herself swell with horror as the first blood appeared bright and fresh in the old wounds; and panic as the steel pins of Stellen's shrieks pierced her eardrums; and bawling hysteria when Stellen's screams died back, leaving the silence for the lash.

Carlen doused it all with ice water, and while it shivered there in muted shock, she gathered it all up and pushed it down. First the rage. Then the hatred. Then the fear. Then all the rest. All that personal anguish. She put it all away, and packed it down, hard. With a lid on it. A good strong lid. Impenetrable by fire, wind or ice.

The girl was in her own mess. She'd made it. Let her lie in it. Even if Carlen had known what was going on, and had been offered the opportunity to take part, she would not have become involved in it. Not if she'd known about this, she wouldn't. About Him. That girl's bed was a bed of nails. At least Carlen's was laid over with fur. At least her nights were sheltered...

* * *

Sleep that night came hard. Very hard. It ended almost before it began when Carlen's eyes snapped open in the dark and the rage seized her. The conversation of two voices collided in her head like uninvited strangers. She lay and listened to it, terrified.

KILL HIM.

Could I?

YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE IN A POSITION TO DO IT.

It's insane.

IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT ISN'T!

I have no weapon.

YOU HAVE THE CHAIN.

If I use the chain...

YOU'RE A FOOL IF YOU DON'T.

...and I'm not fast enough...

PUT IT AROUND HIS NECK.

...or strong enough...

KILL HIM WHILE HE SLEEPS.

...He'll kill me.

HE'S DESTROYING YOU.

But, if I succeed...

YOU KNOW YOU CAN DO IT.

I'll still be...

THIS IS YOUR CHANCE.

...chained to his wall.

THE MOMENT IS NOW!

So... if I kill him...

KILL HIM.

If I kill him...

KILL HIM!

...Nolty will get me. If I kill him,

Nolty will get me.

And that was certainly how death could be met... Or something worse.

* * *

In the morning Carlen could read the reflection of her night's thought shining back from his eyes. At least, she thought she could.

CHAPTER 35 \- BERSERK

Carlen spent the next several days in a constant struggle to keep it all in check. Although he had backed off somewhat, the slightest look or word from him filled her with suspicions that he was trying to trick her into an action or admission she'd regret.

Her emotions were broken glass. Misshapen. Scattered at odds. She lived on the brink and, no matter which way she dodged, he always found new ways of driving her back to it.

She was afraid of blowing it again, as she had over the first flogging of Stellen and, again, the night he proposed the Floor Game. Rather than easing the pressure, both these tiny displays of temper had only served to increase it. Substantially.

He was a fearful adversary, with all the odds in his favor. She was just exhausted. Much too tired to think of fighting him again physically. She tried to accept this. To place it on herself as a limitation.

She tried to fill in her existence with limitations. Limit her questions, her refusals, her fuck-brain remarks. Limit her resistances, period. This, in turn, would limit the pressures, the punishments. The constant attention her resistances made necessary. At least she hoped it would.

Not that it was easy. She had no desire to obey him, or please him, or go on living with him. She had no desire to go on living with herself. Day and night feelings of doubt and self-loathing preyed on her. She had now proven herself too much of a coward to attempt to murder him. Proven this not only to herself but, she believed, to him, and this had increased his power over her.

Carlen was steeped in a black depression that deepened by the hour and, although he could see this, the Master did nothing to inhibit her descent. Despite subtle alterations in her attitudes and behavior, he could see that nothing he'd done so far had succeeded in denting her determination to go on fighting him in any way she could. She still clung to this unbreakable need to keep something of herself to herself, out of his reach. She was delaying the conquest. Delaying and delaying it.

He reminded himself he was not seeking an instantaneous conversion. Such a conversion would have been possible, but would have been unreliable over the long term. When the turn was effected it must be dependable and completely permanent.

He'd deliberately brought the pressure on gradually, allowing her to contribute, where possible, to the increase of his exertions upon her. Now the tensions and reflexes created by the Workshop were dissipated at last. He had finally succeeded in drawing her into a one on one battle with him and he felt the full impact of her hostility.

He'd wanted to get her running hard enough that, even when the pressure was eased, she would go on running out of blind habit. To set up a condition of spontaneous obedience to him. Obedience he had certainly won from her, but it was less than spontaneous. 'Discretionary' would be the term he'd put to it. When she refused, or crossed him in any way, no matter how subtle or undeliberate it seemed, it was always the result of a thought out decision to do so. Harder to tolerate was the fact that she seemed to be doing this for herself, rather than as a test or challenge to him.

Something had changed in her. The light had dimmed. The uncaring attitude was a cold wall she'd put up around herself and it seemed no whip in the world was severe enough to cut through and touch her.

She was locked in some personal war he could not reach or participate in and, although he suspected it would be healthy for her and helpful to him, the growing distance between them provoked him. He was becoming impatient and his impatience fired his fury. The fury he fought so hard to control. The situation with Shay was not yet under his control, but the situation with Carlen was something he could deal with.

* * *

He had the table brought up one evening in the hope that resumption of this discontinued formality would jar her out of this increasing alienation. All through the meal she was steeped in her usual melancholy. Even her appetite was off. She'd been picking at her food with half an interest, a new habit that needed breaking.

"What do you think about?" he asked, carefully concealing his irritation.

Carlen made no reply but she did cringe a little. He withdrew his hands from the table and assumed a casual pose.

"You don't have to be afraid to tell me if it's freedom."

Carlen sighed softly. "I suppose I think mostly about my life on the road. It was freedom of a sort."

"Not your home? Your family? Or life beforehand?"

"No. Do - I don't think you do either."

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

Bite the bullet. "I think it's possible you have more now than you ever did," she said.

"What do you think I had before?"

"I couldn't answer that."

"What did you have?"

"A family," Carlen said.

"Brothers? Sisters?"

"No."

"Where did you live?"

"Philsberg."

"What was it like there?"

"Not so different to here. It was a new city also," she told him.

"What happened to make you leave?"

"I don't really want to talk about it."

"What happened?"

Carlen sighed again. "Nothing all that drastic, in view of all that went down. My father joined an agency, my mother and I left the city."

"You hit the road?" He seemed surprised.

"Yes. We did."

"That must have been hard."

"Certainly. Certainly it was."

"What did your father do before that?"

"Law. He was a lawyer."

"Is he still alive?"

"I don't know," Carlen said.

"Your mother is dead?"

"Oh yes."

"You told the Workshop they were both dead."

"Yeah. Well, the truth is, I don't know. I told you, he joined an agency. So, I don't know." There was a brief pause, then Carlen said, "I don't see why this is important."

"I didn't say it was important. We're just talking."

"Oh."

She'd got hold of something small and was now fiddling with it, her hands half concealed under her legs which were crooked up. It was a bold seat. It was a bold game. For a while he simply observed her, speculating on the dichotomy of tricks she was working right there before him.

The most obvious was the natural instinct to work off nerves through the manipulation of this object. Almost as obvious was the blatant act of denying him her full attention.

More subtle was the grinding of gears at the center of operations. Her intellect automatically stepping back, sizing up, organizing, preparing.

Smoothly laid over the top was the natural flow of the woman, a woman under uncommon duress, simply coping with a delicate social situation with a reasonable demonstration of grace and reserve. And underneath it all was the little maddy, crouched behind all the defenses, just ready to ping and shatter at an instant's notice.

What a remarkable woman she was. He knew her so much better now, yet he was newly amazed by all the levels at work in her. All this time with him and still she would risk his displeasure over something small like this.

"What have you got in your hands?"

"Nothing."

She didn't look up. Didn't even cease her fidgeting. The nerve of her.

"Put it on the table."

Carlen obliged. Promptly. Disinterestedly.

"Sit up."

Carlen assumed the appropriate position on her knees.

"I didn't say you could have that," he said.

"No. You didn't."

"Where did you get it?"

He still wasn't even sure what it was, but he couldn't afford to let her know that.

Carlen shrugged. "It's mine."

"Yours?"

"Jaim gave it to me. When he came to check me. Don't you remember? I got a gash in my foot."

A bandage. It was a bandage. A piece of tape, actually, coiled up into a meticulous roll. A tape she'd pulled off an injury on her foot. An injury he'd given her.

He suddenly got a very stark picture of just how small her universe had become. The perpetual battle to prevent herself from becoming too dependent on any one activity, routine or mode of behavior, or any single means of keeping her senses together.

"Is it healed?"

"Yes," she said. "Finally."

He'd been discouraged by the incident. Disproportionately so, he realized later. Instead of drawing her closer, it looked as though she'd used the situation as an opportunity to assume an even greater distance than before.

He'd punished her for it. Harshly. He'd told himself he couldn't afford to let it slide. And she? She lay down like a sacrificial lamb and her dispassionate control incited him all the more.

Her tolerance had broken almost immediately. There were already tears when she rolled back after only five blows and startled the hell out of him by seizing the whip hand - as if to stop him! So he'd restrained her and hurt her more and she had cried. A weak, desperate weeping that shot him through with a sense of accomplishment.

There were other things gnawing at the edges of his temper lately. He'd noticed she was less sensitive about her nudity. Less conscious of it and, as a result, less modest.

And she no longer curled into balls of tight defense which rolled as far away as possible when he released her. She didn't even lay rigid and clammy when he withdrew, watching him with those accusing eyes.

No more. Now she lay limp, agape, just as he left her and, without a look or sigh, simply closed her eyes and dropped into instantaneous sleeps. He had despised her cold withdrawals, but when she did this \- he wanted to grab her, burn her to consciousness and freeze her there - for eternities!

He left her. The sleeps were only tiny escapes from him, but he knew he was there also. In her dreams. She was trying to give in. Forcing it, but it wouldn't last indefinitely.

They both knew she was flagging, physically and mentally, but soon she'd realize how totally she was controlled and, ultimately, this would give her a newly defined control over herself. A reliable control.

It was hard for her now, he knew, but it would come easier later on. In fact, later she would start taking pleasure. Oh yes she would. She'd take pleasure in any act he demanded of her - if she thought she had the slightest hope of pleasing him or meeting his expectations.

Yes. Tonight he'd cut his way through to the sensitivity again and Carlen had provided all the proof he needed. No one was immune to him. Not even Carlen. Maybe especially her.

* * *

When Carlen opened her eyes at day break she was alone and there was a patchwork blanket of pelts covering her. The presence of the blanket put her immediately on guard but she didn't move.

She lay at the foot of the Stage, gazing up at the bars near the ceiling, too comfortable to move. The warmth and sensuality of the fur against her skin was soothing. Her sensitivities felt collected, secure - until the memory of the previous night refocused in her waking mind.

Such a small thing but it had really angered him. He'd come on with that silent, stalking rage and executed a punishment that seemed indifferent to the degree of her crime. And she'd responded with guilt and reproach and cowardice, and went on to compound the offence by committing the most unpardonable sin of all - forceful resistance. The look on his face when she grabbed his hand. The amazement. The disdain.

He'd locked the manacles to the ring on her collar and Carlen tried to conceal the panic she felt being placed under this dreadful restraint. Tried to hide the fact she remembered this was the most popular form of restraint in that book he'd given her. And how much it had disturbed her. The idea of being confined, wrists to neck, powerless, even to scratch oneself! This she had envisioned as the restraint of a mad person.

He'd seen her consternation. Looked right into her with that supernatural vision and seen it. It had only inspired him to greater cruelty. He'd knelt her against the wall for more of the whip. The rape that followed was as painful as any to date, and she had crumbled like some rookie her first day out.

Yet, these afflictions were not the true origin of the trauma. Not the whip, not the rape, not even the new restraint. It was him. He and that diabolical talent he had for stripping down her defenses and shaking the very foundation of her psyche.

It was a mean attack that took advantage of a lot of things, but, worst of all, it swung her around and drove her back to the bitter question of How much more? and How much longer? and How the hell was she going to cope?

That bastard wanted her so close he could suck the breath from her. Taste the salt of the sweat and tears he wrung from her. Control the subtlest emotion. So close their heartbeats synchronized. That, if his should falter or stop, then hers should too. She had never wanted anyone that close. Not anyone.

Carlen closed her eyes against another salty deluge and was soon back asleep.

* * *

The sensation of the blanket sliding away wakened her a few hours later. Automatically her hands grappled to catch hold, until her eyes blinked open and she saw the Master standing there, the other corner in his hand. She relinquished her grasp and just lay there as he pulled it away.

She knew then, this was a new game he'd devised to torment her. She knew it, but the knowledge did not shield her from the raw offense she felt at being unveiled in this cold manner. Before too long, that blanket would become an outright necessity to her. Winter could not be far off and she wondered how high the price of that blanket could conceivably get in the weeks to come.

* * *

That afternoon Kick and Nolty brought a scavenger into the chamber for interrogation. Weed of a thing. She wasn't under full restraint. Hands shackled in front. Blindfolded, of course. Kick was holding her, sort of draped, by the collar of her coat. Nolty posed the first questions. He was not in a pleasant mood.

"Your name."

"Ginty."

"You know where you are?"

"Yes."

"Do you know why?"

"You're looking for Shay."

"Right first time."

Ginty hesitated. "Is the Whipmaster here?" Her voice quavered.

"Why do you ask?"

"Look - I'll tell you anything I can but - please don't hurt me-"

"Plea bargaining!" the Whipmaster exclaimed, causing the girl to jump. "I don't make bargains with vermin."

Ginty's mouth tightened. Her feet danced a little.

"Why don't you tell us what you know and let me decide what further action may be necessary. Fair enough?"

Shit. Smoothness incarnate this afternoon. Honey sweet man.

Ginty released a suppressed sigh in two short spurts. She wasn't going to give up any fingers over this.

"I saw her."

"When?"

"Two days ago."

"Where?"

"Down on South Street. Going into a warehouse."

"Which warehouse?"

"There's only one occupation down there. Mid-block. Bunch of lofters. Second floor. They're probably helping her."

The Whipmaster gave Nolty one those signals that was like a code, strictly between them. Ginty flinched as Nolty suddenly crossed in front of her on his way to the iron stand. He struck a match. An instant later a blue flame licked up. There was already an iron in the bowl. The flame turned yellow.

"Have you seen her since then?" the Master continued.

"No."

"You didn't see her come out again?"

"No."

"Then she might still be there."

"She might."

"Fine. You know, Ginty, this could be of help to us."

"I hope so."

"We'll have it checked out, of course."

"Yes. Of course."

There was a pause.

"Are you going to let me go?"

Nolty picked up the iron.

"Oh, I think so," the Master said sweetly. "There's not much potential in a scrawny, disease ridden thing like you, now is there?"

Nolty crossed to the Whipmaster. The iron changed hands.

"No, you'd be more use to us on the streets, don't you think?"

He was moving too fast for her.

"Ah... yeah. Sure..."

The Whipmaster abruptly seized the manacle chain and yanked the girl's arms out straight. Kick wrapped an arm around her, drew back her sleeve and a horrible grin cracked his face as the Master touched the branding iron to the girl's right forearm. Ginty howled. It had only taken a second, but Carlen understood that pain. Boy, did she understand it.

"I thought you weren't going to hurt me!" Ginty shrieked.

"I never said that. Did I?"

Ginty was crying. "No..."

"No. You'll wear this as a show of good faith. A reminder that you are now in my employ." He handed the iron back to Nolty. "How does it feel to be among the ranks of the elite?"

Ginty just went on crying.

"I know. You're overwhelmed." He released the manacles. "The pain will fade, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to leave here 'bare' after what you've done, now would you?"

"No," Ginty sniveled.

"Look at it this way. You'll get no trouble from anyone because they'll all be able to see you for exactly what you are - a tongue that licks up information for the Zoo and your esteemed Lord. Right?"

Ginty was hitching like a kid. "Right..."

"I only hope what you told us was the truth."

It was the last of four interrogations Carlen witnessed that afternoon. Ginty's was the only lead they got.

Carlen was a little amazed at the frigid control with which she observed these interrogations. Maybe she had finally found a way of distancing herself from the terrors of the other women brought into this den of horrors. Maybe her own fear had run its course. Or maybe she had simply found the control that seemed to be required of her. Maybe. In any case, she felt confident in her ability to keep it all together. Over confident.

* * *

That evening the Master had the table brought up again. Carlen knew he was churning over the poor results so far in the search for Shay. The odd thing was, he didn't seem to bring any of these feelings with him to the table.

The manner he adopted with her that evening was uniquely warm and intimate, almost tender. A contrast that struck Carlen as coldly crazy in view of the frenzy of terror that must have seized the Women's Sector since Shay's disappearance. Maybe he was optimistic that Ginty's small tip would prove fruitful.

He brought wine. Chablis. Uncorked the bottle and had Carlen pour the wine into two cups he'd brought. Silver goblets. No glass. Carlen dispatched the task with cool grace.

He spoke to her softly, courteously. He spoke to her in the tones of a lover. Carlen found the whole thing slightly deranging.

"Wine alright?" he inquired.

"Yes. Fine."

"You slept well?"

"Yes."

"You enjoyed the blanket?"

"Yes. Thank you."

He smiled. A most disarming smile. Carlen took a gulp of wine.

"Maybe there's something else you'd like?"

The vibration of his voice, plus one and a half glasses of wine, was all quite enough for Carlen who was just a little dippy in the face of it.

"Well, a pillow..." she said, giving a vague wave at the expanse of the Stage.

"A pillow?"

"I'm getting a crick in my neck."

"Oh you are?"

His teasing tone sent a flush of color into Carlen's cheeks. "I never knew anyone with such a big bed and no pillows."

"This isn't my bed," he informed her.

"You sleep here."

"Because you do."

Carlen dropped her eyes in quick embarrassment.

"What about the pillow?" she asked finally.

"We'll see," he said.

For a moment he just looked at her. All curled over. Very suitably chastised. Frighteningly feminine.

"Come here," he invited with velvet persuasion.

Carlen moved around the table and knelt before him, landing perhaps a little closer than she might have intended. He touched her face, coaxed her chin up and kissed her. A tender kiss. Personal. The kiss of a lover. He drew back.

"Can you bring yourself to look at me?"

Carlen thought it was impossible but, as always, he proved her wrong. He was smiling at her.

"You can have the pillow," he said.

Carlen was utterly dumbfounded and, the truth was, things might have gone very differently from that moment on, had Nolty not come striding into the chamber.

The Master didn't break from Carlen's hard won gaze, nor did his mood change immediately. "What is it?" he asked softly, his senses still tingling at the timorous expectancy in Carlen's eyes.

Nolty's words snapped the silence like a brittle stick. "Not good news."

Carlen flinched. The Master's gaze hardened. His hands left her and he went down to meet Nolty who stood not three feet from the base of the platform.

"Tell me."

"Ginty's lead didn't pay off. Shay was there, alright, but she's gone now."

Carlen saw the tightening across the Whipmaster's back. The atmosphere of intimacy evaporated from the chamber, replaced by a chill Carlen thought would give her frostbite.

With slow, deliberate care Carlen backed around the table to her original position where she knelt, head bowed, hands gripped together, and tried to block out the men's conversation. What she was about to discover was, it had become impossible for her to block out the sound of the Whipmaster's voice. She'd spent too many days and nights waiting for it. Dreading it, but waiting for it none-the-less.

"What about Purdy?" the Master asked.

"Everything. All too late."

Carlen's heart gave a wrench.

"She was a very willing subject," Nolty reported, "but, if her leads were any good, they're just too cold. Shay's clever. She has a lot of friends. She's gone down deep."

Carlen steeled herself against another wave of the Whipmaster's fury. When he spoke the earth quaked.

"I want every ear pushed to the ground! Every mouth OPENED! Get Kick out there. Post a reward. Someone will roll. This is taking too long. Much too long."

"What about Stellen?" Nolty said softly.

"She goes another round tomorrow but, to tell the truth, I don't think either of them can help. It's too late."

Carlen's heart gave a flutter, but an instant later jolted to a complete standstill.

"Shay's long term. Knows her way around. Where to go. But she knows us, doesn't she, Nolty?"

Carlen glanced around in time to catch the smile on Nolty's face, and all at once she got a crystal clear picture of the bond between these two men and the appalling power they wielded. A monstrous black cloud descended over her as she listened to the Whipmaster's final comments.

"She's all huddled up in some dark, damp basement tonight, wondering to herself. Wondering just when it will be..."

The image he conjured with these few words was startlingly real to Carlen, and the foreboding silence was suddenly exploded by a deafening crash which was completely indiscernible to every ear in the room. It was the sound of a thread dropping.

Carlen had to think to make herself breathe again as Nolty's steps echoed off into the depths of the interior.

When the Master came back to the Stage he was surprised to discover Carlen's retreat. He sat down and observed her a moment but she didn't look up.

"My glass is empty," he said.

Carlen leaned forward and picked up the bottle. He saw that her hand was shaking.

"Your glass too."

"I don't really-"

"I insist."

Carlen replenished both goblets and sat back. The Master picked his up.

"Drink."

Carlen reached for hers.

"You look like you need it."

Carlen's hand jittered as she lifted the goblet to her lips. He watched over the rim of his cup as she took a tiny sip and more wine slopped onto her leg. There was a long uncomfortable silence.

"Why did you move?" he asked at last.

"I thought... it would be appropriate," Carlen replied in a low voice.

"How's that?"

"You were - conducting business..."

She seemed to be having difficulty speaking. Something had gotten into her. She was strenuously suppressing some ferocious emotion.

"What are you hiding?" he asked suddenly.

"Hiding? Nothing! What do you mean?"

"Are you involved in that situation?"

"You already asked me that."

"I'm asking again."

"What do you think?"

"Your name hasn't come into it," he allowed.

"There you are."

"Were you ever involved with any of those people?"

"No! No. I don't even know them."

He paused a moment. Something strange was going on but he didn't know what. He didn't know he was about to make his first serious mistake with Carlen.

"Why are you so uptight?"

"Why-?" she gasped, glancing up briefly, then her eyes scooted away. "You're such a trip."

"What did you say?"

"...nothing."

He sipped his wine. Carlen gulped hers. All the warmth was gone. It was starting to snow.

"I had hoped we'd be able to get through the night without any scenes."

"There's no scene," she replied with that queer restraint.

"Then what are you doing over there?"

"I told you."

"If that's the excuse you want to put forward, fine. I'm going to punish you anyway," he said, raising his cup again.

Suddenly she was all eyes. "What?"

"I think you knew you were expected to stay where you were."

Carlen's mood darkened suddenly. "I was expected to know that?"

"You did know, didn't you?"

He could see he was right, but she wasn't going to admit it.

"Fuck it," she murmured, her eyes cutting away.

"What?"

"I never know what you expect until you tell me, and you always tell me when it's too late! Just how do you expect me to know all the time what you want? I can't read your bloody mind... thank God."

"The problem has nothing to do with reading my mind," he said. "It has to do with your attitude."

"Just one more thing you're dissatisfied with."

"There are certain things you should know by now."

"Maybe I'm just a poor student."

"Maybe you don't try hard enough."

He emptied his cup and set it on the table. After a distinctly uncomfortable pause, Carlen threw back the wine in her cup and knelt forward to replenish both drinks. Her knuckles were white around the bottle.

"It'll be winter soon," he remarked softly. "I'm sure you appreciate it can get very cold in here at night, especially for someone without a blanket..."

The lip of the bottle wavered over the edge of the Master's cup.

"You're spilling the wine."

Carlen froze in mid gesture, a very funny look on her face.

"Carlen?"

"Sod it. Let the maid clear it up."

"...What did you say?"

"You didn't hear me? I said sod it. Sod this, sod you."

The bottle hit the table with a bang.

"Carlen-"

"I'm tired of dancing for you, cold prince."

"Carlen stop. Think-"

"Think?" She pinned him with a frosty glare. "What the hell have I done every breathing moment since I was pulled into this horrorshow? Think, he says. Well, I've had it. I'm exhausted. BRAIN DEAD. Hear me now? Thinking about Dalroy, about Nolty, thinking about you... You know what I think? Do you really want to know?" Her eyes narrowed. "I think the only question here is: If I displease you so much, why keep me so close to you?"

"I never said you displeased me," he replied softly. "In any case, it's not for you to judge."

"What a God damned comedian you are!"

"If you're in any doubt-"

"Any doubt?"

She reared up and made a sudden gesture with her knotted fists. With a shock he realized that, had the table not been between them, she would have struck him then. She struck the table instead. Both fists.

"You son of a bitch! You chain me to the God damned wall like a bloody animal, tell me when to move, when to speak, when to sleep, when to eat and when to shit! I've been starved, beaten, raped, subjected to torture and threats of more torture. Only been driven half way out of my senses - all for no good reason at all \- but OF COURSE! None of that is for me to judge! I should have known. You say it, it must be so. Well, I've had it! Hear me now? You have no right! NO FUCKING RIGHT AT ALL!"

He said nothing. He was afraid to speak. Carlen's hysteria had risen like a flash flood and it was evident she was going to give way to it. To try and subdue her now could only make it worse.

She stared at him in furious enmity for a moment then gave a wild shriek of laughter. Her body flexed suddenly and she jumped half out of her kneeling position and plopped down. She was speaking again, softly now, almost to herself.

"I don't know... what you think... I am... but I can't deal... with this... No more. No more..."

He stared in mute fascination as her mood transformed from childish petulance into dark cunning, touching on every conceivable emotional quality in between. He feared she was nearing the edge of insanity and frantically groped for an idea as to how to pull her back. He wasn't even sure what had set her off like this.

He didn't dare move toward her, afraid she would jump the brink if he tried to touch or restrain her. So he just watched in nerve-snapping frustration as she began retreating backwards in odd little hops, bitter words gushing out in a tidal wave of virulence.

"You're not going to touch me anymore. Just keep away. Keep away, you son of a bitch! You and your circus of terrors. Well, not anymore. I won't BE YOUR BEAST ANYMORE! Just keep away. Hear me now? I don't consent. I DON'T CONSENT TO THIS! And NOTHING you can do will MAKE ME!" She laughed again. A crazy laugh that chilled him. "You don't watch, you don't touch and you don't push! No more! You see? Stay away. You stay away from me!"

She looked terrified, unearthly, her breath coming in labored gasps as she pawed her chest in gestures of anxiety. She looked about ready to faint.

"Don't come near," she wheezed, "or I'll... I'll..."

"You'll what?"

"I'll... lose... my... mind..." she articulated on breath of hot acid.

The Whipmaster recoiled internally. He'd thought she was going to say something else, but this hit him with all the impact of a whiplash. He had to do something. Immediately.

He got to his feet and Carlen thumped back into the wall, arms braced out in front of her.

"STAY BACK!" she warned, but, as he approached, the fists beat back into her chest and she cringed. Her eyes locked onto his, blazing with renewed terror.

He dropped to his knees before her and Carlen froze for an instant, then struck with a fresh wave of bile.

"KILL ME, YOU BASTARD! Go on! You might as well. I'm half dead already..."

When he didn't move or speak, her head rolled away into the wall.

"Kill me..." she pleaded. "Only... just... don't... touch... me..."

He leaned in close, so close she felt the heat radiating off his skin. She clung there, shivering.

In a low, intense voice he demanded, "Just what IS it you're so afraid of?"

He thought she wouldn't reply. That she hadn't heard. Then, in a faint whisper, he heard her confess,

"I'm afraid you're going to steal my soul..."

CHAPTER 36 \- OVERTAKEN

The Master left the Stage immediately. He rang the bell to summon the attendant and awaited her in the archway, his eyes riveted on Carlen.

The constant girl reported promptly. "Sir?"

"Spane?" the Master asked, but didn't turn.

The girl moved into his range of vision. "Yes."

"Get Jaim. Tell him to bring the bag. Go!"

Spane hurried away and shortly after Jaim arrived, a black medical bag in hand. As the men faced each other, the moment hung when the Whipmaster appeared uncertain of what to say. Jaim finally broke the silence. "What can I do?"

The Master came suddenly on track but he was uncharacteristically dispossessed. "She's gone. Lost."

"...Lost? Who?"

"The Changeling."

Jaim glanced briefly at the Stage, half expecting it to be empty.

"I think I've lost her."

Jaim glanced again at Carlen and suddenly understood what the Master must mean. "What happened?"

"She's bouncing off the fucking walls. Snapped."

His attention drifted again. Jaim had a pretty good idea of what was going through his mind. The man was hiding a great deal.

"I think you'd better sedate her," he said finally.

"Okay," Jaim said. "I'll do what I can."

Spane, who had been standing by in embarrassed silence, took this as her cue to exit.

"No," the Master prohibited. "Stay with him... and with her when he goes. All night. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Spane replied softly.

"I'll have coffee sent in."

"No need," she said.

He looked at her a moment. "Take care of her."

Spane nodded. The Master cast a strange grimace at Jaim and quit the chamber.

Jaim crossed to the platform with a command for Spane to follow. He sat on the edge of the Stage, next to Carlen, signaling Spane to sit the other side of her.

Carlen was curled up on the back corner, her shoulder pressed into the wall, inert. Jaim leaned over to get a look at her face.

"Carlen, can you hear me?"

"Please don't touch me..."

"Carlen, it's Jaim."

There was a pause, then she looked around, eyes first, her head turning slowly. "Jaim?" She didn't seem to recognize him.

"Yes."

She relaxed for an instant, then her eyes darted around the chamber fearfully. "Jaim?" she repeated.

"Yes."

"Is he here?" she asked softly.

"No."

She looked at him directly.

"Swear it."

"He's gone."

"Swear it!"

"I swear."

Her eyes dodged around the chamber again, as if to confirm. "He watches me. Watches me. All the time. You can't always see him, but he's always there - watching."

"He's not watching now."

"Good," she said, but she went on searching the shadows.

"Are you alright?"

"Alright? Oh - yes. Fine. You know me. Fine."

"What happened?"

"Happened?"

"Tonight. What happened?"

Carlen seemed to go blank, then said, "I spilled the wine."

"What?"

"He said I spilled the wine. You can't do that. Oh no. Can't do that."

"It's not important."

Her eyes widened and Jaim heard the panic rise. "Not important? Don't you know what he does to you over something like that? Don't you know?"

"Take it easy," he said quickly. "It's alright. It's over."

Carlen drew a shuddering breath and turned into profile again. "It'll never be over."

Jaim sighed softly. This was not good at all. Despite the fact she'd told him she was alright, he could see it wasn't so. She was in bad shape. How bad, he wasn't sure, but to see this particular woman in this state was certainly no good omen.

He assumed there had been an hysterical episode of some kind, although the Whipmaster had not elaborated. Now she appeared to be calm and that, at least, was a good sign. He opened the medical bag and took out a small black kit. Perhaps a good night's sleep would be enough to bring her around.

"Jaim..." Carlen said with strange emphasis. "You have got to help me."

"That's why I've come."

"Help me get OUT of here."

Jaim's movements slowed. "Don't talk that way."

"You must!"

"You don't know what you're saying."

"I do! I do know what I'm saying! I have to get out of here." She turned to him directly. "I have to get away from HIM."

"Where do you think you can go?" he asked curtly.

Carlen's eyes blanked for a second, then darkened with satanic cunning. Her tone took on the same coloration.

"What can I offer you?"

"There's nothing you can offer me," he said stiffly. He set a vile of serum on the pelts and was now intent on assembling the hypodermic he'd taken from the open kit.

Carlen didn't seem to realize what he was doing.

"Come on, Jaim," she goaded. "What can I do for you? You're like any man. I know it. You know it." Her hands slid down between her thighs. "Come on... tell me."

"Stop it, Carlen."

"My God," Spane whispered. "She IS off the wall-"

"Shut up!" Jaim snapped, but too late.

Carlen swung on Spane. "Walls? Don't talk of WALLS to ME, bitch!"

Jaim dropped everything to grab Carlen who lunged at Spane, teeth and nails bared. He threw her into the wall and held her. "I'm going to restrain you if you don't keep absolutely still! Hands behind your back! Do you understand?"

There was a mutinous glint in her eyes but Carlen nodded. Jaim turned back to his preparations but, a moment later, Carlen's hand stealthily crept over to the sleeve of his shirt. Her mood underwent another transition, her tone taking on a quality of paranoiac confidentiality.

"Jaim... Jaim... He's going to kill me."

"Carlen, he is not going to kill you." His tone was brutally matter-of-fact, but he was set on edge by the quivering fingers still fidgeting at his shirt sleeve.

"He is!" she insisted. "I know it. He's too angry. You know? Too angry. And I'm not fast enough. He's going to kill me for it. First Shay, then me."

"He's not."

"He is! Oh listen \- through the walls, along the halls. The beast takes first the soul, then the flesh. Do you hear what I'm saying?"

Once again Jaim broke in his preparations, too delicate a job with her pawing hands in the way. He turned and grasped her shoulders. He did not like the look in her eyes.

"Carlen, listen to me. He is not going to kill you. Not unless you give him an excuse. A very good excuse. Don't give it to him."

She seemed to comprehend this and, during the minute she took to mull it over, Jaim loaded the hypodermic, took her arm, prepped a spot and jabbed the needle into her. Strangely, she didn't seem to notice at all.

By the time Jaim had packed up to leave, Carlen had lolled over on the pelts. She was fighting the sedative, but it would do her no good. Another few seconds and she'd be out cold.

She looked awful. It was hard to believe this was the same woman who had fought the Workshop so steadfastly. Then again, he couldn't be sure precisely what she'd been subjected to since then. Nobody knew all the details of the Whipmaster's personal cases.

Now it looked as though the whole thing would come to naught. A colossal waste of time. Everyone had a breaking point. Even Carlen.

"I'll put one of the others on your station with instructions," he said to Spane. "If you need help, whatever the time, alert her. She'll come for me."

Spane nodded.

"One more thing... Nothing you heard here this evening is to leave this chamber. Not one word. Understand?"

Spane was plainly dismayed by the demand. Jaim knew he was putting her on the spot and, if she decided to cross him, it could imperil his own position. The thing was, he felt nothing could be gained by informing the Whipmaster of Carlen's desperate entreaties. She had not been in control of herself, and most probably wouldn't even remember what she'd said when she awakened.

Spane took a moment to decide, then her features smoothed out. She had no real reason to fear Jaim, but she seemed to comprehend his concern.

"Yes. I understand."

* * *

Next morning Carlen came to in a fearful state of disorder and, as Jaim had suspected, she had no memory at all of the previous night. The presence of the other woman on the Stage was a confusion to her, as was the weakness in her arms, which collapsed under her as she tried to push herself up.

"What..." Carlen began with a thick, lazy tongue, hardly knowing what to ask first.

Spane was a little nonplused herself. "Would you like some breakfast? Water?"

Carlen stared at her, coming awake rapidly now. "Since when do you ask me if I would like some breakfast? Since when?"

Spane was actually relieved. This was more like the woman she had come to know.

"Since last night," she said.

"What about last night?"

"You were... you took ill."

"What are talking about? What do mean, ill?

Spane suddenly felt unequal to this. "You'd better ask Jaim," she said.

"What's Jaim got to do with it?"

"He had to sedate you," Spane said softly.

Carlen's voice rose dangerously. "Sedate me! What the hell for? What game is this?" she demanded, scanning the chamber. "Where's the Master?"

One of the other girls suddenly appeared in the archway, alarmed by the rising voices.

"Go get Jaim," Spane called out to her, but the girl only stood there, a look of confusion on her face.

"Where IS he?" Carlen shouted.

"GO!" Spane urged more loudly, reaching to restrain Carlen who was trying to get up.

The girl disappeared.

"God damn it!" Carlen shouted. "Let go of me, bitch! What have they done? What has he-" Carlen suddenly plopped down on her haunches. "Oh Jesus."

"What?" Spane demanded, afraid Carlen's memory had suddenly snapped into place.

Carlen looked down to discover she was urinating uncontrollably over herself. "My God!" she cried, her voice suddenly breaking. "What the hell is happening to me!"

Spane snatched up the towel and pushed it between Carlen's legs, frankly relieved at having something definite to do. "It's nothing," she said. "Nothing to worry about."

"What is HAPPENING?"

Spane opened her arms to embrace Carlen as the sobs broke loose. "It's nothing," she soothed. "Just the medication. That's all. Nothing to worry about," she told her, praying to God Jaim would hurry.

When Jaim arrived he could see right away Carlen was not simply going to snap out of this.

"What happened?"

"She woke up. She doesn't seem to remember. She's... wet herself. I told her it was the medication..."

"Fine," Jaim said with calm control. He set down the medical bag and reached for Carlen. "Carlen, come on. Sit up. That's it. You're alright. No, come on. I want you to sit up."

Carlen had trouble extracting herself from the support of Spane's arms. She was hitching like a bawling child.

"Take it easy, Carlen. Now, what's the matter?"

"She told me... She told me... you se-dated me!"

"That's right. I did, and I'm going to do it again."

"Don't you try! Don't you even try it!" Carlen warned.

"Are you going to sit quietly and let us clean you up?"

"Why don't you restrain me? That's what he'd do!"

"That's what the hypodermic is for. Is it necessary now? Is it?"

Carlen turned dark and sulky. "What then?"

"Bath and breakfast," Jaim said pragmatically.

Carlen's mouth twisted in a cynical smirk. "Oh yes. Always bath first."

"Carlen," Jaim cautioned.

Carlen shrugged. "Do your thing."

The bath proceeded without incident and Carlen seemed quiet enough until halfway through breakfast when, all at once, her head reared back and a terrible scream broke out of her. Her hands flew up to her throat and clawed at the collar. Jaim quickly dislodged her fingers, but she instantly grabbed the chain and went on pulling with maniacal determination. She started talking again, in a rapid, hitching chant and, once again, Jaim did not like the things he was hearing.

Carlen was so intent on her tugging that Jaim had little trouble releasing the linklock between the manacles. Unbending her fingers from around the chain was another matter entirely. Spane lent a hand, exhibiting a surprising demonstration of strength and authority, and within a few minutes they had Carlen restrained and laid over, although she was quite beyond reach or control.

Jaim had prepared the hypodermic beforehand, so it was a simple matter, getting it out and administering it, but the rigidity of Carlen's body would insure the appearance of a bruise - no matter where he stuck her. It went to work fast, aided by Carlen's struggles, and a minute later Jaim and Spane dropped back with sighs. The madness had left Carlen's eyes, replaced by dull bewilderment. As she slipped away, Jaim noticed her lips move, although no sound came out. Spane noticed it too.

"What's she saying?"

Jaim glanced up, startled. "Oh - I don't know," he said.

But he did know. 'Questions and lies' she had said. Questions and lies.

* * *

Spane roused herself from an unintentional slumber when Jaim entered the chamber in the afternoon a couple of days later. She glanced up fearfully as he ascended to the Stage.

"I'm sorry! I fell asleep."

"It's alright. You look like hell. Go get some rest. I'll sit with her."

Spane was about to leave when she paused. "Oh \- I haven't been able to get her to eat."

"Nothing?"

"Not since yesterday."

Jaim sighed. "You'd better wait."

Spane sat down again.

Jaim crouched before Carlen who was by the wall, staring into empty space.

"Carlen? Carlen - why aren't you eating?" He touched her chin. She jerked her head away irritably. He adopted a stricter tone. "Why aren't you eating?"

"I don't want to live."

"So you're starving yourself?"

"Yes."

"It won't work."

"Yes it will."

"No. If he hears about this he's going to take action. You know that."

"How's he going to hear?"

"I'll tell him. You don't want the pain to start again, do you?"

"...The pain is all there is."

Jaim sighed in exasperation. "If he sees you take this attitude you know what he'll do, don't you?"

Carlen didn't answer.

"Don't you!"

Still nothing.

"He'll transfer the responsibility elsewhere. Do you understand what I mean?"

Still no response.

"He'll make it the responsibility of this girl here." He took Spane's arm. "He'll hurt this girl."

"No he won't."

"Yes he will. Is that what you want? You want to see her up against The Wall? Because that's what will happen, and it'll be your fault."

Carlen was silent for a moment.

"I don't care."

Jaim grabbed her face and wrenched her head around.

"That's a lie, Carlen! You know it and I know it."

Her eyes flashed with sudden anger, but he was gripping her cheeks too tightly for her to break away.

"This girl sat up with you day and night, caring for you, and that's how you'd repay her? That's not you, Carlen. That's not you at all."

"How would you know?"

"That's a stupid question. A very stupid question."

There was the smallest flicker of doubt in her eyes. "She doesn't care about me."

"Not so."

"She's only here because he wants it that way."

"She knows her place."

He felt her jaw tighten under his fingers.

"Why should he blame her? Why not blame you?"

Her tone was very cold. He matched it.

"That's not the way it works."

They glared at each other in stony silence, neither one willing to give. Finally Jaim said, "Decide, Carlen. I make my report in ten minutes."

He could see the fury raging inside her, but her shoulders finally dropped in an admission of defeat. The hostility cleared from her eyes, replaced again by the emptiness.

Jaim signaled to Spane for the bowl. He held it out to Carlen. She didn't move.

"Take it."

Carlen's eyes dropped.

"Take it."

At last she reached out and accepted the bowl from him.

Spane looked on, fighting back the first tears that had come to her eyes in over two years - and she wasn't even sure who they were for.

* * *

The Whipmaster was standing in the shadows around the corner when Jaim stepped through the archway. Jaim stopped before him, just a little touched off that the man had not waited until he came to him. The Master was all screwed around by this case. It made him difficult to handle. Difficult to be around.

"Have you been to see her?" Jaim asked.

"No," the Master replied. "Is she better?"

Jaim fought back the reply on the tip of his tongue.

"She's quiet, if that's what you mean."

"What's wrong with her?"

"She's dropped the thread," Jaim said flatly.

"She doesn't remember what happened?"

"No."

An angry sigh gusted out of the Whipmaster. "Why this? Why now?"

"She's worked up about Shay," Jaim said.

"Shay? Why?"

"I don't know. Possibly the scene with McLeary in the Cold Room."

"You think that's it?"

"Only a guess, but she doesn't want to b- ...to see Shay brought in."

The Master's eyes flashed with quick intelligence."What was it you were going to say?"

"She doesn't want to be here when Shay is brought in."

"Be here? Where else would she be? I don't understand."

"She's suicidal."

"What?"

"She's lost the will to live."

"Well now. Isn't that about the best damned news I've had all year."

"I can only warn you. If you have Shay presented in front of Carlen, I think you're going to get a bad result."

"We haven't found Shay yet."

The Whipmaster seemed to be having trouble taking this in. He wanted to reject it.

"Carlen won't be able to tolerate it," Jaim said.

"She has to! Has to. She's got to be ready. Got to be made to see."

Jaim regarded him a moment. "Do you know she thinks you're in possession of her soul?"

"Damn... Damn!"

The Whipmaster paced away. Stopped near the wall. Jaim watched with frigid enmity. After a long pause the true voice of the ruler of the compound murmured into the darkness between them.

"Damn it, Jaim. You know what I want. Do I stand a chance in hell of getting it?"

The man was ice. No two ways about it.

The Whipmaster turned, the question repeated in his eyes.

"I think you can bring her around, if you want to," Jaim said.

"Are you sure?"

"If you still want her, I think you can reach her. You might be the only one who can."

A cold hope flickered in the Whipmaster's eyes.

"You'll have to be careful," Jaim cautioned. "But I'd say there'll never be a better time to go after her."

"Oh?"

"She's a blank," Jaim said in that oddly flat tone. "That's what you wanted, isn't it? A blank page?"

The Master sighed. "Yes."

"Well, you've got it."

The Whipmaster nodded and turned to go. Jaim caught his arm, detaining him. His eyes were strangely intense.

"Whipmaster - Go slow. She believes you're a demon. She needs to be reminded you're a man."

* * *

Jaim was greatly relieved to see Carlen sitting up eating breakfast the next morning. He looked her over carefully but neither touched nor spoke to her. He handed Spane a bottle of scented oil with instructions to give Carlen a massage.

"She's not going to let me do that!" Spane protested.

"She will," Jaim assured her, smiling slightly. "Don't worry about it. She will."

Spane sighed doubtfully. "I'll try."

Jaim's smile faded as his attention reverted back to Carlen. He looked worn. "Call me immediately if there are any... difficulties later today."

Spane held up the jar. "If not sooner!"

Jaim acknowledged the quip with a nod, but the hint of a smile was gone.

It turned out Jaim's assessment had been correct. Carlen submitted to a thorough work over without a murmur and was sitting up taking hot tea when the Whipmaster paid his first visit that afternoon.

He took a seat on the edge of the Stage, but not too close. For nearly an hour he sat, subtly searching the air for Carlen's scent - the scent of the oil on her freshly rubbed body. There was no suggestion that Carlen was aware of his concentration or of his parting words, which came out like the pronouncement of a proud and satisfied God. "You smell wonderful."

* * *

The next morning, Carlen wakened with the pelt blanket over her. Spane looked on in perplexed fascination as Carlen, hobbling on two knees and one hand, dragged the offending object across the Stage and pushed it over the edge. It was the same when Carlen wakened with a pillow under her head. Over the drop it went.

* * *

Spane snapped out of a light doze when the Master entered the following morning with breakfast and coffee. Carlen remained unaroused, her head on Spane's lap. The pillow was wedged between Spane's back and the wall. The blanket was loosely draped over her shoulders, but the bulk of it was arranged over Carlen's sleeping form. When the Master saw this configuration he understood immediately, despite the quick guilt in Spane's eyes.

He sat on the Stage near the women. Spane swiped roughly at her tired face and gave Carlen a nudge. She gratefully accepted the bowl and coffee the Master offered her, but Carlen stared in mute disinterest at the bowl he placed before her. Noticing this impasse, Spane set the bowl on Carlen's lap and Carlen began to eat. The Master sipped from the second cup of coffee, observing Carlen.

"Changed your mind about the blanket and pillow?" he asked finally. When Carlen failed to respond, he went on as though he'd expected it. "You reject these things and you think you're rejecting me. You're only hurting yourself."

Although awake, Carlen seemed still to sleep, moving in trance-like gestures. She ate only half the contents of the bowl and, when Spane removed it from her lap, Carlen lay back down to rest, carefully avoiding any contact with the blanket.

* * *

And so began the reclamation program. An agonizing process for everyone concerned. Spane continued in her multiple roles as nurse, comforter, and guardian of the night. She massaged Carlen's strained body, supervised her feeding, bathed and tended to her as one tends to an invalid. Jaim checked in regularly, frustrated and helpless to do more than worry and wonder at his own involvement in this macabre machine. Carlen ran, as hard and fast as anyone can run without moving a muscle, and the Whipmaster pursued with every manipulative force within his capability.

* * *

Every day the Master came. And every day he stayed longer. He talked to Carlen. Talked to the frozen, tragic mask that served as her face these days. He spoke with the cool detachment of a school master relaying information the student is expected to memorize, at the same time assuming no responsibility for the student's assimilation of that information. Either you had it or you didn't, and most of the time it was impossible to tell if Carlen heard or even knew he was there.

"You think I'm too hard on you, so you throw a tantrum and run away. Try to convince yourself I'm a devil. Your fear of me has become disproportionate, hasn't it? The only monster is the one you've conjured in your head. I control your material condition, even your mortal life, not the harbors of your soul. But, I assure you, what I have I intend to keep."

* * *

Carlen put up a pretty good front for the Master, but Spane was acquainted with the paranoiac little animal that lurked behind it. She met and coped with the personality under the mask the Master addressed. This woman was running scared, cornered and trying to come to the most critical compromise of her life.

Her sleeping habits became erratic with the commencement of these lectures. She lay awake for hours, staring empty eyed across the chamber. Spane sat up stroking Carlen's hair, soothing her, until her own back ached and her legs lost all feeling, until Carlen finally slept and, inevitably, wakened, panicked and tormented by nightmares.

Carlen formed a sudden attachment to the pelt blanket, sheltering beneath it as though afforded some meager protection from the shadows that stalked her psyche. Even when she was awake she kept a grip on it, constantly worrying it with fidgety fingers. This was her only activity, besides the maelstrom of her thoughts, which was like a physical presence in the chamber. A presence extremely distressing to Spane, but something she never mentioned to anyone. This seething dementia, like the niggling at the blanket, ceased entirely when the Master came in.

* * *

"Despite what you think, I am not displeased with you," he told her one evening. "And your response is not unexpected. I understand it. I understand your resentment. You've fought long and well, but now you're tired out. You can't pull against this any longer. It's time to turn around. The longer you deny what is happening, the harder it will be. You must start accepting responsibility. Responsibility for what you do, what you say, what you think, and what you feel. Cast off this independent attitude, ideas of freedom. This confusion will destroy you. I want you to give it up. Turn. Make the change. Make the decision to make it because, until you do, there will be no peace."

* * *

Spane witnessed these scenes between them with embarrassed discomfiture. She observed the Master's cold determination but she also sensed the deepening frustration underlying it. Carlen was a wall. A picture as rigid and unreceptive as stone.

'Look!' she wanted to scream at him. 'It's no good! She's gone! And she's never coming back! Why can't you just accept it?'

But of course she didn't. Perhaps, for reasons of her own, this was what she wanted to believe, but she knew it wasn't true. Carlen was responding. The responses were microscopic but Spane could detect them. She, alone, was with Carlen day and night and she could see the changes even when the Whipmaster couldn't.

He was not daunted. He kept coming. He kept his voice low and intimate, like that of a confidant, but every day the messages got stronger.

* * *

"I know how badly you want out... but this is not your escape. It surprises me to see you capitulate this way. You can't escape me. Not this way. Not any way. Eventually, you're going to have to face that. The worst prison you're in now is the one you're creating yourself. It's a poor resort... Do you hear me?"

It was the first direct question he'd asked her in days. Carlen made no indication.

"You don't want to talk to me. Fine. If you want to talk, you can talk to Jaim. Tell him anything you like. No repercussions. I promise."

Carlen didn't speak. She'd seemed to be universes away but, a moment later, her eyes closed and she appeared to give the slightest negation with her head. The first sign she'd made of hearing him. Spane noticed the Master's jaw tighten.

"Suit yourself. Let me know if you change your mind."

He paused but there was nothing more from Carlen. He leaned a little closer to her. "I'm not through with you. You know me. You don't get past me. ...And I know you. You'll find a reason to live... even if it's me. You're not running the border, Runner. Not this one. Not this time. You're coming back. To me. You know it."

No, Carlen cried in her heart, but her lips did not move at all.

* * *

The last visit with Carlen alleviated the Master's fear that Carlen would slip over the brink. She was using the insanity as a barrier against him but, she still had control and he felt reasonably confident she wouldn't be willing to give it up. This was what made her something out of the ordinary.

She was on the way back. All he needed was a trigger. A strong one. Something quite particular.

* * *

He brought a pack of cigarettes on his next visit. Tossed them on the pelts between Carlen and himself, along with a box of matches. Spane thought the offhand gesture a little unlike him.

Every visit he sat closer to Carlen. Spane noticed it. She wondered if Carlen did. He assumed a casual pose, his arm rested over that one crooked up knee. He wasn't going to sweat this. Spane could see he had come with ammunition.

"You want one, changeling?"

He waited a very long time, but Carlen's eyes were riveted on those cigarettes and, eventually, her hand made a move toward them. Then she hesitated.

"Go ahead," he murmured.

Carlen grasped the pack and wrested a cigarette out of it. With trembling hands, she got out a match, struck it. She placed the cigarette between her lips and raised the match. The instant before the flame met the end of the cigarette, he spoke. "Wait."

Carlen's hand froze in the air.

"I want to know if you've considered what will become of you if you don't make a serious effort to overcome this."

Carlen's eyes were locked on the flame devouring the match.

"Answer me."

Carlen kept her silence, even as the hungry flame took its first lick at her fingertips. She jumped, confusedly dropping and blowing on the match simultaneously. It fell to the pelts, dead.

"Coward."

The hand with the cigarette dropped to her knee.

"That's what frightens you so much these days. Your cowardice. Oh, yes. I figured it out. You know you have no choice anymore so you blame it on cowardice. You're scared of yourself. I told you you'd learn something. Better get over it. Your bravest acts are yet to come."

Spane was shocked by the scene and his coldness, and she sat and watched Carlen who did not move for a very long time after he left the chamber.

* * *

Carlen lay down alone that night and Spane's sleep was not disturbed by her nightmares because Carlen didn't sleep. The next day she seemed no more responsive than usual, but she was already sitting up when the Master came in and she was not clutching the blanket.

He sat very close, close enough to touch her, and he made no pretence at casualness.

"I want you to conform," he said. "If you keep it in line you'll be alright. You're going to make mistakes. I expect it, but you mustn't be so afraid of failure. When you fail, you'll be corrected-"

Carlen tensed, almost undiscernibly, but Spane noticed it and she saw the Master did too.

"But your failures will be followed by successes. I'll see to it."

There was a prolonged silence and he was about to leave when Carlen unexpectedly raised her eyes and looked at him.

"Will things be different?" she asked.

"No."

Her eyes dropped away again.

"Do you honestly expect them to be?"

"...No."

"It will get easier. I promise you that."

Carlen made an almost imperceptible shake with her head.

"Come now. Are you worried? Don't you think I know how to handle you?"

As he said this, two tears spilled over and tracked down Carlen's cheek. He reached out and collected them on his finger, touching her for the first time in thirteen days. Carlen didn't move. She didn't even blink. The Master actually sighed.

"You see how it works. You're frightened now. Lost your confidence. You don't know what will happen, but you see how deeply you're involved. You know you haven't seen the worst. You know it can always get worse. Have you got it in order?"

"I think so," she said in a half whisper.

"No questions. No contradictions. No tests. No alienation. You'll do whatever you're told, when you're told to do it - whatever it is."

"...Yes."

"We'll see," he said, aware of a sudden flash of excitement.

The force of this excitement took him by surprise, as did his sudden need to take her - right then and there. He had planned to wait, at least for a more private moment, but he found he couldn't wait. He couldn't wait at all.

He took Carlen's wrists and laid her back. She didn't struggle, but every muscle was locked in raw, frightened anticipation. He knelt astride her, looked at her pale, strained face.

"Open your eyes."

Slowly Carlen revealed her eyes, finally unveiling all the fear burning inside her.

"Open your hands," he said, and Carlen gradually unfisted her hands, relinquishing her hold on the tension.

"Open your mouth."

Carlen's lips parted and he bent to kiss her, taking her complicity as acceptance of his attention.

He drew back. "Now, open your legs."

As he felt her begin to move beneath him, he took it as a signal that she had accepted the control, also.

Carlen received him without a murmur and Spane turned away, into the wall, silently clenching a very personal agony.

CHAPTER 37 \- SUBMISSIONS

The very next day the interviews began again. Mostly the interrogation of informers. Payment of Runners, Jobgirls. The girl with the hat turned up, minus the M-16. There was another with her who looked exactly like her except, instead of a peak cap, she wore a black headband around her brow. The Master paid these mistresses of death in cold, hard coin. Obviously well ranked personnel. What the hell were they guarding? His guns?

The whole time Carlen stayed hard on the wall, trying to be invisible. The sudden reopening of the chamber to business was a shock to her. All those eyes and all employees of the Whipmaster's. His outside business. His other business. Carlen felt very mere in the face of it.

The return to business included a return to routines with the women. Bath water, can, breakfast and lunch at regular hours. When they brought the table onto the platform that evening, Carlen recognized the resumption of another routine which had been temporarily discontinued. Dinner with the Master.

Carlen stared at the table for some minutes, wondering how to prepare for this. Then she crawled back to the wash basin and re-washed her hair.

When she felt ready, she approached the table, but then drew back in uncertainty. No one had told her what to do or where to be. She hesitated in terrible confusion, then finally knelt center Stage, back erect, hands composed on her lap and waited.

Upon his arrival, the Master was a little thrown by Carlen's positioning and demeanor. It rather undercut the line he intended to take with her this evening.

"Come to the table," he said, taking his seat.

Carlen came immediately, assuming the same pose as before. He looked at her carefully, but all she seemed to be waiting for was his permission to begin.

"You shampooed your hair," he observed.

Carlen seemed embarrassed but he was genuinely surprised. Two weeks ago she would never have done such a thing specifically to please him.

He didn't tell her whether to begin or not, but simply began to eat himself. She hesitated, then tentatively followed his lead.

"Well. Are you ready to talk to me again?"

"If you want to talk." Her voice was changed.

"Oh I do," he said. "You've been out of session a while. You've fallen behind."

Despite her deferential tone he saw her wince. "I don't know. Maybe I'm ahead."

"I hope that's so, because you still have a long way to go. I don't expect to pick up from scratch with you."

First day out. Hard ball.

"You know the definition of a Directive?" One of those statement/questions of his.

"Yes."

He waited.

"It's a command. An order."

He waited.

"From you."

"People I employ on this compound and outside it follow directives I give them. There are no options."

"I heard you were a great one for rules," Carlen said before she thought.

He caught it like a pop fly. "You told me you hadn't heard anything about me."

Carlen fell dumb. He let it go.

"When the rules are defined things stay tight," he said. "People know where they stand. You like to know where you stand, don't you?"

"I like options."

"You do have an imagination."

That brought her up short.

"You see how far we have to go."

Carlen gave no indication.

"You do see."

"I suppose so."

"What about Yes or No. Let's cut the half measures."

"Yes." Lie.

"You're all grown up and by now I'm sure you understand what's expected. Mm?"

"Yes." Half truth.

His tone changed. "I know you can do it, Carlen-" The shock of her name on his breath won him her eyes. "-if you'll put that magnificent, stubborn back into it."

She paused a moment. "You're a very demanding man."

"I know it."

"What makes you think I've got what it will take to satisfy you?"

"What makes you think that's the question?"

Three strikes you're out.

"The questions are mine. You don't ask questions. That's a directive. Follow it."

* * *

So began a time of intensive instruction and tests, submissions and retreats, laws, restrictions, and deals. There were no longer any recognizable patterns and Carlen had to keep herself constantly on the alert.

If he should try her and find her unprepared, he'd leave her and try again in five minutes. By then she'd usually got her shit together. She was learning, but the fourth time she failed him he paused before he left her. "You're doing better than you were," he said. "But next time, be ready the first time."

Tests passed sometimes merited rewards. The granting of rewards initiated requests for favors. At first he refused her everything, practical or not, punishing her for daring to ask. Eventually though, an occasional request was granted. Within limits. There was always a stipulation of some kind. A compromise. A trade.

Mostly when he proposed these deals, Carlen became cross and uncommunicative. It was quite a time before she felt prepared to risk entering into any kind of bargain with him. He extracted mighty high dues.

It was no secret to Carlen he was such a master at it. The man had deals going with everyone. Trading, hustling, moving and shaking. A real tour de force. He had a power that was completely natural to him. He never had to sweat it. Everything came to him.

Everything.

* * *

When Shay was finally brought in, Carlen sensed, by the way the Whipmaster glanced at her, that the presentation of Shay was another test he had set for her. Something he'd been waiting for.

She tried to brace herself for this ordeal, knowing she wouldn't be able to manipulate her reactions to this as she had her reactions to the treatment of Stellen. She prepared herself for the very worst, but the encounter between the Whipmaster and Shay was not quite what she had expected, and it altered her viewpoint of the Whipmaster - yet again.

Shay was brought into the chamber by Kick. She was still completely dressed, the only things missing being the hat and her weapons. She looked like she'd been running. Hard. She looked tired, dirty and hungry, but she was still Shay. They had her under full restraint, understandably, and she was anything but amenable to Kick's efforts to get her into the presentation area.

Oddly, the Whipmaster did not appear to be pleased or even in the least excited by Shay's long awaited arrival. He looked at her with a kind of disappointment and his voice when he spoke sounded tired.

"Who made the collar?"

"Dalroy and one of the others," Kick reported.

"Who gave the directions?"

"de Salle."

"Clever little de Salle. Is she on the compound?"

"She's waiting outside."

"Bring her in."

Kick released Shay and left.

Almost the instant he was out of the room, Shay tried to break for it - shackles, collar, blindfold, the lot. Carlen was stung by a jealous admiration for the woman.

The Whipmaster seized her immediately, almost as if he'd expected it, and threw her into The Wall with a terrific impact. Carlen was honestly shocked. She'd never seen him handle any piece that way, except for herself, of course. Shay tottered there, her legs slightly buckled, but she didn't try it again.

Kick returned with de Salle who turned out to be the young tyke running drinks for Dalroy's table that night at the Checkerboard. Now she was utterly awestruck. It was quite evidently her first interview with the Master.

"Well done, de Salle," the Whipmaster commended affably. "There's always room for someone smart and ambitious with an appropriate perspective on things."

de Salle glanced over at Shay worriedly. Carlen didn't know that the girl had smarts or a particularly good sense of perspective, but she was ambitious. The trouble was, all the ambition in the world would never burn that fear out of her eyes. She was staring up at a very high ladder, but there was no way she would ever get beyond the first wrung. She was much too afraid of the Whipmaster.

"This little girl has a good nose. Useful to us. Useful to her. It's paid off. You've earned yourself a mark, de Salle. Do you want it?"

de Salle's eyes shifted from Shay but did not meet the Whipmaster's. "Yes sir."

"Yes sir," he teased with a small pleased smile. "What do you say, 'Runner'?"

de Salle perked.

"Do you want to stay for this?" He nodded at Shay.

de Salle paled. "Ah - No. I'm... expected elsewhere."

The Whipmaster nodded as though he understood. He saw the limitations in this girl's potential as clearly as Carlen did. "I see," he said. "Well, if you're in a hurry I suppose we could have the Grace burned on for you-"

"Oh no! I mean..."

"You're not expected that urgently."

"No."

"Well, good. Kick, why don't you take de Salle along for her reward. You can tell Dalroy and the other I won't forget this."

Kick nodded and shoved Shay forward. de Salle leapt out of the way as Shay stumbled into the archway.

As they were leaving the Whipmaster called out. "Oh, de Salle-"

She looked around worriedly.

"You know, tattooing is not entirely painless."

"I know," she said, trying to sound calm.

"Just so long as you're prepared. We pay for our privileges, you know."

"Yes sir," she murmured.

Kick was smiling.

With the departure of the others, an eerie sort of intimacy settled over the scene. The Whipmaster turned to Shay. To Carlen's surprise, he removed the blindfold from Shay's head but, as she looked on, Carlen saw that Shay was not surprised. Not by the sight of the chamber. Not by the appearance of the Whipmaster. These two knew each other. Probably a long time. Shay stood strong and sure before him, like she'd lived this confrontation over a hundred times in her head.

"You've been avoiding me," he said softly.

"Is it a wonder?"

"Considering your behavior, no."

"Look - you don't control me."

"Is that a fact?" the Master said, giving a small tug at the chain attached to her collar. "Perhaps if you'd exerted a little more control over yourself, all this would not have been necessary."

Shay left that one alone.

"I've been hearing a lot about your activities lately. I don't like what I hear... You know we're holding Stellen and Purdy."

"Yeah. I know it."

"Stellen's gone through quite an ordeal trying to protect you. She's very loyal to you... or scared of you. And Purdy? Well. Poor little Purdy. One or two sessions with Kick and Nolty was quite enough to pry her tongue loose. She has quite a low tolerance for pressure, hasn't she?"

"Are they dead?"

"Oh no. I wouldn't deny you the privilege of being present for that. In fact, I haven't quite decided if it might not be better just to kill you. Let them carry word of it back to the Sector. What do you think?"

"You want me to make your decisions for you now?"

"Why not? You're not above a little murder yourself, are you? Tell me - did you put a contract on McLeary, or did you save the pleasure of killing her for yourself?"

"What the hell do you care? You got what you wanted. McLeary turned informer. She knew it was the finish the minute she opened her mouth."

"It's a pity she couldn't see the advantage in the decision," the Master said. "She wanted to go back on the streets. She did have a reasonable alternative."

Shay scoffed. "You're insane."

"If I'm insane, what does that make you?"

Shay shot him a very black look.

"I'll tell you what you are, Shay. You're stupid. Just plain stupid."

"Oh, give it a break."

"I told you," he said, his voice suddenly hard as granite.

Shay's eyes turned wary.

"I told you. Didn't I?"

"You push it too far-"

"No!" he interjected. "You push it too far. I knew it would come to this."

"Over a barrel or two of gas?"

"No! Not gas. You, Shay. Just you."

Shay made a small derisive sound with her tongue.

"Over a barrel, Shay," he said with sinister emphasis.

Shay looked up sharply.

"You know I'm not going to stay there. It's you, over the barrel. You're there now."

Shay sighed roughly. She understood him alright. "You think-"

"I know. About the warehouse. About the fuel. About the guns."

She looked incredulous. "You mean you thought-"

"I KNOW."

Shay retreated again. "There was nothing-"

"I TOLD you."

Shay fell silent. He turned away and paced for a moment, pausing by the bell, his head bowed in thought.

"I can understand the guns, Shay." His voice had softened and he seemed preoccupied. "What I need to know about is the gasoline."

There was a long pause. Neither of them moved an iota. Then, in a perfectly normal tone of voice, Shay spoke up. "We just wanted to pick that up for some heating."

The Whipmaster's head snapped back, a horrible grimace distorting his face. "Bullshit! We can CUT the bullshit now, Shay!" His head whipped around and he moved to her. "Can we? Can we at least do that?"

Shay winced.

"You know, I don't understand this," he said, almost desperately, Carlen thought. "I don't understand you! All these years and I still don't understand you.

"Well," he sighed, shaking his head. "What do we do now? Is this a special case? You want to make it one? Let's face it, what else can we do? How else can we deal with it? Suppose you tell me! I'm tired. You seem to want it all your way, anyway."

"That's not fair!"

"And neither is this! Neither is this, Shay," he said bitterly.

He turned away again, as if he couldn't bear to look at her. "For fuck sake. Just tell me why."

Shay didn't speak right away, but stood looking at him with uncompromising eyes, yet, eyes not totally devoid of understanding. Finally she drew herself out of the insolent stance she'd assumed at the commencement of the interview and adopted a more clement attitude.

"Only to slow you down," she said at last.

The Master looked around with quick intelligence. "The trucks?"

"Yes. People are paranoid out there."

"Paranoid, are they?" he retorted abrasively.

"Can you blame them? No one knows who's going to be picked up where, or when, or for what reason. It's a hell of a way to live."

"Is it, now?" He'd become very cold again. "Well, just how paranoid do you think they'll be if the wall starts to crumble, Shay? Let's just think of that for a moment, shall we? How secure they'll feel if the dealing stops. The trade. Do you remember the early days, Shay? Perhaps you favor a return to the past. Let's suppose we reopen the borderline. Allow a breakdown in order, negotiation. Foster a return to chaos and anarchy among the inmates of Newcity. Well? How secure are they all going to feel then?"

"What do you think they want guns for?" Shay argued.

"I TOLD you NOT to distribute guns around this Sector! The lines are drawn. Things are under control. They're going to STAY that way."

"Yeah. Your way."

Carlen thought he was going to strike Shay then but he didn't. Instead his head cocked over to one side and his voice took on an inflection of condescension. "You don't understand any of this, do you? You never have."

She'd lost him.

He dropped his head with a sigh. His hands clasped behind his back.

"I have one more question for you," he said softly. "It's not a hard one." He stepped aside abruptly, clearing the sight-line between Shay and Carlen. "Have you ever seen this jade before?"

Carlen nearly had a coronary. Shay was staring straight at her but the girl never flinched. In fact, she made a point of looking Carlen over before she made her reply.

"No," she said.

But Carlen knew. He knew. Shay knew. They all knew.

"Must have been at the Checkerboard," the Master said.

"That's right," Shay said after a moment. "Dalroy gave her to you."

"Somewhat reluctantly," the Whipmaster admitted. "Wouldn't have minded her for yourself, would you?"

"She's hetero, isn't she?"

"As a matter of fact, she is."

"Then she must really love you."

She was a cool customer. A very good player. It was an odd language between them.

The Whipmaster gave a humorless snort. Shay stood quietly, her eyes directed at the floor as the Whipmaster crossed to the bell and rang to have Kick and Nolty summoned. The interview was over.

While he was turned away, Shay lifted her head and looked over at Carlen. Her mouth started to move but there was no sound. The message was a secret one, and although Carlen could not hear it, Shay made it perfectly clear. She dropped her eyes immediately afterwards and never looked at Carlen again.

When the others came in, Kick stopped by The Wall, but Nolty came right into the archway.

"Hello Shay," he said in a low dry voice.

"Nolty," she replied with equal control.

He took her arm and Shay allowed him to conduct her back to The Wall where Kick awaited them. She made no struggle as Nolty unlocked the shackles and raised her arms to attach them to the chain. The Master had gone over to the trunk and now stood by the iron stand. The flames sprang to life.

Nolty unbuckled Shay's belt and dropped it to the floor. He unbuttoned her trousers and yanked them down below her knees. Shay was wearing a pair of cotton panties but Nolty didn't bother about them.

When the Whipmaster approached with the branding iron, Kick and Nolty crouched on either side of Shay and strongly braced her legs back. Shay's features were a mask of cast iron resolve. Her eyes were locked onto those of the Whipmaster and they did not waver.

"The days of freedom are over," the Whipmaster said. "You will meet your death courageously, I'm sure, but you will meet it as a slave."

He marked the tender inner flesh of her left thigh and Shay responded with a scream laden with black, unspoken curses.

Carlen didn't see them take Shay down or carry her out. She'd had her fill for the day. She sat alone on the Stage, her head deeply bowed, grimly clinging to those few precious words Shay had mouthed to her.

* * *

Carlen didn't see the Whipmaster, or anyone, until dinnertime. The table was brought up. Dinner arrived. The food was hot. The Master was late. The food went cold. Still Carlen waited, knelt primly at the table, motionless.

She waited half an hour for him and, when he came, he did not acknowledge her, but took his seat, tasted one bite of the dinner and seemed to lapse into private contemplation. Carlen started eating with hardly a care that the food had gone cold and slightly congealed. She ignored the Whipmaster, assuming he would prefer to be left in the solitude of his private thoughts. She was startled when he spoke a few minutes later.

"You're hungry tonight."

"The girl forgot to bring me any lunch."

"She didn't forget," he said after a moment.

He turned back to his food, but he saw the movement of Carlen's head coming up at last. "I don't imagine you had an appetite for it anyway," he said.

Carlen didn't bother to tell him any diversion would have been welcome. It had been a long, ugly afternoon.

"Besides," he went on. "I wanted you hungry tonight. Didn't want that temper of yours too well fed."

There was something peculiar about him tonight. Carlen couldn't quite pinpoint it but, if she hadn't known better, she might have said he was - drunk? Or stoned?

"You're not afraid of my temper," she said and reached for her cup.

"No," he agreed. "But you are."

His hand shot out and clamped her wrist, pinning her arm to the table. Carlen stared in surprise, first at his hand, then his face. There was a dangerous look in his eyes.

"Put a good scare into you this afternoon, didn't it?"

Carlen dropped her eyes quickly.

"Or are you trembling now because you know punishment is due?"

This brought her eyes immediately back. There was resistance in her arm.

"You lied to me."

"I didn't lie," Carlen said, still subtly pulling.

"About Shay? You certainly did."

"I said I didn't know her. It was the truth."

"It was a lie of omission. Do you deny that?"

"No."

"You didn't tell me you'd met her."

"It was hardly a meeting. Dalroy kept me away from everyone."

"Another half lie?"

"No! No. I tell you there was nothing in it. The woman hardly said two words to me."

"What did she say?"

That was the key question. Carlen's jaw clenched. He wondered if she'd lie about it.

"She warned me about Dalroy," she admitted softly.

The Whipmaster nodded slowly. "Was she specific?"

"No. Of course not."

"Did she offer you an alternative?" he asked with a streak of sarcasm.

"In a manner of speaking," Carlen said carefully.

"Well. Then you did slip through by the skin of your teeth, didn't you?"

"I don't know," Carlen murmured.

"You don't know."

There was a pause, then he abruptly released her arm. There were red pressure marks where his hand had been.

"Don't let me catch you in another lie," he warned, and Carlen was about to make some lame excuse but he went on. "Because if you persist in fighting me on this level, I'll put you back in Nolty's hands."

Carlen tried to sound cool, but there was no disguising the icy fear inside her. "It couldn't be any worse than constantly waiting on your next move," she said quietly.

"You think not?"

"Well, God only knows what sick little game you'll dream up next."

"Don't look for guarantees, turn. You'll get no guarantees from me, except I'll keep you alive. The rest is up to you."

He was uncommonly brutal that night, attacking with a raw, savage energy. Carlen had hoped the capture of Shay would exorcise the Whipmaster's mounting furies, but it only seemed to have accentuated them. Whatever he may have thought before, at least now he had confirmation that the two cases were completely unrelated - at least, in actual fact. Yet, as Carlen watched his eyes that night, she realized his feelings about Shay did overlap his dealings with her, and would probably continue to do so until the whole thing was ended. Until Shay was dead.

But how long would he delay it? And how could Carlen in any good conscience look forward to such a thing?

* * *

Carlen couldn't deny Shay's presentation had thrown her, yet, not quite in the way she'd anticipated. It had hurt her, deeply, and undoubtedly it had hurt Shay, but it was evident the Whipmaster was not excluded from this pain. Some delicate balance in his sensibilities had been disrupted by the scene with Shay. Something to do not with love or friendship, but with respect and trust - a personal trust such as the one he shared with Nolty.

The situation forced Carlen to face the realization that no one was exempt from the laws as they were defined. The Whipmaster made some unpopular decisions, but the rules were clearly laid down and any individual careless or foolish enough to be caught in breach of them faced an outcome that was equally clear, indisputable and inevitable. Shay had stood up to the Whipmaster, fearlessly stating her case, but, in the end, she had not refuted his judgment.

This appreciation of the situation didn't make the acceptance of it any more palatable, but it served to remind Carlen of the promise the Master had extracted from her when she was weak, and low, and cornered. She had promised obedience. Obedience in exchange for life.

Perhaps this bitter realization was the result he'd sought to stimulate when he exposed her to Shay's predicament. The point being, all personal feelings aside, a bond was a bond. Equitable or not, once the agreement was struck, a contract with him was irrevocable. He did not make exceptions. Even for himself.

'Don't let him break you' was the message Shay had mouthed to her. Carlen's promise called for a halt in her resistance to his domination over her. If she lived up to this promise, would it mean she was broken? Would it mean the signaling of defeat?

Whatever her moral judgment of this dilemma might be, she knew there was an inescapable difference between Right and Wrong, Victory and Defeat... Life and Death. This was what the Whipmaster wanted her to understand, but could she live up to her contract with him and remain true to herself?

If she allowed him to break her there would be no chance of recourse. Ever. But - if she could find a way to bend... maybe as Shay had been bending for years... as Shay was no longer able to bend, then there was a possibility of survival. Even the Whipmaster had said that.

Don't let him break you. Only something brittle and unyielding could be broken. Something flexible and elastic could not. Wasn't that the essence of the message?

Shay had tried to warn Carlen once before but she had not listened. Not actually heard, in fact. Only a fool ignores good counsel from the same source twice.

Of course, Shay had not told her how to crack this dilemma. That, she would have to figure out for herself. Without help from anyone. Anyone, that is, except the Whipmaster who, if Carlen were to be honest, was explicit enough about what he expected.

The adjustment to her situation was no longer simply a matter of limitations. This conversion had to be convincing. No. More than convincing. It must be genuine.

The idea was horrible, but there was no point in getting herself killed over this. His present frame of mind made that possibility more real than ever before. Death - or possibly a worse fate, brought down by a complete expulsion from his good grace.

There was a certain consistency in his demands now, so she, too, reached for consistency. She tackled the tests he set her faithfully and honestly. Tried not to take offence at correction or at her failures.

She concentrated between lessons. Loaded up on tapes - tapes of her, Carlen, bending. He was going to continue pushing and hurting her. That was clear. If he wanted to hurt her anymore, he simply did it. In lots of ways. His reasons were his own. He set the challenges and she was expected to meet them. With a Yes. That was all. The only other answer was No. No had not worked. Would never work. No was the path to destruction. Shay was the proof.

Carlen knew that to win him at all she had to gain his confidence. He must find dependability in her. This was the only path to peace. Assuming, of course, there was such a path - or such a peace.

It was the only sane approach left and Carlen seized it with every energy left in her. She focused on black and white issues. Indisputable contrasts, such as the difference between Over and Under. Winning and Losing. In and Out. All clear differences. Clear choices - and choice enabled decision. Demanded it.

She listed these choices, explored the intricacy of possibility behind every one and what she discovered was - it was all a matter of viewpoint. The one outcome must be the successful conversion of the first basic variable into an interchangeable concept. No for Yes.

It was the hardest thing she'd ever tried to do, but it was on this basis that she began making all the decisions of her life.

* * *

Things were pretty quiet for about a week, at least business wise, but the Master kept Carlen on her toes. She couldn't tell if her new flow pleased or frustrated him, but at least she was not responsible for bringing down any heavy scenes. His behavior hadn't altered much one way or the other and Carlen was not really put to the test until one night when, in a moment of weakness, she came close to blowing it. Very close.

It was late. They had shared a long, quiet dinner. Things were calm but, when he finally moved to her side of the table, Carlen recoiled from his touch.

"No-"

"No?"

Carlen sensed a sudden surge of energy in him.

"Please... not now."

"Why not now?"

"I'm tired."

"You're tired!" That one really tickled him. "What's the matter?"

"...I'm sore."

"Sore, are you?"

"...yes."

"It's about time you admitted it."

"I admit it."

"Alright."

He left the platform and Carlen heard the bell sound behind her. A moment later the constant girl appeared in the archway.

"Clear the table," the Master told her.

"Do you want it moved?"

"No. Just clear it."

The girl came and took the dinner things away.

The Master crossed to his table to pick something up before returning to the Stage. He approached Carlen from behind, causing her to jump as he leaned over and placed a jar on the table in front of her.

He hooked his fingers under the collar, pulled her up on her knees and pushed her forward so that her torso lay over the table. He separated her legs and knelt between them.

Carlen pressed her forehead into the table with a small groan when she heard him open the jar. He was going to force her anyway, the bastard, and the only one that lubricant would help tonight was him.

As she waited, Carlen tried to prepare herself to lie still and accept the pain, just as she had on so many nights before this. Yet, the instant he contacted her with his hand, she tried to bolt up from the table. He shoved her down with unexpected violence and held her. Carlen was panting, new fears burning inside her like a fire storm. He had not touched her in the way she'd expected him to.

"Sensitive about that, are we?"

Carlen began to squirm, emitting a low whine, but she couldn't move much. The smoothness left his voice and the raw chill that replaced it froze her to stillness.

"Don't play the Ice Queen. I know Nolty broke you like this. If you behave yourself, it shouldn't be necessary for me to hurt you the way he did."

There it was. The deal. The choice. The decision.

Carlen sighed but kept still, wide-eyed and deathly afraid. She decided there and then she would do nothing to interfere, but she knew. No matter how well he might think he could prepare her to receive him in this manner, it would never be enough. She remembered well the feel of Nolty inside this narrow, unwilling channel, and if the Master thought he could ever make it easy for his own access, then he was lying to himself. What was worse, he was lying to her and trying to make her believe that lie.

None-the-less, when he told her to relax, she let go the tensions in her back, legs, and arms.

"We'll take it slow, for now," he said, and Carlen didn't dispute him.

He began to work her with his hand. First one finger. Then two. Carefully. Patiently. Expertly. She lay there, trying to deal with the knowledge that this man was not Nolty, and when he decided she was ready and made his first attempt to exploit the ground he'd prepared, he was going to hurt her as badly as she'd ever been hurt by him directly. And there wasn't one damn thing she could do about it.

No for Yes, she told herself. No for Yes, NO for YES.

When finally he withdrew his hand, there was a slight pause and Carlen was certain the agony was only seconds away. She wasn't ready for it. She knew she wasn't. She closed her eyes, gripped the edge of the table and prayed for strength. He spoke.

"Tomorrow night, when the dinner things are cleared away, I want you to assume this position again - without being told. And again, every night until I tell you otherwise. Will you do it?"

"...yes."

There was a slight tug at the chain and Carlen rocked back on her heels. He gave her an approving rub on the head.

"Go rest now."

* * *

The following evening he brought something else with him, in addition to the jar. Something along the line of one of Dalroy's Cold Room toys. He prepped her first with his hand, as before, but when he introduced this new object, although she couldn't see it, Carlen knew right away what it was.

There was no pain, nor even any real discomfort she could rightfully object to, but Carlen wasn't fooled by the relative ease with which she yielded to this device. She understood the reasoning behind his employment of it, but she was bloody certain it did not measure up to the dimensions of his natural endowment.

He could have found a better match among the variety of such objects in the Cold Room, but she assumed his choice had been deliberate. The thing also lacked the definition of the genuine article and, this too, she knew was a deception.

Yet, once again, he did not take his opportunity.

* * *

He continued like this for four nights straight and, although Carlen was in no particular hurry to be laid down and tried by him, she found the suspense and humiliation of this ordeal soul destroying. His patience was almost maddening.

On the fifth night he proceeded just the same as before, but when he indicated for her to sit up and turn about, she saw that he had placed her pillow in the middle of the Stage and she knew. This was the night.

"You know what I intend to do?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You won't resist?"

"No."

Once he had positioned her precisely to his satisfaction, he made his approach. He didn't hurry it and, although he maintained firm control over Carlen's natural inclination to delay the inevitable, he was not cruel or pitiless towards her.

For Carlen it was no more and no less than she expected it to be. Just a few endless seconds of pure agony and hell and it was done.

There was still discomfort when she rose the next morning and when she went to the can she noticed there was blood on the paper. He had torn her to acquire that access and Carlen wondered at the necessity of it. All of it. Any of it.

It was never quite as hard as that with him again, although it was never easy. She knew the blame for this difficulty lay mostly with her and she accepted this fault without complaint.

* * *

He had noticed the change in Carlen. He saw her turning to the pleasing of him. He should have been encouraged, but what he perceived as the darkening of Carlen's light only served to fuel the rage that burned through him these days like liquid fire.

When he looked at Carlen now, all he could see was the shadow obscuring her former personality. The shadow he'd backed her into. So much of the polish and passion were gone now. Rubbed away by his expert strokes. She was ragged, unsure of herself, tentative and hurt. It had almost gone too far. Almost.

But now she was just right. Perfectly postured for the final turn. The final conversion. The final push. And now that he had her here...

He must push. No matter what had occurred before, he must bring her into line now. Establish certain rock hard precedents. Get her and keep her inextricably focused. Yes, now that he had her here...

Something in him wanted to hurt her in some fresh way. Shake her awake again. Stoke up the fire. He wanted to see her flames burn again.

Only it was too late. Much too late to be worrying about something like that. They had come too far. There was too much in the balance.

Logic did not outweigh feeling in this conflict within him and, although there was cold deliberation in his methods, his actions towards Carlen were tinged with a marked cruelty.

* * *

He had her knelt on the second tier of the platform one morning, her chest pressed to the pelts. He was about to test his newly achieved access of her.

Carlen lay in ulcerating frustration, trying to waken her mind enough to start seriously coping. Her eyes landed on the ring in The Wall and she kept them riveted there until he made his first advance. She knew right then it wasn't going to work. Her lungs were already blown up to bursting with obscene curses. She'd have to stop him. Somehow stop him and resort to begging him for patience and a little tender 'jar-grown' assistance.

As he drew back, Carlen expelled a short breath, was about to speak, when the sound of Kick's boots entering the chamber stole the silence from her. She stared in cold amazement as the fellow walked right in, bold as brass, with a young thing on the chain for inspection.

Immediately Carlen started to rise, but the impression of the Master's fingers between her shoulders flexed her straight back onto the pelts.

"Stay down," he said in a firm yet intimate tone.

He did not continue but he didn't hurry his withdrawal, either. As he stood up, Carlen raised her head slightly.

"Don't move," he instructed and left her.

Carlen sighed and lowered her head slowly. It was impossibly difficult, but she stayed as she was throughout the presentation. Didn't move a muscle until he told her to get back on the Stage and bathe about an hour later.

He was cool at dinner. Reflective.

"What was going through your mind when you were left on the step this morning?"

Oh so casual. Carlen felt like screaming - just as she had when Kick walked in that way.

"I don't know," she murmured.

"Come on. What?"

"I suppose I was wondering when you'd come back."

"You didn't see Kick?"

"I saw him."

"Didn't you wonder what he might think when he saw you like that?"

"Not really."

"What?"

"No."

"It didn't bother you?"

"No."

"You weren't wondering what he may have thought was going on?"

There was no way out of this. No way.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Carlen's brow furrowed in question.

"Why should you care what he thinks?"

"I don't know."

The Master regarded her with cool appraisal. "You know, you couldn't accommodate him that way right now."

Bend, Carlen was thinking. BEND. "I know."

"I understand you find him hard to take in any case."

Carlen tensed. "To tell the truth, I'm surprised you would even touch me after that's been all over me. No telling what I picked up off that beast."

"Nobody picks anything up from anyone on this compound," the Master said a little tightly. "Penicillin. You've heard of it?"

Carlen nodded.

"You've had it. And a blood test. Didn't know that, did you?"

Carlen shook her head.

He fell silent a moment. Toyed with his fork.

"You think Kick's a beast?"

At last! A question with a fair and honest answer behind it. "He is a beast," she stated.

But he took even that from her. "And what are you?"

"I don't know. What-" she pulled the question back quickly.

"What are you? You're my property."

Carlen's eyes dropped away. "I realize that."

"Then why didn't you say it?"

A very strange conversation, but more and more these days their meetings were littered with such exchanges. The little pushes. The Humiliations, as Carlen privately labeled them.

These humiliations took several forms, only one being the taking and leaving of her in positions such as the one she found herself in when Kick interrupted them that day. And it didn't seem to matter to him if these scenes between them drifted into the public view.

Carlen could only assume the exposure of her to this little discipline was another of his techniques to keep her in her place. She did what she could to rise above it, but so much of the will to try had already been knocked out of her, and he kept at work on it daily.

No matter what she did to please him, he would not be pleased and she couldn't beg, bargain, or steal her way around his dedication to the opinion that she stood in constant need of correction. Impromptu attacks and snappish edicts amidst calm dialogues. What a temperament he had. Cool and dry as an arctic wind.

If he smiled at something she did or said, she could take no comfort from it. She knew he was smiling not at her accomplishment, but in his pleasure in denying her credit for it. When he could, he removed any certainty she may have had of, for once, doing something right, by either ignoring her efforts or making disproportionate demands for more.

It was almost as though he wanted her to fail. Her failures seemed to be the only thing that invigorated him.

* * *

One evening, after having sent her to bed two hours before, he roused Carlen from her slumber, shackled her hands behind her back and directed her down to the floor. He seated himself on the bottom stair and knelt Carlen on the floor between his legs. He had placed a skin down for this purpose, to protect her knees.

Carlen was watching his eyes but she could see he was opening the ties of his pants. With one hand and a steady pressure, he forced her head down towards his groin. He stopped just before Carlen's lips met the tip of his erection.

"I think you know what to do," he said.

Carlen wanted to swallow, but she couldn't even ease out the tight breath she'd been holding since he'd placed her in position. This was a challenge she had known would come. As inevitable as the passing of time. She knew she'd been extra lucky to have escaped Kick's one attempt at this, but it didn't console her. Being forced outright was one thing, this cool demand for acquiescence, quite another.

Of course she could make commotion, in which case he'd probably force her. There was just no telling what the man might do. It seemed like her entire life had distilled down into one constant question: If I oppose him now, will it be worth it?

"Is it really so hard for you?" he asked suddenly.

He could feel the tension locking her up. He wondered why she was fighting this so hard.

"All you have to do is open your mouth."

Carlen closed her eyes tightly, trying to get a grip on her runaway senses. She felt the involuntary flex of his fingers against the side of her head. He was losing patience with her.

He was wondering why she had to turn everything into a battle of wills. What did she hope to gain? Or hold on to? Why should this simple act disturb her so much?

"I'm not going to tell you what will happen if you don't move within the next minute."

He waited.

Finally, Carlen sighed, ever so softly. Her lips parted and the tension in her neck gave way.

Just as she was about to contact him, he gripped her hair to prevent her from further advancement. "There'll be a reward of five strokes every time you graze me with your teeth."

The last of Carlen's compressed sigh puffed out through her opened mouth and he experienced an unexpected thrill at the warmth of her breath.

This was the first time he'd allowed her to see or touch him here. To explore and, at long last, dispel the mysteries of this weapon of her bondage.

She moved with care, having advanced only a few inches. She touched him first with her tongue. A tentative touch. A reluctant touch. A touch that tried to avoid feeling.

Of course she could not avoid touching him, anymore than she could turn off the feeling. She had to touch him in order to find her direction. She braced back her jaw, terrified her teeth should make contact.

She knew the anguish was pointless. The directive was a paradox. There was no conceivable way of performing the act she believed he expected of her without at some point touching him with her teeth. No matter how gently, no matter how unintentionally. The mere dimensions of their respective anatomies made it an impossibility.

She understood the order in the directive. She understood its threat, but she also understood the promise. Whatever she did, the strokes would come, and the only reward would be surviving the passing of the pain in store.

Many images passed through her mind as she made the first play at him. Some concerned the compound and the smell of the water after hosings. He smelled like that. Tasted like that. Clean, scoured.

She explored him a little more boldly, allowing her lips to close softly around him, partly to show her willingness to cooperate and, partly, to keep her judgment of the position of her open teeth. Then, all at once, the simple familiarity of the act gave Carlen a sudden sense of natal security. She closed her eyes and extended him a slightly more exuberant flourish of attention.

She experienced a momentary surge of power and confidence. After all, once you were bowed over thus, with the initial introductions played, what was left? Only the prick in your mouth. That one prick which could be anyone's, anywhere. The most sensitive and insensitive object in the world. Anyone who's performed the act often enough knows, taken from this vantage, it has a way of becoming just a prick, probably one in a succession of pricks, and that is - one common prick. One extremely common act.

In view of this, it was impossible to take exception at an object so bereft of influence or power of its own. After all, pricks did not have personalities. Only people had personalities. It was the personalities that really fucked you.

"You can do better than that."

Yeah, Carlen thought. Right. And if I do one thing more the fives start ringing in. And, if I don't do it, we'll be here forever.

"Deeper," he encouraged.

Carlen dropped her head another inch. There was plenty of room yet. She hoped he didn't intend to make use of all of it. She prayed he wouldn't decide to take more.

He made her drop again, soon after. He was pressing at the back of the hard palate now and Carlen knew one more move and he'd be past her back teeth. Already she was finding it difficult to maneuver her tongue and lips. Another half an inch or so down and she would not be able to use them at all.

Carlen tried to continue calmly, but already she could feel an ache at the back of her throat and the welling of angry tears at the realization that he was going to push it as far as possible, and she burned with the common frustration of those who have learned that most of them do.

"Go on."

Carlen froze, unwilling to proceed. His hand came down on her neck and, although he applied no pressure, the mere weight of it forced her down further. He used the momentum of her voluntary movement and pressed her the rest of the way.

Carlen wasn't shocked or hurt. She wanted to accommodate him but the bastard was gagging her. Effortlessly. Deliberately.

As the back of Carlen's throat began to close, the Master allowed her to come up, but not to withdraw completely. More tears accumulated as Carlen tried to restrain her urge to cough. His fingers relaxed slightly and stroked the back of her neck.

"Go on," he coaxed.

Carlen took him, more than halfway, and went to work in earnest. She intended to play every trick she knew in an all out effort to stimulate him at least to the point of interest, if not climax. If he pushed to the back of her throat again she could do little to contribute. He could hold her and himself in abeyance there and the whole thing could be strung out for hours. She had to get his attention or the act would never be completed.

"Fifteen," he said.

Carlen jacked her jaw wider, cursing, not her incisors, but herself. She had tried too soon to please him, forgetting her duty to obey him, thus skipping an entire level of sensitivity. She couldn't retreat, she dared not attempt to overtake him. She was stuck. Left only with the examination of the plain realities of the situation.

She continued her movements more slowly, more sensually, but it was automatic. The circuits were burning hot. She knew now he would most probably not simply allow her to entice his pleasure to fruition. She had not approached him subtly enough and lost her chance.

Well, if not for pleasure, what then? More instruction? Or did he merely wish to observe her in this act of supplication? If that was it, then most certainly he would use her like this for hours.

"Keep going."

Carlen came to, hardly aware she had momentarily forgotten her task. Her neck was beginning to ache and she was wondering how long they'd been poised there.

All at once he pulled her down again. Not roughly or quickly, but steadily, and held her there until she began to struggle.

He released her, once again, not entirely, and said, "Thirty five. Try harder."

Carlen went to work - with full concentration. To please him or not, she would engage any useful image she could catch hold of to make this into the most precious effort she'd ever made toward any human being. She would be honest and serious and sensitive, and endure for as long as she could. Just so he would not push her again.

But all the honest effort in the world was not enough. He would not be distracted. She made a study of every ripple, bump and indentation of his skin. She caressed him softly, sweetly, freely, but nothing moved him.

She felt the panic coming on slow burn. The ache in her jaw was rapidly becoming the focal point of her ragged concentration. He noticed her breathing was erratic and her growing impatience was evident in her movements.

Carlen was about to attempt to break away, afraid she'd lose control over her shuddering jaw and involuntarily clamp down on him. He moved first, this time ramming her throat before jerking her upright by the hair.

Carlen refused to blink lest one of the fresh tears escape down her cheek into his sight. He cut into her with those eyes, icily deflecting the waves of her hostility.

"You tire too easily," he said, and pushed her aside as he moved past.

Carlen was decimated by the remark. She wanted to curl into a ball of invisibility and rejection. To be left alone for a minute to vomit, or bawl, or simply be.

He came up behind her a moment later. "Get up."

Carlen squirmed up onto her knees.

"On your feet."

Carlen unbent her legs and rose. The linklock between the bracelets sprung loose and her arms swung down to her sides. The Master stepped in front of her, attached the bracelets to the collar and grasped the chain near her neck, the weight of his arm casually resting on it.

"What was the count?" he asked before he took her up to the Stage for the one hundred strokes that had merely been on hold since before the game began.

* * *

The only diversion from Carlen's personal encounters with the Whipmaster over this period was the business he conducted in the chamber. Despite her abhorrence of the nature of much of this business, the more she learned about it the more intrigued she became.

The Whipmaster moved merchandise of all descriptions and, to Carlen's amazement, most of his lines were legitimate. Food, clothing, household goods, building materials, as well as tools, hardware, labor, money, and information. There didn't seem to be any limitation either to the scope of his connections. He dealt with Traders inside the Sector, outside the Sector and - outside the city. Just about every deal in town seemed to center around him in one way or another, and Carlen was beginning to see why. He had a charisma and a code that drew information and business to him like a magnet.

Carlen was fascinated. She was appalled. She watched him manage all this and she had to admit a grudging admiration for the man. He was smart. He was tough. He was cold. He was the Number One Trader in the city. Traded everything - anything. Some of it light trade, some of it heavy trade. Very heavy trade.

The most offensive deal Carlen witnessed during this time was a trade he could have conducted anywhere on the compound. There was no necessity for bringing it into the chamber except, of course, that's where Carlen was.

The deal involved two men Carlen had never seen before. She was more than a little shocked to see they were dressed in State uniforms, both ranking officers of the New Civic Legion.

They were trailed by two of the compound lackeys who were dragging two enormous wooden crates which they gratefully left in the presentation area before they withdrew.

"You're late," the Whipmaster said. "I expected you last night."

The lead man, a Lieutenant, laughed gratingly. "Yeah. Well, we had some trouble 'requisitioning' a truck. Can't carry this shit in your pockets, you know. You still want it don't you?"

"Yes, I still want it," the Master said, prying the lid off the first box.

"That's your iron," the man said. "The guns are in the other one."

The Whipmaster nodded, verifying the contents of the crate for himself.

Carlen subtly craned her neck to see. The box was full of delicate items like locks, chains, handcuffs, leg irons, steel shackles and collars.

"Open the other," the Lieutenant said to his second while the Whipmaster looked over the irons. The Lieutenant watched him with smirking interest. "I thought you had more than plenty of this shit."

The lid of the second crate crashed to the floor and the Whipmaster crossed over to inspect the weapons.

"I want the guns," he said. "The irons are going elsewhere."

The Lieutenant chuckled grimly. "Yeah. I thought that stuff was a little crude for you."

"These weapons are all antiques," the Whipmaster said.

"They all work," the Lieutenant replied. "Plenty of ammo."

The Master straightened up. "They'll do, I suppose. It all seems to be here. What do you want for this? Cash?"

The Lieutenant's eyes traveled over to Carlen.

"That's nice."

"That's mine," the Whipmaster stated icily.

"Yeah. Sure. Got anything like it?"

"No. There's nothing like it. Besides, she's too good for your tastes."

"I'm not in a killing mood," the Lieutenant said.

"In that case, I do have a piece that hasn't been touched yet. A lesbian, due for execution. I want her to get a taste of man before she's dispatched. She's quite nice. Healthy. Clean. A Trader."

Carlen realized with sudden revulsion the Whipmaster was talking about Shay.

"A Trader?" The Lieutenant seemed more than a little interested.

"A good one, too. A little too good. Overstepped herself."

"A virgin?"

A cynical smile twisted the Master's face. "I said she was a lesbian. I can't vouch for what may have been done to her in that context."

The Lieutenant laughed coarsely. "Yeah. Who the hell knows what these women do to each other, eh?"

"If you want to stay over, you and your partner can have her for the iron. Use her any way you please. I'm sure she'll give you all the fight you're looking for - but no unnecessary violence."

The Lieutenant's eyebrow arched. "You want to define that for me?"

"No broken bones, hemorrhaging or concussion."

Carlen cringed.

The Lieutenant glanced over at his partner who smiled and nodded. He turned back to the Whipmaster. "Sounds like a deal."

"I'll give you cash for the guns."

"A deal."

The men shook hands.

* * *

The demonstration had been for Carlen's benefit. She had involved herself in Shay's case. She had done that. Not he. This was merely a simple and direct method of apprising her of developments and reminding her what a hardass he was capable of being. Every day he had to remind her. It was the only way to keep her down.

He'd thought the scene would incite her. Hoped a little, maybe. But, when he turned to her, he saw she was subdued. More than subdued. She seemed closed for business.

* * *

That night, he attempted to stimulate a reaction by locking Carlen's hands behind her and placing her on her knees, astride him. To sharpen the insult, he made it immediately apparent he was not interested in the easy course.

Temporarily jarred out of her torpor, Carlen reacted as much out of fear and self defense as anger. She'd become easier, it was true, but he had hurt her in this position often enough before he ever showed interest in the less traveled channel. He wanted to hurt her. Intended to. It could mean nothing else.

Carlen managed to dislodge his first two attempts at penetration, successfully diverting him to the more acquiescent track. When she tried it a third time, he pulled her down against his chest and spoke directly in her ear.

"I know you're angry with me, but if you persist in this struggling, I'll have Kick come in and hold you in position."

He felt her back flex and her anger darkened a shade. "Or have Kick do it."

"Good suggestion," he replied.

After a moment the tension drained off and she relaxed against him. Another deal. Damn him.

"Go ahead. Do as you please," she conceded bitterly.

Without a word, he reached down, took a generous hold of her and, with reasonable care, made his entry. Her eyes were already clamped shut as he pushed her upright, forcing her to receive him. He began with slow control, to give her a chance to adjust, but he gradually increased in force and energy until, ultimately, he was ramming her down quite hard. Carlen held on in silence for as long as possible but, up in this position, her hands taken away, there was nothing she could cram into her mouth to suppress the noise which inevitably broke free. She bounced there helplessly, yipping like a chimp, praying there was enough elasticity left to make him pop off quickly.

When he finally rolled her off, Carlen dropped to the pelts, exhausted - and somewhat surprised at how little residue pain there was. It seemed she was growing accustomed to these demands. It seemed he had more faith in her progress than she did. Clever man. Horrid man.

Afterwards, he had her join him at the table for a late supper, just to look her over. The small spark of resentment he'd aroused in her was gone. She'd dumped back into her previous quietude, refusing him the satisfaction of challenging him over the prostitution of Shay. He badly wanted her reaction to that, but he didn't know how to stimulate it without appearing deliberately to do so.

They sat in silence a long time, he watching her intently, she, apparently oblivious to this observation. She was down, alright. Distracted. Vacant. Fidgety. Not herself at all. For five minutes she'd been dabbing at crumbs on the table with her finger and pressing them on her tongue. He doubted if she'd even been aware of what she was doing. Now she was poking in the melted wax from the candles, messing it about and, for some reason he didn't attempt to analyze, it was beginning to grate on his nerves.

"Stop that."

"What?" she asked, as if suddenly aware of him.

"That!"

Her eyebrows rose in dull amazement. She slid her hand a short distance away from the candles. She was still for a moment, but soon she began a small, niggling picking at the grain of the table with her fingernail.

"What's the matter with you tonight?"

"Matter? Nothing." She gave a small pathetic laugh. "What could be the matter? Everything's perfect, isn't it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Her eyes flicked up quickly. She'd become conscious of the edge in his voice. "Nothing. I didn't mean anything."

She pulled her hands off the table onto her lap. Her eyes followed them and she lapsed back into her daze. He watched her in tense silence for a few minutes, wondering what the hell could be going on in her head. Finally he decided her thoughts were probably as vacant and aimless as her behavior.

"You need some sleep," he said at last.

"I suppose," she murmured.

"Go on," he said and, after a moment, she crawled away and curled up near the wall. She was asleep almost instantly. He sat at the table for a long time, just watching her.

It wasn't her fault. He'd been pushing her pretty hard. He couldn't expect her to be on top of it all the time. Maybe he expected too much of her. Maybe he expected too much of himself. Maybe it was impossible to spend so much time with a woman like Carlen and not be affected by it.

Maybe he'd made a mistake. Maybe the whole thing was a mistake. Maybe he wasn't winning at all. Maybe she was the one that was winning. Winning little pieces of him, and maybe that was the thing that was making him angry.

He knew he'd have to start leaving her alone more and maybe a part of him rejected the idea. Maybe.

* * *

He had a new toy. Carlen thought he'd got it out of the trunk on the lower platform. A length of leather which he kept so tightly wrapped around his hand all day she was hardly able to make out for sure what it was. Just a strap, she supposed. She'd been getting a taste of that strap all day long. For the pettiest of reasons. Nothing particularly devastating. She supposed that's why he'd hit her with it so frequently throughout the day.

At dinner time, however, he dropped it on the table with such a clatter Carlen couldn't help but notice and look up. Her heart crashed into her ribs, stopping altogether for a second or two. She couldn't stem a rush of irrational tears that sprang up and spilled onto her cheeks.

It was her belt. The one she'd got from Calypso. She wondered if he even knew it was hers. It certainly would be like him to beat her with it then deny knowledge of the object's previous ownership. A very detailed and capable tactic. Oh so thorough.

"Tears!"

"No," Carlen mumbled, taking a quick swipe at her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You don't want to tell me?"

"No."

"Curiouser and curiouser," was all he said.

He disappeared after dinner and returned some time later. Carlen was braced for the worst. The table had not been taken down and she was remembering what had occurred the last time that had been the case. What was the game tonight?

He took his usual seat across from her. He was in a very rare mood, speculative, enticing.

"What do you think you would do to keep me from touching you tonight?" he asked.

"I have absolutely no idea. Nothing's worked so far."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that..." he countered, but Carlen didn't bite. "Would you drink a bottle of Summer Light?"

"Another bargain," she said tiredly.

"Would you do it?"

"It's a strange request."

"Don't question it. Decide."

How did he know about Summer Light? Dalroy, of course.

"A whole bottle."

He nodded. "One sitting."

Why did he want her to do this? To get more information, most likely. Shit. Did he ever play for keeps.

Carlen sucked in her breath. "I'd try," she said.

He was prepared. Had the bottle stashed in the trunk. Fresh bottle, seal unbroken. He brought wine for himself and two goblets. The cigarettes came, also.

He opened both bottles with the nonchalance of an ordinary host serving drinks at an informal cocktail party. Carlen watched in tense silence, not in the least deceived by his casual demeanor. He poured the equivalent of three shots into the cup he placed before her. Three shots of a cordial even the most ardent drinker would only take one shot at a time. He was looking for some serious results tonight and, as Carlen reached for the cup, she seriously wondered if he might just get them.

As the first sip burned at the back of her throat, Carlen's eyes lighted on the cigarette pack he'd dropped on the table. She wondered what he'd do if she reached for it.

"You favor that liquor, don't you?"

"In moderation," she said, tearing her eyes away from the cigarettes.

"I understand you're a very serious drinker," he said.

"We all go through phases."

"Is that what you'd call it?"

"It's really none of your business."

"Is this the attitude I'm to expect tonight?"

"It's not an attitude, merely a fact. That's what you want, isn't it? The facts?"

The King jumps. "Yes, Carlen. I want you to talk."

This quick admission threw her but she couldn't afford to drop back. She resorted to the first thing. A question. "Talk about what?"

"Your situation."

"What about it?"

"What do you think?"

"You're always asking me that."

"Tell me."

Carlen sighed. Took a moment. "For one thing," she said, picking up the wall chain. "I hate this."

"Take your hand off that."

Carlen dropped the chain like it burned her. "Right! We mustn't touch the chain," she said roughly. Then slyly, "Although, this is not specifically the chain we were forbidden to touch."

"You know better than that."

"Yes. I do."

She was flip tonight. Razor sharp.

"What else?"

"Do I know?"

"Do you think."

"Oh... sometimes I think about you," she said.

"What is it you think?"

Carlen placed her cup down carefully. "I don't think you're going to get what you want."

"What do I want?" he asked.

"I can't answer that."

"Then how do you know I won't get it?"

"I didn't say I know, I said I think."

"What else do you think?"

"Nothing."

The Whipmaster paused. "This is not an interrogation, you know."

"Sure it isn't."

"We're just talking."

He'd said that before.

"No," she said. "We're not just talking."

He saw her eyes on the cigarettes again. He picked the pack up and just toyed with it. "Go on," he encouraged.

Carlen sighed. "I'm tired of being cold all the time."

"Come again?"

"I said I'm tired of being cold all the time."

"The blanket isn't enough?"

"There's more than one kind of coldness."

"Go on," he said, refilling her cup.

"I hate looking like I'm never allowed out of bed. I hate bathing in cold water. I'm tired of being treated like an animal."

"That's it?" he coaxed, knowing it would provoke her.

"I tired of being in pain all the time! And I'm tired with your obsession over me-"

"Is that what you think it is?"

"Well, what would you call it?"

"Go on," he said, refusing to answer.

"And that."

"What?"

"'Go on'," she mimicked.

"And?"

"And? And speak! Be silent! Get up! Get down! Move! Be still-"

"Are you a Taoist?"

"What's a Taoist?"

"Was that a question?"

"No," Carlen said quickly.

He set the cigarette pack down on its side. "You surprise me," he said quietly.

"Do I!"

"I had hoped you were beyond feigning ignorance as an evasion tactic."

She'd made a mistake. She could tell by his tone. He was giving her a chance to amend. "I thought it was a strange question."

He became reflective. "I asked because you seem to be locked into black and white issues. You have trouble traveling the middle road, yet you try to depict this perfectly neutral persona. What for? Are you afraid to let me see who you are?"

"Of course I am," she said, gulping from her cup. "I'm supposed to be, aren't I."

She said it like a statement. Assumed truth. It shook him a little. It was cold blooded.

He picked up the cigarettes again, tore off the seal, tapped one halfway out of the pack and held it out to her. Carlen looked at it, then at him. She would have liked to refuse that cigarette, but it was going to be a long night. He lit it for her.

"Why did you consent to this?" he asked.

"To keep your hands on the other side of the table."

"That's important to you?"

"Exclusively so."

"It's not going to work," he said after a short pause.

"Oh?"

"I don't think you can do it."

Carlen's hand was tightly gripped around the goblet as he picked up the bottle and topped her drink again.

"Setting me up to fail seems to be your favorite pastime," she said.

"Is that how you see it?"

"Definitely. I think you derive enjoyment from it."

"How does that make you feel?"

"Inadequate."

"Not angry?"

"Yes. That, too," she conceded.

"Pour."

"My glass is full."

"Mine."

Carlen shrugged and reached for the wine bottle. She assumed it was just another of his games, but he actually wanted to see how steady she was. So far, so good. She didn't spill a drop.

One fourth of the Summer Light was gone. She was doing pretty well. According to Dalroy, this lady really knew how to pack it away. She certainly seemed to have a taste for it, although the weeks of hunger and sleep deprivation would surely have put a dent in her tolerance. As he'd hoped, the cordial did appear to be loosening the rigid control she'd locked herself into lately. It had become nearly impossible to provoke her.

He picked the dead match out of the saucer he'd provided as an ashtray.

"Were you involved in the dissidence in England?"

Carlen's brows shot up and she gave a brief snort. "That's a peculiar term for it."

"Were you?"

"No." Silence. Carlen glanced up. "No," she repeated, as though she thought he needed convincing. "I traveled to England on consignments. I wasn't involved in anything."

"So you keep saying."

"I preferred to remain independent."

"So I gather. But now you are involved in something and you can't stand it, can you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about."

"What? This?" She gave another harsh chuckle, roughly stubbing her cigarette out in the saucer. "I'd love to know your definition of involvement."

"You'd have a better idea of that than I would," he said. "But you are involved. I can see it in your eyes. I'm sure it has something to do with coping with me. I'm glad to see it."

"I'm glad you're glad," she said tiredly.

There was a pause.

"Finish your drink."

Carlen picked up the goblet and dutifully emptied it. As soon as she set it down he refilled it.

"May I-" Carlen began and bit back the question.

"May you what?"

"I'd like another cigarette."

He held the pack out to her again. Allowed her to light it herself.

"You have a peculiar accent."

"If you say so," Carlen sighed on a breath of smoke.

"Sometimes you sound almost English and sometimes you sound like Dalroy. Sometimes you sound pure Manhattan. Where the hell do you come from?"

It was not a direct question. It wasn't even a question necessarily concerning a birth place.

Carlen's forehead was leaned into the heel of her hand. She was staring at him with one eye that had gone a little bleary. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.

"I... am... the deposed Queen of Rhodesia!" she quipped and suddenly burst into raucous laughter.

"Carlen..."

The two syllables tolled in her head like the chant of a necromancer. Carlen strangled the laughter. He didn't look up but Carlen knew. His current was like a physical touch.

"You people sure do have some fear of humor," she said moodily.

"I have to wonder what you find humorous."

"I'm not talking about me."

"Are you talking about me?"

"Well, look at you! Picking that poor match to splinters. All uptight at me for some obscure reason. God. It's almost funny."

His eyebrow arched.

"Well it is! What's the matter? Aren't you able to laugh at yourself?"

"Are you?" he countered.

"Certainly! I laugh at myself all the time."

"Do you?"

"Yes. Of course," she said. "What do you think? When they wrote the line 'Send In The Clowns' who the hell do you think they were talking about?"

"Is that how you view yourself? A clown?"

"Why not? It's accurate, isn't it?"

He wasn't going to allow himself to be pulled into that one. He tossed the shredded match back into the saucer, somewhat cross that she'd noticed the destruction he'd wrought when he hadn't been aware of it himself.

"Finish your drink."

By now she had downed nearly half the bottle and she was more than loose. She was drunk. No two ways about that. Her posture was sloppy and her eyes had a glassy look. One or two more cupfuls and she'd be blitzed. He was beginning to wonder if her guard would ever drop. She was speaking again.

"You know, for the longest time I wondered if you even knew my name."

"Why is that?" he asked.

"You never use it."

"That's not entirely accurate."

"Well, hardly ever."

"Why do you suppose that is?"

Carlen sucked one last drag off her smoke and stubbed the butt into the saucer beside the first. "Oh, I suppose it's all part of your dehumanizing program."

"Is that what you think I'm doing to you?"

"Oh come, dear fellow! I'm not stupid, you know."

"Oh, I know."

"Do you have a name?" she asked suddenly, astonishing them both.

"Of course."

"What is it?"

"What's your name?"

"Carlen."

"I'm sure that isn't your name."

"At least it's a name I can be called by."

"You don't know what to call me?"

"Oh yeah. I know, but I'm not going to say that."

The alcohol seemed to be draining her physically, but it certainly hadn't dimmed her wit.

"You really dislike me, don't you?" he asked.

"What kind of a question is that?"

"Well?"

"Why the hell should I like you?"

"What do you dislike most about me?"

Carlen's eyes widened then narrowed. "Give me another cigarette and I'll tell you."

"You've already had two."

"I want another."

"Answer first."

Carlen glowered. Ran the tip of her finger around the rim of her cup. Around and around.

"What do I dislike most about you...?" she reiterated in slow speculation. "Well... the thing I dislike most about you is... the fact that there's nothing I dislike about you. You're just such a totally likable guy!"

Bing Bang! He came around and slapped her so hard and fast Carlen was listening into the silence before she knew she'd been hit. She crouched there, hand to her face and, when he failed to move or speak, she said, "I thought you were supposed to keep those hands to yourself. Those were the terms."

He said nothing.

Carlen released her burning cheek and sat up slowly. "Or don't I drink fast enough to suit you?"

There it was again. That look. It frightened him. He had to admit it. She'd found a challenge he couldn't meet and laid it right on him.

Mental game tonight. Purely mental. Now he regretted setting it up that way. This was probably a lady who fucked mean on a heavyweight cordial like Summer Light. Too bad. A mistake.

"Why?" he snapped. "Are you deliberately taking it slow?"

He could see he had finally succeeded in angering her. She turned back to the table and, when she grabbed the cigarettes, he seized her wrist tightly.

"You didn't answer the question."

"I don't have an answer," Carlen said tensely.

"Oh don't you?"

Things remained suspended for a minute then Carlen opened her hand and dropped the cigarettes. He, in turn, let go of her and finally repaired to his side of the table.

"All you want is an excuse," Carlen fumed.

"An excuse to what?"

"To throw me down or drag me back to the wall to-"

"To what?"

"Oh Christ," Carlen muttered. "You haven't beaten me in at least two hours. You must be feeling extremely anxious about that."

He didn't speak immediately. "I wouldn't advise you to push it any further," he said quietly.

Carlen was nodding. Her head was bowed. She seemed suddenly despondent, bordering on maudlin. Her finger was toying at the edge of the belt which still lay on the table.

"Don't touch that," he said.

Carlen wasn't paying attention. "This is my belt," she said softly.

"Was your belt," he amended

Carlen glanced up. "Then you did know it."

"I knew," he said.

Her gaze dropped again. "You really are trying to drive me mad, aren't you?"

"No. I'm not."

"Oh, but it would suit you just fine if I never smiled again..."

"Take the cigarettes," he said finally.

Carlen took another cigarette and lit it shakily.

"You still have a quarter of the bottle to go," he pointed out.

"I'm not worried. Are you?"

Silence.

"What the hell do you want from me tonight?"

"You've asked enough questions," he said.

"Oh sure. Sure."

Carlen finished her cigarette. Lit another. She'd half smoked it before she spoke again. "You're not going to live up to the bargain, are you?"

"I told you not to ask me questions."

"Why shouldn't I ask questions?"

His eyes came up flashing danger. "That's one."

"One wha-"

"That's two."

After a moment Carlen said, "I fail to see the necessity of confining me to statements."

"If that's true, then you're nowhere near as smart as I thought you were."

Touché. It was a lie. The statements were just another restraint. To make things less easy. To make her work harder at communication. To keep her conscious of the line. Conscious of her position.

"Pour the wine," he said.

Carlen obliged grudgingly and he could see her hand was not as steady as before. He took half the cup in two gulps. Carlen lit another cigarette.

"Why are you smoking like that?"

Carlen said nothing.

"Aren't you comfortable with me yet?"

Carlen huffed. "How could anyone ever be comfortable with you?"

Another question. Was she actually losing control? Or was it deliberate?

"You know it isn't very healthy."

"That's why I do it."

He picked another match out of the saucer. "Tell me more about Tokyo."

"Where men rule the universe and women are just the dirt under their fingernails? What more could I possibly tell you about that?"

"I'm interested," he said. "Your impressions were apparently vivid."

Carlen just shook her head, nervously tapping her cigarette over the edge of the saucer.

"Why not?"

"...It was a nightmare."

Was it truth or another evasion?

Her glass was not quite empty, but he topped it anyway and pushed it closer to her hand. "Drink up."

Carlen obediently picked it up and drank, spilling a little on the table. She didn't appear to notice.

"Speaking of nightmares, are you aware that you talk in your sleep?"

"What do I say-"

She glanced up suddenly, realizing she'd unwittingly voiced another question. He let it go. He'd expected it.

"Well, let's just say your mother is still waiting for you."

Her hand tightened around the goblet. What color there was left in her face drained away and he wondered if she was about to faint. Instead, she downed half the contents of the cup.

That issue really disrupted her ghosts. He was wondering if there might be some way he could exploit it further. He refilled her cup and set the bottle down.

"My glass is empty," he informed her.

Carlen absentmindedly reached out to replenish his drink. He covered the cup with his hand before she could pour into it. "That's the wrong bottle."

Carlen stared at the bottle of Summer Light, dumbfounded. "Oh..." She groped for the wine bottle and poured the drink.

"What happened to your mother, Carlen?"

That made her reach for her own glass again. All she could hear was the echo of Nolty voicing the same exact question.

"Carlen?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she muttered.

"You don't want to talk about anything tonight, it seems."

"Look. I told the Workshop all about that. I'm sure Nolty gave you all the gory details," she said and gulped again, like she needed it.

"Was what you told them the truth?"

Her cup banged on the table. "Of course! Of course it was. They made me tell them everything! Everything. What's the matter? Don't you trust your own people?"

He studied her for a moment. "What I'm trying to work out is, can I trust you?"

"Trust me to what?"

"Buckle down and accept your situation."

Carlen dropped her head with an exhausted sigh. She combed a hand through her hair, a low chuckle sounding in her throat. "How do you expect me to do that? You know I'm never going to do that. Bloody hell. I don't even know what 'my situation' means!" Her hand hit the table and she glanced up, her face distorted in desperation. "I mean, what the hell does that MEAN?"

He didn't say anything.

"With all that I've done, as hard as you know I've tried, and it's not enough, is it?"

Still nothing from him.

"What do you want from me? Promises? You want me to promise to be a good girl? A good obedient girl, like those other poor bitches you got trotting around here? Like that?"

"No. Not like that. I expect more from you. Much more. Certainly more than promises."

Carlen stared at him a very long time. It felt like she was staring right through him. It made him want to shiver.

Finally she spoke. Her voice was dead.

"I haven't got enough for you. I haven't."

All at once, the very last thing he'd expected to happen, happened. She began to cry. Huge, wet tears spilled onto her cheeks and they just kept flowing in an unbroken stream. The sight of them filled him with an inexplicable desire to hold her. Just grab her and hold her. Take it all back. Female tears, the sight of which had not moved him in a decade. God she was dangerous.

She seemed embarrassed. "See? You've made me cry now. Finally made me cry. Satisfied? Are you? No. Of course not. You'll never be satisfied. I know it, even if you don't."

She crushed out the last cigarette of the evening, threw back the dregs in her cup and swiped roughly at her face with her arm. "Now, with your permission, I'm going over to the can to throw up, and then I'm going to try and get a little sleep. I'm drunk on my ass, if you haven't noticed..."

She rolled unsteadily away from the table. "I need to rest," she said in an odd, distracted way. "The demands of my master keep me tired... oh so tired..."

As Carlen crawled away he glanced at the bottle. It was completely empty. Just the way he felt.

CHAPTER 38 \- QUIETISM

Carlen never did find out what she confided to the Whipmaster that night. He never let on and Carlen couldn't recall what had transpired beyond... what? The slap? Two-thirds a fifth of Summer Light? She must have gone into a walking blackout. She might have said or done anything. And he might have... Well, there were no new bruises.

She was hung over for two days and left alone to recover. And when she recovered, she was still alone. No one but Spane came into the chamber and Spane said nothing at all.

Solitary. The tactic itself wasn't new. Leaving her alone, abandoned this way. He'd done it before. And just as before, it hurled Carlen into a storm of speculation over the reason for it. All she knew was, he was gone. Been gone about a week. His withdrawal was absolute. There was no sign, no trace that he'd been anywhere near the chamber in days.

Carlen was sure this desertion signified disaster. She'd confessed something. Blown her cover. Blown her shot at position. He was stepped back now only to decide how to discharge her case. Considering her sentence.

For a while she was completely convinced of this and she tried to tell herself she didn't care. At last it was over. He'd think of some unique way of killing her as slowly as possible and that would end it. Good.

The truth of it was, she cared a whole lot more what he thought than what he'd do. Somehow that had become so much more important.

No. The tactic wasn't new, only the twist on it. And it took Carlen several days to realize it had less to do with what he was thinking or planning, than with what she'd come to expect from him and the responses she'd helped him condition her to make. Carlen was acutely aware that certain things would be expected of her, even now, and certain automatic controls went into operation. Simple obediences. Silence. Stillness. Introspection.

She did try to keep her counsel, but the solitude of her days was devouring the last shreds of her self control. The plague of uncertainties fed her growing desperation. A desperation that became dangerous, self destructive. It caused Carlen to cross some lines she knew were forbidden.

She was seated on the side edge of the Stage when Spane came in one afternoon and more than startled the girl by seizing her wrist as she tried to pass.

"Where is he?" she demanded through her teeth.

"He's nearby," Spane answered serenely.

"When is he coming back?"

"I don't know. Don't ask me again."

Carlen glowered at the assumed authority in the girl's tone.

"Come. You must eat and rest."

"Why must I?"

"It's the directive."

That girl would tell. That was sure. Carlen didn't care anymore. Maybe it would be a good thing. Maybe it would bring him around.

It didn't. When presentations began again a couple of days later, Carlen saw there would be no return to normal. The Master ignored her. Utterly.

Her paranoia that he was considering discharging her diminished, but this continued withdrawal of his attention was more than simply an absence to her. It was an insult and a loss.

She had been with him, exclusively, for so long... under his gaze, his body, his spell. He'd kept himself so close, spoke to her so intimately, demanded all her attention - whether he was there or not...

She'd been relieved, even elated to finally see him, but now the mere sound of his voice from across the chamber inflicted pain. To hear him address someone else was an offence. Having his attention thus turned away made her feel lost, unidentified. Incapable of separate existence. The lack of his constant striving to get inside her, her mind, her body, resulted in a desolation that sucked her emptier every minute of every day he refused to acknowledge her.

Carlen didn't understand these feelings. She didn't even know if she wanted to comprehend this strange new pain, so inexplicable to someone like her. Or was it really? The attraction to danger, to the challenge that went beyond the mundane or ordinary. The desire for something which is denied when the need for it is most acute.

Her dependence had gone thus far and she had done much to encourage it. Her one concentration had become the will to please him - in any way possible. He had been the center of her attentions for such a time that there was no longer any automatic action. Nothing which did not warrant consideration of his opinion. No word. No deed. No thought. He could have anything he wanted from her. Surely he knew this. Why was it, then, he demanded nothing but her continued separation from him?

She had come to appreciate that when he'd spent time with her it had been a privilege. To be laid down by him was a privilege. If he touched her, that was a privilege. When he spoke to her - privilege also. Even when he whipped her, that too had been a privilege.

Now it was too late to wake up to these realizations. She had not cared enough for these attentions. Had resisted them too strenuously. Either that, or she had bored him with her efforts to comply and match the image she believed he was trying to sculpt her into. Or...

Or nothing. She had not paid close enough attention and had lost his interest. He didn't actually care for or about her. She was nothing more than an object of amusement and she had simply ceased to amuse him.

'I haven't enough for you.' She had told him this often enough, in enough ways, and now he was convinced. If she'd lost his interest, then she deserved to. She'd forced him off.

Nothing he could have done would have been worse than the punishments Carlen subjected herself to over this. She was winter bound. Left standing alone in a world turned bleak and cold cold cold. Locked in this empty, frigid void, she watched him move around the chamber, distanced from her as if by some invisible barrier.

The mere sight of him gave her a dull ache. Even without touching her he could hurt her. It was unjust. It was blasphemous, and Carlen began to wonder if a God still existed that could deliver her from the influence of this man.

* * *

Carlen was jolted out of this psychological maelstrom when she was startled out of her solitary sleep very late one night by the sound of footfalls in the chamber. Someone in heavy boots.

Carlen didn't move immediately, thinking the Master would get up and deal with it. Only, the Master wasn't there. Hadn't been sleeping with her for a long time. Then it was a dream. Or a mistake. Someone had forgotten and come in by mistake.

This train of ideas seemed to pass through her slow moving mind over the course of several minutes but, in fact, she realized all this in the passing of a few seconds. All the time it took those boots to cross the chamber and mount the stairs to the Stage. Heavy steps. Menacing. Now the intruder was standing on the Stage - directly over her.

Carlen rolled onto her back to look but the compound lights were out. It was pitch black in the chamber and she could not discern even a silhouette.

A thrill of fear brought her wider awake as the blanket was jerked away. Carlen sat up, her mouth open to speak, but before a single word could escape, the intruder stuffed a wadded scarf into her mouth and secured it there tightly with another he tied around her head. For Carlen, that was enough. She panicked.

For one horrible moment, she thought it was a kidnapping. That, somehow, the Zoo had been invaded and she, like every other piece on the compound, was suddenly reduced, yet again, to the spoils of some bloody battle. She never stopped to think she had heard nothing before his footsteps in the chamber. Not gun fire or shouts. She didn't stop to think that a key was required to remove her from the Stage. None of this did she consider as this unknown entity wrenched her forward and dragged her to the edge of the Stage.

Her knees and elbows were bruised as she dropped to the second landing. Her face grazed against his thigh in the tussle. Carlen felt the rough caress of canvas against her cheek and then the chill of a metal attachment on a webbed belt against her arm as he pulled her up on her knees.

There was a strange odor to the clothes. Musty. Smokey. Frankly, they smelled of the streets, and sweat, and something else, distantly familiar. Something like... straw?

Carlen tried to tell herself it was only Him. That it could only be him. She desperately wanted to believe it was, but it didn't smell like him, and it certainly did not seem like him. Not at all. She didn't know this man. At least, she didn't recognize him.

He turned her to the Stage and threw her down, pinning her by the nape of the neck. He was forcing her legs apart and Carlen finally knew what he intended to do. She gave what fight she could, which amounted to no more than impotent pounding against the sound killing pelts with her manacled wrists and shouting into the muffling gag.

The back of his hand grazed her buttock as he opened the buttons on his pants. The tears were coming on, but she tried to console herself with the idea that, if he raped her, she would at least have her confirmation. The moment he entered her, she would know for certain if it was Him.

Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. Carlen was so constricted with rage and terror, the channel was rendered nearly impassable. It was some minutes before he could make even the slightest penetration. By that time, Carlen was so bruised and spoiled by his pushing, she couldn't have distinguished the difference between Kick and Nolty, or the familiarity of her Master and an assault by a perfect stranger.

She thought this man would tear her apart and she was put strongly in mind of her experiences with Kick. She even wondered if it might be Kick. But no. He seemed bigger than Kick. No, not bigger. Taller. Besides, Kick wouldn't dare. Would he? Unless it was a directive...? But then, he would certainly say something... wouldn't he?

Carlen's inhospitable reception did not discourage her attacker and, once he was lodged well into her, he began to plow, hard and deep, and he did not stop for some time. Carlen took a death grip on the pelts, shamelessly crying into the fur, but she gave up fighting the hand on her neck and the other, which had taken a frightfully tight hold of her hip. She told herself over and over - it was just a nightmare.

There was no mistaking his climax. He came hard, pushing against her, and she felt the pulsing. When he withdrew a moment later, Carlen remained perfectly still. Her crying softened and she listened into the silence. When he removed the gag she didn't attempt to lift her head or speak. She didn't know what he would do, she only prayed he would go away. She no longer even cared who he was. She just wished he would leave.

Once he was gone, Carlen lay quite a few minutes longer before she finally slid down to her haunches on the step and wept into her folded arms. The reality of the visitation dripped wetly over her calf.

* * *

The next evening, the Master ordered the table set up on the Stage for dinner. Carlen was stunned. She assumed he wanted to talk to her about something, but the ideas that had haunted her head all day were not ideas she was ready for him to mess with yet.

He didn't greet her when he came in. Nor did he really acknowledge her in any way beyond a cursory glance to check on who knew what. His eyes were very cool and distant.

Carlen waited for him to begin, then she sat in tight silence, one hand gripped around the table leg. With the other she ate.

She watched him constantly. Observed everything he did. She barraged him with her attention, trying to get his, but, when he finally did glance up, Carlen felt like she was seated across from a complete stranger. He had that 'No Questions' look in his eyes, although he seemed to expect her to speak.

"I was raped last night."

"That's a peculiar thing to say."

"It's true."

His eyes cut away. "Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"

"Yes. I'm sure. I was raped."

"Who by?"

Shit. He was the cool one.

"I don't know," she said, hoping the barb to this ego might make him confess.

"Are you hurt?"

Carlen wanted to lie so badly she could taste it.

"...No."

He didn't look up or speak.

Carlen placed the small brass buckle she'd been concealing beside her foot on the table in front of him. "He dropped this."

The Whipmaster looked at the buckle. He even picked it up for a closer look, but nothing in his demeanor changed.

"Do you know who it was?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Who?"

He said nothing.

"A client of yours?"

His eyes flicked up but he said nothing.

Had he sold her like he had Shay? Was that it? Oh sweet madness!

* * *

The unexpected attack by that stranger demonstrated to Carlen how utterly defenseless she'd become which, in turn, made her angry. Next time, she thought, the next time something like that happens, what will you do? And the answer, she had to admit, was - What can you do? She hadn't been fit enough even to give the man a fair tussle. She'd become a helpless blob of gray matter. Easy prey for anyone.

She suddenly realized how much pain she'd been sitting on for so long. This sudden interruption to all activity had caused her body to relax. She didn't need to be constantly on guard. On call. On deck. Since she didn't have to think of what to say, how to react or which way to jump, her body had let go of the ingrained vigilance. It was a frightening thing to experience.

She decided she must do something about it. Exercise. Lots of it. Work out the kinks, pump up some tone and energy. God knew, she had the time for it now.

She tried the simplest things first, and each variation was a plain demonstration of just another place she was sore. There was pain everywhere. Every joint was stiff and reluctant and she was breathless in seconds. She attempted knee bends and, after three drops, she had to go to the wall to pull herself up by the chain to regain her feet. Even this was a strain due to the weakness in her shoulders, arms, and hands. Her back ached.

She'd have to begin at scratch.

Shoulder rolls. Hand flexes. Ankle rolls. Neck rolls. Buttock pinches. Isolation of every muscle. She started the work with her legs from a prone position. Lifts - front, side, back. Cycling motions. She started her back work knelt two feet from the wall, her hands pressed against it, and executed slow flexes with her spine. Worked her way into stretches, sit ups and pushups into back arches. First five of each, then ten, fifteen and so on. The frustration with this weakness fed her anger, so she worked harder, increasing her repetitions almost daily.

She didn't need all the room on the Stage. She went back to basics, utilizing many of the isolations and isometrics she'd practiced on the road where she had learned to stretch and exercise in confined spaces. The seats of locos, buses, planes, autos, small sea craft. Exercises she'd devised for herself during those long three, four, five day sits.

Apart from this, the only exercise she'd taken had been the walking and, of course, the carrying. Even on small consignments, much of the material she carried had to be disguised inside luggage. Totally convincing luggage. There had always been something to carry, to protect. She'd been cool, she'd been fast, she'd been good.

All that strength seemed to be gone now. All that physical knowledge and preparedness, and Carlen was determined to get it back.

The pain at times was horrible but that didn't stop her. She acknowledged it. Embraced it. Made a companion of it and merely drove herself harder. She sought balances. Continuity. Simplicity. Working body with mind.

It wasn't easy. Not easy at all. She was angry. So angry. And hurt. And many of the answers that came to her those days were unpleasant and unacceptable.

* * *

The exercising did help fill the black, empty hours, but Carlen couldn't exercise all the time. She tired out too easily. So, most of the time, she sat at the front, left hand corner of the Stage, staring into the presentation area with sad, dead eyes, unconsciously pulling at the wool of the pelt beneath her knees.

Her mind was as tired as her body. She no longer strained to curb the thoughts of obsession and desire that possessed her.

Could one live on desire, she wondered. Could it become obsession? Was obsession addiction? Was she addicted to the maltreatments of this man? If such a thing could be so, could she make admission of it? To him? To herself? Would she be forced to? Or, was there some other thing she could do, besides sitting there with all that fantastic nonsense circling in unbreakable loops in her head!

She didn't know it was already too late. If she didn't think of him, she thought of nothing. Well - practically nothing.

Spane came in with water, can and food bowls, but her presence did not cheer Carlen. She hardly took notice of the girl anymore. She merely roused herself enough to cross the Stage to her food, which Spane always left by the wall. Carlen assumed Spane disapproved of her seat at the front of the Stage. Carlen didn't fuss about it. The small movement to the wall gave her something to do, meager though it was.

In the main, Carlen ignored Spane but, one afternoon, she turned her head as Spane came onto the Stage. The question was completely spontaneous and so low key that Spane missed it.

"Where's Shay?"

"What?"

"Where's Shay?"

Spane looked up in surprise. "What do you care?"

"Tell me where she is."

Spane's glance was uncommonly frigid. "She's on a collar and chain at the gate of the Zoo," she stated flatly, then her eyes darted, as if she'd caught sight of something not quite right. Carlen didn't notice.

"How is she?" she asked.

Spane refocused. "How do you expect she is?"

The women exchanged a cold glance, then broke off and, in a queerly choreographed configuration, made an interchange of positions on the Stage, each momentarily forgetting the other. Carlen crawled to her bowl, Spane crossed to the corner Carlen had deserted.

After a moment Spane spoke. "Have you been picking at this pelt?" She glanced up, a small pile of wool in the palm of her hand. "Carlen?"

Carlen glanced up inattentively. "What? I don't know."

"Don't tell me you don't know. Have you or haven't you?"

"Yes. I suppose I have. It looks like it."

"Well it had better stop."

Carlen's eyes narrowed slightly. "Mustn't denude His Lordship's skins, now, must we?"

"Is that a question?"

"You sound like him," Carlen remarked, turning back to her meal.

Spane stood up with an angry sigh.

"Don't sigh at me girl," Carlen said softly. "Just tell him, if you have to. I don't care."

"Why did you do it?"

"I don't know why. I didn't even know I was doing it. Just tell him. You know you can't wait to."

"Carlen-" Spane took a step forward, but Carlen's head snapped up suddenly, her eyes very raw.

"Why don't you just get the hell out of here? Leave me alone."

Spane stood her ground, so Carlen took her shot.

"You're the far limit, girl. All that's going on here and you're worried about a few tufts of wool. What's the matter with you, anyway?"

"Is that another question?"

"Get out."

"You know you ought to get yourself straight. Asking me about Shay will get you nowhere."

"It'll get Sir's blood up, once you tell him."

"I may not tell him," Spane said, quick and sly.

"Oh, you'll tell him," Carlen cut back with stony assurance.

There was a pinprick of silence. Spane's chin lifted slightly. "You just can't stand it, can you?"

Carlen narrowed a look at her. "Stand what?"

"He can take or leave you, as he pleases, and you can't handle it!" Spane was actually smiling.

"You bitch," Carlen growled. "Well, just don't you worry your empty little head about it. I'll handle it and him in my own way."

"Oh sure - you're so fucking untouchable, aren't you?"

"Or is it you that really 'can't handle it'?" Carlen countered with a little smile of her own.

"What?" Spane snapped.

"You're really the one who can't handle it, aren't you?"

Spane's eyes flashed. "Carlen - Sometime I'd just like to..."

"What? What? Why don't you say it?"

Spane turned away.

"Look at you! He's got you so tightly restrained you can't even say what you fucking think! And you sneer at me."

Spane turned slowly. "Look Carlen-"

"Look Carlen," Carlen mimicked. "Look! Look at what?"

"You just can't see it, can you?"

"See what? Can't see fucking anything around here for the blur of your dancing for him!"

"Look - I could easily forget-"

"Forget?" Carlen cut in. "Forget what?"

"Your bowl, your water... the can-"

"You won't forget shit," Carlen huffed. She was winning. She could see it, but she wanted to draw blood. "I don't suppose he's found out yet what it is you won't do for him, huh...?"

Bull's-eye! Spane's whole defense system collapsed. She seemed to be groping for something more she wanted to say, but Carlen wasn't ready to hear it.

"Carlen, look-"

"Carlen! Carlen! I've got a name. You use it freely enough. What's yours? Or did you sacrifice that too?"

Spane opened her mouth again to speak but she broke off, her features frozen into a pale mask. Her head creaked around slowly and Carlen followed her eye line. They'd been so involved, neither one had noticed the Master come in.

He didn't speak, but merely pinned Spane with an icy stare, giving her a curt nod to be off. She left immediately, thoroughly shamed, and Carlen looked back at him, expecting all hell to break loose.

Nothing happened. He'd turned away. He dropped something in the trunk, then crossed back into the archway. The girl Carlen secretly referred to as The Secretary nearly collided with him, entering from the opposite direction.

"Forgive me!" she cried.

"What is it?"

"Kick wants to come - ah, to see you..."

"Tell him to come in."

A moment later Kick brought in a new girl. A small, blonde headed thing. She looked pretty good and the Master seemed interested, but all Carlen saw was red. She absolutely could not accept that the Whipmaster could ignore the scene between her and Spane. She wasn't sure how long he'd been listening, but she knew damn well the whole exchange was entirely unacceptable. He should have been furious but, instead, it was Carlen who was furious.

"I thought this might be a nice one for the Stage," Kick was saying.

"The Stage is occupied, if you haven't noticed," the Master said chillingly.

Kick seemed about to say something more, then thought better of it. Carlen would have done well to follow his good example, but his inappropriate remark was all that was necessary to bring her indignation to the boil. A terrible excitement raged through her as she bolted across the Stage.

"That's right!" she shouted, her hands tightly clutching the stocks. "And you're giving that no potential bitch more attention right now than you've given me in over a week!"

That was the moment the Whipmaster realized his success. The turn was complete. The jade was finally in position... that is, nearly.

He smiled, but to himself. He was elated, and that was a fact, but it was another face he showed.

"I'm afraid we've been interrupted," he said tightly.

She'd disgraced him. In front of Kick. Kick was certainly knocked off his stilts.

"A... yeah," he said with a peculiar look at Carlen.

"Bring it back in an hour. I'd like to deal with this other matter now."

"I understand," Kick said, his features still sagged in disbelief. He led the girl away.

The Master turned around, with that 'So, you want to play?' look in his eyes. Carlen didn't know what he'd do and she didn't particularly care. She'd got what she wanted. His undivided attention.

He put her on her back and vised her ankles into the stocks - set a good deal wider than they had been for the branding. He secured her wrists to one of the mooring rings. As Carlen stared up at him she couldn't understand why he still did not seem angry.

He spoke. "You once challenged me to use the stock whip on you. Perhaps I should have let you have it then."

Carlen's insides turned to ice water. "You wouldn't do that-"

"I think you've said about enough, haven't you?"

Carlen's mind turned over a thousand torments as he left the Stage for the lower platform. It was true she'd once challenged him to ruin her and have it done, but she was not prepared to back that foolish, desperate play now.

She might have begged, except she figured it would do no good. More than likely it'd make matters worse. He was very calm and collected. Very much under control. Carlen thought she'd do well to try and find some control herself as she lay there, already gasping, and wondering at the insanity of the woman she'd become.

The stock whip was in his hand when he returned and he was very much encouraged by the abject terror in her eyes. He flexed his fingers open and the lash uncoiled, draping itself over Carlen's body. She shuddered. Clamped her eyes shut.

He was reminded of the night he'd first attached her to the mooring rings. The night she first declared war. Those rings were a way of life to her now and the war was nearly at its end. She'd changed a lot since then. He felt very differently himself.

He stepped a foot over her leg and knelt astride it. Carlen's eyes snapped wide at the unexpected movement. He leaned forward and pushed the stock of the whip up inside her. Carlen gasped, but was hardly bothered by the intrusion at first. The unexpected chill of the object was almost welcome against the burning heat inside her.

However, once he'd arranged his hand into a satisfactory grip, he began to apply a certain force. The duel impacts of the whip handle within and the knuckles of his hand without brought Carlen alive with new tensions.

"You're hurting me!" she cried at last, unable to keep her peace.

"Am I?" he asked in mock surprise.

Carlen groaned. She couldn't follow this. Just couldn't follow it anymore.

He continued this abuse until Carlen thought she would faint. The pressure was incredible but, as always, not enough to black her out. He kept on until he forced her through another wall, until he sensed her energy lapse and his hand drew away, wet with the moisture of another relinquishment.

"Maybe that will settle you down. Hmm?"

Carlen only sighed.

"I suggest you think about that sharp tongue of yours and see if you can't figure out a way of keeping it in check."

He dropped the stock of the whip across her abdomen and stood up.

"Figure it out, because if you do anything like that again, you'll get what you asked for. Exactly what you asked for."

The interview with Kick resumed while Carlen lay there, writhing with rage and indignation.

Afterwards, when they were alone again, the Master released Carlen and withdrew to the edge of the platform with his precious whip and a tin of saddle soap. Carlen sat in supreme discomfort, grimly watching his meticulous strokes as he cleaned and re-oiled the stock.

She didn't bother to question whether the stock of that whip was sanitary enough for the purpose to which he had put it. It was. No question. It was his personal possession, like she was, and he was very particular about the care and condition of his personal possessions. At least, those from which he expected value or long wear.

Once Carlen's resentment died down, the shame set in. She was on pins and needles trying to work out some way of demonstrating this, but she didn't know how to tell him.

"Come over here where I can see you," he said without looking up.

Carlen crawled over, assuming, she hoped, the appropriate distance and demeanor.

"You interrupted a presentation today," he said softly. "I've been trying to figure out why you would do that."

Carlen was too miserable to speak.

"You must have known I wouldn't tolerate that. Mm?"

"Yes."

"Why then?"

"I don't know."

He looked up. "Another test?"

"No. I..."

"You what?"

Carlen didn't attempt to continue. He went back to his polishing.

"Of course, all this is quite aside from the nature of the interruption, isn't it?"

Still Carlen would say nothing.

"I know you've been questioning the girl again."

Could hardly have missed today's matinee! Here it comes, she thought.

"Why do you persist in provoking Spane?"

"I don't provoke her."

"Shall I pretend I didn't hear that?"

"She provokes me."

"You have no fight with her."

"I don't like her."

"You're far too critical."

Must have learned that from you, she thought, but kept the remark to herself. She'd brought down enough trouble for one day. This was not the way to win him.

"Things might go smoother if you didn't send her in here anymore," Carlen said.

"She's the only one I trust with you," he replied. Backhand. "We've been all over this issue, haven't we?"

"Yes," Carlen murmured.

"I assume there's some reason for all this."

"No one's spoken to me in days."

"The loner is lonely," he said in a low voice.

"Take it any way you like. I'm damned if I can work out why you're ignoring me."

"I thought you wanted me to leave you alone."

Yeah, and if you thought that you wouldn't have done it, she thought. That's what I know!

And a moment later she wondered what the hell she was thinking. Beginning to think like him now, and that will get us precisely nowhere. We'll dance in circles forever.

"I don't know," she sighed miserably. "You don't allow me to talk with the women. Don't allow me to talk with anyone but you..."

He noticed she said 'with' rather than 'to'.

"Now you've got me on your list again-"

"That's a queer turn of phrase," he said, suddenly looking up. "What did you mean by that?"

Carlen's features cramped into a worried look. "I... that I'm - in the dark pages - of your book. You know. Not in good grace..."

"Is that so?"

"You've been ignoring me."

"Have I?"

"You know you have. The only attention I've had from you lately is correction. My God, I tell you I was raped and you ignore that too!"

His eyes turned suddenly stony. Impenetrable. There were tears standing in Carlen's.

"It's not an excuse," he said. "There's no excuse for any of it."

Carlen was on the brink of losing control. She swung her knee over, about to take her crumbling face out of his sight.

"Don't turn your back on me-"

Carlen uncurled slowly.

"And get that injured look out of your eyes."

Carlen sighed with tight restraint. What a child he was making of her.

That school master look was in his eyes again. "You see, it's not the same thing - teaching you something new and recovering old ground. Having to go over something small like this is petty." He studied her a minute, but Carlen couldn't think of damned thing to say. "What did you ask Spane?"

Hard question but Carlen wasn't going to evade it. This was the closest she'd get to her shot at redemption. She'd failed miserably in finding her own way to it, but she figured this answer would not win it for her.

"I asked her about Shay," she confessed softly.

That stony look came into his eyes again. The answer did not please him but, a moment later, he got up, left the platform, re-hung the whip and quit the chamber.

Carlen knew she would have to find a new strength from somewhere, but she felt like she was collapsing inside.

* * *

That night she had only the pain and tears for company. His absence through the night had slyly transformed itself into just another agony. She discovered she had grown accustomed to the feel of him against her. Even a little grateful for it.

The nights were cooler now and he was the only source of warmth in the chamber for her to curl into. She had the blanket, of course, but the blanket was only one more thing that could be pulled away from her, as it had been the night of the attack by that stranger. The chamber had become very much larger since then. Darker. Much less secure.

She missed his touch. The feel of his chest against her back. His knees, crooked in behind her own. That one arm possessively draped over her rib cage, his hand cupped over her breasts. The feel of his hot groin pressed against her backside.

Carlen was aware of every erection he experienced during the night, and she constantly marveled at the source of his sexual energy. She was sometimes awakened by this phenomenon and she'd lay there, speculating as to whether or not he was awake and if she were the reason for it.

She had long since accepted him as her protector and she missed the shelter of his body and his grace. When he was with her she felt safe from everything else. Everything.

Now he was gone. All night. Every night. Carlen's only security was in lying awake and watchful, hour upon hour, wondering where he was. Was he asleep? In a bed he called his own, in some other location on the compound? Where was this mythical bed? What was it like? Was he alone? Or did he take another girl these days? Another under instruction, perhaps? Or another already under control? Was he with Spane? Did he sleep with Spane? Did he prefer her?

Undoubtedly he would, Carlen decided. She could not envision Spane anything but absolute compliance in his hands. She'd be the perfect little whore for him. Never flinch. Never bolt. Never hesitate and never refuse. What man would not be tempted to abuse such abject obedience?

Carlen tossed onto her back, realizing this particular train of thought was likely to drive her mad. Who the fuck cares, anyway? she asked herself angrily. You do, the answer flashed back. It's the only thing you care about. Where he is when he's not with you. And, with whom...

* * *

Carlen was seated by the wall when Spane came in next day. Neither woman looked the other in the eye, but Carlen wondered at a bruise she spotted on the girl's wrist as she bent to set down the bowl. When she turned to go for Carlen's bath water, Carlen saw that the wrist had been bruised by shackles when the Master restrained her to receive the thick red welts now standing out on her back and legs. So. She'd been punished also.

This discovery sorely tempted Carlen toward another breach, but she stamped the urge down. As much as she would have liked to take satisfaction in Spane's lapse from grace, she found it was impossible. Those welts on Spane's back were only another raw reminder of her own disgrace, and now she was not only ashamed, but surprised at herself for so blatantly placing Spane's position in jeopardy.

Rightly or wrongly, Spane had always tried to help Carlen find the easy course. She had nursed her, spoken to her, placing herself at risk, and answered questions Carlen had known were forbidden when she asked them. In truth, the girl had gone out of her way to help in what small ways she could, and Carlen had done nothing but make her position practically untenable. These belated realizations did not change the way Carlen felt about Spane, but they did change the way she felt about herself.

* * *

A couple of days later Nolty came into the chamber. Alone. He came onto the Stage and led Carlen down to the floor, blindfolded her immediately and shackled her wrists to the ring on the collar. He couldn't help but notice the way she chilled to his touch. She remembered him. Remembered him well.

He released the wall chain from her collar, replacing it with one of the compound leads, and walked her out of the chamber. He took her out of the building by an indirect route and, once outside, lifted her onto the back of one of the trucks, where she knelt for a journey that took them God only knew where. Nolty had come on board with her.

"Where are we going?"

It didn't look as though he'd answer at all, then he said, "I can hardly believe you'd be stupid enough to ask me that."

Carlen could hardly believe it herself, but she was scared. She hadn't been outside since Nolty had taken her from the cage. That was weeks ago. Hell, months. She didn't really know how long. And, frankly, the last thing she expected was to be brought out. For any reason.

She clutched her fears to her. Fought down every inclination to do or say anything more.

When at last the truck stopped, Nolty jumped down and lifted Carlen off the flatbed. He led her across a cement path onto a grassed area where ultimately he stopped. A moment later the blindfold was taken away.

The Master was there, and Kick. Carlen wasn't sure whether to look around or at the Master. She tried to do both simultaneously, but she couldn't take in anything but the presence of her Lord. There was a hard confidence in his eyes that seared her. He appeared stronger and deadlier than she believed she'd ever seen him and it was all leveled at her.

"This is where Shay will meet her destiny," he informed her.

They were standing just outside the East gate of the Zoo. Carlen looked up and saw that a small, crude scaffold had been erected on the grass. There was a brick fireplace. Wood stacked in a pile nearby. Kindling in another. Leaned against the fireplace, on the left, were branding irons. On the right were cans of spirits. There were leather and chain fixtures on the scaffold and, by the way they were laid out, it wasn't hard to picture how the girl was going to look up there. All set for Bonfire Night.

"I could arrange to have you present to see it," the Whipmaster said.

He'd recaptured her attention but Carlen couldn't endure the burn of his gaze. She kept her eyes downcast.

"I guess there won't be any more complaints from you about not getting enough attention, will there?"

Oh so cold. Carlen bowed her head.

On the return journey Nolty sat on the bench, as before, but he made Carlen kneel between his legs and maintained a firm grip on her wrists. Maybe he thought the scene would cause her to bolt, or maybe he just wanted to keep her up in order to audit her reactions.

Carlen knelt there quietly for most of the journey, not knowing if he meant to do or say something to her. He did neither and, at last, she raised her head and surprised him by speaking. "I have accepted him."

Nolty said nothing for some moments and Carlen wondered if he'd heard. When he finally spoke, his voice was oddly strained. "Why tell me?"

"I want you to tell him for me."

Again he paused. Again that strained note. "He already knows."

"If he was sure, this wouldn't have been necessary. Tell him for me."

"Why? So he'll go easier on you?" There was no mistaking the cruelty intended.

"No," Carlen replied evenly. "So he'll be sure."

* * *

Carlen half expected the Master would come to her that night. He didn't. In fact, she didn't see him again until several nights later - but he did not come for her.

It was late. Very late. He came in through the dark and went straight to his table. Carlen was supposed to be asleep. He obviously assumed she was, but she'd been awake for hours, wondering where he was - her constant state of consciousness these days.

She had to shut her eyes against the sudden flash as he struck a match to light a candle. She lay stone still, drawing her vibrating aura in as closely as possible to avoid his notice.

There were sounds of movement. The flask, a good jolt into one of the matching silver cups. The pop of a bottle lid.

Carlen opened her eyes, squinting at first against the light. He tossed the tablets back into his throat and followed through with the liquor. His movements were abrupt and uncharacteristically frenetic.

Carlen now watched in open amazement, fascinated and a little afraid. He was not dressed anything like he normally was. Instead, he wore green army fatigues, army boots, belt, and a headband of army camouflage material. His face was smeared and dirty, in fact, nearly unrecognizable.

He dropped his head with an inaudible sigh, a gesture that chilled Carlen to the bone. He knelt motionless for some minutes, entirely lost in some experience, dark and personal. His right hand still rested heavily on the table, gripping the cup. Its quality of inertness was an odd contrast to the temporary, ready-for-flight toes and knees perch he'd adopted on the floor. He looked beaten.

All at once, he raised his head and looked directly at her, as if by pure mischance. Carlen was shocked to the timbers. His features were drawn, and he was wringing with sweat. He had the look of a man who'd just experienced severe trauma. Strangest of all were his eyes. The crystalline radiance was gone, leaving them dark and cavernous.

The unexpected confrontation gave Carlen a terrible scare. What could be the reprisal for catching him out this way? She wished she were anywhere. Anywhere in the universe had to be safer than the spotlight of that cold black gaze.

Yet, as the seconds crawled by, Carlen began to perceive that there was no surprise there. There was no accusation, no reproof and, most importantly, no observation. None of the characteristics she had come to recognize and respond to were present. But - the power was on.

At once she recognized a side of this man she'd suspected was there, but dared not believe in. That special illumination she guts-to-the-wall prayed she'd be lucky enough to detour entirely. The revelation of spiritual prostration, internal controversy, and ridicule. The surge of submerged distastes and the free dancing of imprisoned ghosts and escapee demons.

It was the Black Ice. It drew her. Held and withheld. Burned her and froze her. It touched her.

For once, she was not the subject and, although he wasn't exactly the subject either, the door was open - wide open, and Carlen had a clear view in.

The Black Ice descended but Carlen held static, allowing the glacier to come into view. Into perspective. To shadow her in its black, frozen caverns. In that lightless, lifeless place she dwelled for an instant, looking square into the face of the rarest, rawest admission of a being's agony over the ramifications of personal acts.

He was questioning the power, but it just kept coming on - and more and more Carlen found herself drawn by it. She wanted to close her eyes. She tried. Tried to back away and pretend she couldn't read the question there. The need.

She could no sooner have reached out to him then than walk to the moon on her hands. Or plead her own case. It was the most profound experience of bondage she ever realized.

It was all there and all gone in a moment, and he looked away, at his hand, clutching the silver cup. He unfisted it, froze the candle flame to death and left.

He had gone, but the chamber was not empty. It pulsed with his vibrations, and nuances, and secrets. And Carlen was thinking about a small buckle she'd found on the pelts the morning after the attack by that stranger. The buckle which ended up amongst the litter on the Whipmaster's table. The buckle he'd ignored. The one she noticed was missing from its attachment on that belt he'd been wearing.

She was also thinking about the smell of smoke in the air, and about Shay...

* * *

When next she saw him he seemed himself again. At least in appearance. He conducted his business, dispatched his ruthless trades, directed the activities of his subordinates, and carried the mantel of his responsibilities as though it were no burden he was conscious of.

Carlen was aware of the fragility that lay beneath it all, the undercurrent of discord. She was aware of the weakness which had developed in the barrier he'd erected between the two of them, and she knew he was not aware of this weakness.

The day's business was done. The Master was at the wall, fussing unnecessarily at the arrangement of one of the whips. He was planning to leave. But he would not be leaving. Carlen had decided.

"Teacher..."

He froze momentarily, then his hand slowly dropped to his side. "What is it?"

"You're going now."

"Yes."

"Perhaps there's time."

"Time?"

"My instruction."

He slowly pivoted around, the rarest look on his face. "Do you veil your questions behind demands now?"

"I have no questions," Carlen said.

"Only expectations."

"No expectations."

That one eyebrow arched. "It seems to me I made it clear to you not to demand my attention."

"I demand nothing."

"Nothing but correction."

Carlen said nothing. She was composed by the wall, but not on it, gazing across at him with the most tranquil eyes he had seen in any female face. The picture of serenity. Confound her! He felt like the fires of hell and she was a cool, dark pool. Deep and unfathomable.

How could he get on top of her! How could he do it? The answer was simple. He couldn't. He was already there. Stretched out and precariously braced against the surface tension of those alluring depths.

"The lesson," he demanded.

"Commitment."

"That is not your strong suit, is it?"

He paused, looking for her reaction, but Carlen refrained from comment. He took down the pony whip and mounted the stairs to the Stage. Stood over her.

"Tell me what you know of commitment," he demanded.

"Nothing."

"What of past commitments?"

"The past is irrelevant," Carlen said softly.

He dropped to his knees before her. He had to look into her eyes. Had to see if he could find the slightest hairline crack in her self-possession. Some evidence or promise of wind on this becalmed sea. There was none.

"What would you commit for now?"

"Your grace."

"Nothing else?"

"There is nothing else."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure of what you tell me."

His features went taut. The temperature dropped. Noticeably. "I'm going to stretch you out and take one hundred from you for daring to open your mouth. What do you say?"

"If correction is due-"

"I say force is due."

There was force in the pronouncement but it didn't jilt Carlen's composure.

"If you think so," she said.

"If I think so." He suddenly seized her throat and pushed her to the wall. Jammed his hand in her mouth. "What if I force your throat?"

Carlen was choked but she kept still.

"You'll stand for that, mm? What about this?" He dropped his hand and stabbed into her groin. Carlen gasped.

"Or this?" He reached further under and stabbed again.

Carlen was panting. "If it pleases you," she whispered.

"If it pleases me."

"You needn't consider it force."

"I needn't."

"No."

"I see."

He drew his hand away.

WHY? he wanted to shout. That's what he really burned to know. WHAT CHANGED YOU?

What he said was, "So. This is consent."

And Carlen said, "Yes."

CHAPTER 39 \- LIFE AT THE TOP

He stayed with her that night only long enough to leave his scent on her, but he did begin to spend more time with her and he came back to her full time on Christmas Eve.

Carlen didn't know it was Christmas - particularly for one of the interviewees brought in that afternoon. Her name was Rowan. A hard type. Suspicious. Broody faced. Not easily frightened. Not easily convinced.

"You're a Trader?" the Master asked her.

"I do some. Sometimes."

"What lines?"

"Blankets. Shoes 'n' shit."

"And food, sometimes?"

"Sometimes."

"Weapons?"

Rowan glowered. "No. No weapons. I don't do weapons. People should make their own weapons."

The Master paused a moment, looking her over carefully. "You ever do any trading for Shay?"

"Shay? No. We never could see eye to eye. Nobody quite in her league."

"Would you like to be?"

"What?"

"You've been to the Ledge?"

"I've seen it," Rowan said cautiously.

"Ever thought you might like that set up?"

"I heard you managed that now."

"I don't want to manage it. I want you to take it over."

"Me?" Rowan gaped.

"Can't you do it?"

"Well, I guess... but there's raids down there every night."

"Not if things are kept secure."

"No... Not if things are secure," Rowan agreed, eyeing him closely now.

"I can help you set that up."

"You want me to work for you now?"

"No," the Master said emphatically. "Choose your own people. Don't use any of mine. Do you have any good seconds?"

"A couple," Rowan said cautiously.

"Who?"

"Haney."

"She's steady."

"Belanger."

An alarm bell went off in Carlen's head.

"Both good people," the Master said. "I think you could attract a pretty crack team with a little spare change in your pocket, don't you think?"

"I suppose we could do that."

"I'll supply the guns, of course."

"Of course." She was trying to play him as well as he was playing her.

"Well, what do you say?"

She plain didn't believe it. "Let me get this straight."

"Certainly."

"You want me to take over management of Shay's operation, but you don't want me to work for you..."

"Correct."

"You want a cut."

"No cut."

"No cut?" Rowan's eyes were glittering slits of suspicion. "There's a catch to this thing somewhere..."

Exactly what Carlen was thinking.

"You assume so?" the Master asked smoothly.

"Got to be."

"No catch. I want a nice smooth operation. Easy, friendly flow. Run it right and you can only stand to gain. If not?" He shrugged.

"You're telling me what I can trade."

"I'm telling you what not to trade," he amended. "Are you familiar with Shay's activities?"

Rowan shrugged guiltily. "I heard rumors."

"Shay stepped out of her league. Ideas of liberation make a noise. A noise I can hear in my head."

He was beginning to spook Rowan.

"What I want is not to have to become involved. You keep a good clean line and I'm easily satisfied. Follow me?"

"I follow."

"Don't overstep yourself."

"I understand you."

He'd sucked her in and Rowan had hardly been aware of what he was doing. He reached out his hand. Like a somnambulist, Rowan put hers forward and let him clutch it, all the while staring into those green ice eyes, the eeriest expression on her face.

When Rowan had gone, the Master turned to Carlen, a very canny glint in his eyes. He seemed about to speak, changed his mind, then changed it again.

"You like Claret?" he asked.

"Naturally."

He smiled. "Good answer."

He left the chamber and Carlen remained none-the-wiser about it being Christmas until he returned at dinner time. She picked up the sense of celebration from him when he came to the table. He brought the Claret, a corkscrew and the silver goblets in a leather satchel he carried up with him.

Even the presentation of the meal seemed unusually ceremonial. And its content. There were peas, and wild rice, both difficult foods to eat with fingers, Carlen was quick to notice, and there was actually meat in the bowl. Not sausage. Real meat. A pleasant enough surprise. Carlen avoided it.

"Good cheer!" he said, placing a full goblet in front of her.

He saw the difficulty she was having with the peas and rice and set a spoon down in front of her.

"This is unprecedented," she remarked.

"You remember how to use it?"

Carlen smiled wryly. "Yeah. I remember."

He was unusually mellow and approached his meal with relish and a certain air of ritual. For the first time since Carlen had known him he employed both his knife and fork, and he used them well.

Carlen assumed his buoyant mood was due to his success in off-loading the warehouse at the Ledge. The last piece of Shay's business.

The food was delicious. So was the Claret.

"Why don't you eat the meat?" he asked her.

"I don't care for cat."

"Cat? What makes you think it's cat?"

"Looks like cat."

"Looks like...? Oh, come on! It's ordinary chicken. Eat it."

"This isn't chicken."

"Eat it. You eat chicken, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Eat it."

Gingerly, Carlen picked a piece out of the bowl and gave it close examination.

"Well?"

"It might be chicken." She broke off a morsel and tasted it. "Seems alright." She ate a little more.

He was watching her intently. "It's not chicken," he said.

Carlen looked a little miffed.

"It's pheasant."

"Pheasant!"

He nodded with an unscrupulous grin.

"Where the hell do you get these things?"

There was a long pause. Carlen figured she'd probably blown it again but she wasn't sure how to acknowledge or amend it. She turned to her food.

"Well, it really has become rather difficult to tell," she said stiffly. "I haven't seen pheasant in a long time."

There was another terrible silence, then all at once he laughed. "Well done!"

Carlen was surprised but relieved. She relaxed a little, even smiled. He poured some wine.

"It's Christmas, you know," he said softly.

Carlen's animation froze. He'd shocked her. She looked up. Such a look. The pain. The denial.

She started to cry. He didn't know she'd do that. Not that he blamed her. Christmas usually made him feel a hell of a lot like bawling himself.

He reached down, took something out of the bag and placed it on the table before her. Carlen's eyes nearly popped out of her head. It was a gift, all done up in wrapping paper and ribbon.

"Open it. Please."

Carlen was trying to contain her crying, like she felt it was ridiculous. She wrangled with the package for some minutes. She seemed pleased for the activity. When finally she got it open she smiled, faintly but sincerely.

Beneath the wrapping was a box of chocolates. She should have known something was up when she was able to flip the lid straight back with her thumbs. There should have been cellophane or something around the box. She didn't think of it. She pulled the dimpled covering paper off the chocolates and the first thing she did was offer him one.

He smiled. Almost grinned. "No. They're yours."

Carlen nodded, smiled again and took a chocolate for herself. She still had a faraway look. He recognized it. The ghosts of Christmas Past. Nobody he knew was happy at Christmas anymore.

Her eyes flicked up and that look, in its own way, was an apology for being helpless to make this his perfect Christmas. Him, or anyone else he happened to be this night. She didn't know - yet.

In fact, she didn't appear to be tasting the chocolate all that well, but she reached for a second and, when she did, her expression changed completely. She glanced into the box, picked out the chocolate that was not a chocolate and held it up to her eyes. She turned to the candles and looked more intensely at it.

It was a ring. A ring of interwoven silver and leather. A thing of extraordinary ingenuity and beauty.

He abruptly grabbed her hand, the left, as it turned out, took the ring and pushed it onto her middle finger. No ceremony. No proclamations. Just pushed it on. He kissed her hand briskly and released it.

Carlen lifted her hand to her face again and looked at the ring. "This is beautiful. You made this?"

"Yes. Of course."

Carlen looked across at the Master, a thousand questions in her eyes. They all stayed silent. She accepted the ring without question.

* * *

After this things just suddenly normalized. There was no other way to describe it. It was his behavior, of course. He eased off the pressure and dissipated the power which gave Carlen room to breathe and level off.

She was relieved. It seemed to indicate he was satisfied with her at last. That, maybe, she had found her placement in his world and, as long as she stayed in place, things could remain neutral between them.

A sort of ordinariness settled over things. A kind of getting back to routines. At least, that's the way Carlen perceived it. It was a period she'd look back on as the better days between them.

He allowed her to read sometimes. Books of his choice, of course. He played cards with her. Sometimes she won. They had wine at dinner and dialogues. She never asked questions anymore, although he sometimes did.

Most nights he slept in the chamber with her, but he didn't smother her. He kept the sex between them fluid in every aspect, constantly seeking improvement, but he didn't strain or overtax her.

It wasn't a bad life, really. He had finally come around to treating her fairly decently, at least in comparison to the grief he'd inflicted to get her to this point.

Of course, it wasn't all easy street. He still employed the whips, although not as frequently or as severely. Most of the time he didn't reveal his reasons for punishing her. Often, his only intent appeared to be the deliberate replacement of fresh welts on her body for old marks which were fading.

Yet, worse than this, were the tests he devised for her over this period. He gave her chores to do. Not difficult chores. There was nothing hard or complicated about putting a polish on a supply of locks and various metal fixtures of his. Or greasing up the mechanisms on a dozen or so pairs of handcuffs. Or throwing back the pelts on the Stage to oil the hinges of the Master's precious mooring rings. Twelve of those in all. Nothing so hard about any of that... except in the mind of the Master's primary case.

Carlen was amazed how the smallest, simplest demand could become monstrous in her head, and the urges to lapse were overwhelming at times. She had done everything in her power to banish her resistance, yet he constantly sought new ways of testing it. Ways of reminding her that she was not perfect and would never be considered as such by him.

Carlen accepted the tasks as gracefully as she could, figuring that, once he saw how unmoved she was by these little pushes, he would give them up. Only, by now, she should have known there was no way he would ever permit her to second guess his actions or the motives behind them.

One morning he brought the pony whip up on Stage. Carlen sighed, assuming it was time to kiss the wall again. He surprised her by laying the whip down before her, along with a jar of oil that would have been a suitable rejuvenator for even the most delicate of human skin.

Carlen's mind grasped the meaning instantly. He held the rag up to her. She rigidly controlled the NO urge and took it. She performed the task solemnly, meticulously, respectfully. She tried to do it as though it was something she had always done. Something she would always do.

Carlen worked at oiling and polishing that whip all day, and when she thought she had completed the task, she handed it to him in a quiet moment between them. He looked it over, turned it in his hands, and gave it back to her.

"Fine," he said. "Go on."

He made no further demands on her that evening, so Carlen worked on the whip. She picked it up when she wakened the next morning and worked on it until lunch time, when she tried again to give it to him. He showed the same cool disinterest as before and gave it back to her.

Twice more Carlen tried to impress him with her efforts and both times he rejected her. This last time, as she turned away in frustration, he snatched her neck and turned her face up.

"When will you learn patience?" he demanded.

When I stop trying yours, she thought miserably. There was a reply to every question, and behind every question was another, and another.

What did she have to do? A better job than she'd already done? No. She'd done an excellent job. Exquisite. He could see that.

What she had to do was give up the burn to get the whip out of her hands. She had to devote her entire attention to it until he decided to take it from her, satisfied she had accepted the chore. There was the rub. Accepting it.

Four days straight he kept her polishing. She voiced no complaint, but Carlen hotly resented his presumption.

Impatient? She? For what? Impatient for him to take the thing from her and start swinging it back? Certainly not.

Too impatient to prove she could go on polishing that whip for as long as it suited him? Certainly not.

Too impatient for him, generally? Impatient with him? Mr. Patience himself? There was a laugh. That patience was an illusion he concocted. The man burned four directions. No doubt. His patience was his control. It was what he controlled her with.

Now he was demanding that she have patience. As if she hadn't.

As if... he hadn't tested her to the limit every day she had known him.

As if... he hadn't thrown her to the wolves, who picked her to bone before they threw her down at his feet.

As if... he hadn't taken her entire existence and compressed it into a small light that occasionally came on in his eyes...

Carlen's hand had gone slack around the rag. Her back was bowed, her head lolled over to one side. Her opened fingers lay unconsciously relaxed over the whip across her lap. A deep sigh shuddered up and a moment later the tears cut fresh streams from the corners of her eyes. She hung her head and wept. Quietly. Privately. The way she'd listened to Wilma weep their first night in the Zoo.

A few minutes later he came to her. He touched nothing but the whip, which he lifted off her thighs.

"You keep at the job until it is done," he said, and Carlen understood his meaning perfectly.

* * *

It was a tricky time for Carlen who was trying to adjust to the dual personality he'd become - at least to her. None-the-less, she was operating under the assumption that this was the best position she could hope to attain. It was the position she'd been 'groomed' for. The central concern of her existence need only be the pleasure of the Whipmaster. If this was it, the last landing, so to speak, then she would find a way of forming an identity which could survive within these parameters.

Hard indeed to deal with the casual demands of a new acquaintance who, in actual fact, held the balance of her life in his hands. But she came to know him well. Quite well. Perhaps better than anyone knew him personally.

The others assumed if he was quiet he was displeased, but they didn't see him leafing through pages of a book he wanted her opinion of; or the look on his face when she bested him at cards; or the break of his features in a genuine smile; or the poetry of his body as he bent over his leather work.

Certainly one of the most sensuous things about the man was his leather work. Not so much the items he made, but simply him, in the act of creation. Him, with his stockpile of leather and his tools - cutting, softening, shaping, punching, riveting, stitching.

He showed Carlen a staggering array of articles designed for bondage and torture - some of them his designs, some imported. He sometimes fitted the most diabolical pieces of apparatus to her in order to check design and balance. And every piece that he designed, no matter how offensive the intended use, was a work of art.

Not everything he made related to bondage. He could make all kinds of things. Shoes, belts, bags, clothes. Everything he wore he'd made. And, of course, the whips. His title was well earned. He was a genius with leather and an absolute perfectionist.

Carlen loved to watch him work. His head bowed over. That beautiful hair lapped forward over his shoulders. The childlike intensity of his concentration when he was engrossed beyond the awareness of ego. His hands, so very capable of such subtlety in so many areas, now soiled and curled into the thing they did best. The thing they seemed to be made for.

Carlen was fascinated by the whole thing and highly flattered when he began enlisting her assistance in the actual preparation of the leather. He gave her pieces just cut, raw and ready for softening. Showed her exactly what to do. Monitored her progress, even complimented her if the results were especially good.

Carlen learned all sorts of things about the craft from him and she enjoyed her inclusion in the creative process. When he worked he brooked no interruption. He was quiet and solitary and, when Carlen became involved, they worked in a companionable silence they both came to value and enjoy.

Hence, it came as a complete shock when he glanced up suddenly one afternoon and disrupted the work atmosphere with a reprimand.

"Don't sit like that."

"You do," Carlen argued.

"And you don't!"

Carlen slowly drew her foot off the second step onto the Stage, clearly offended.

"In fact," he added. "Get up. On your knees."

"Oh, that makes me so tired."

"Not tired enough, apparently. Get up. Now!"

Carlen shifted, quickly tucking her legs under her. He observed her closely and a moment later her eyes dropped away.

"That's a whole lot better," he said, more clemently. "Now, show me this."

He took the piece from her hands and examined the work she'd done. Handed it back to her. "That's fine," he said.

He picked up another piece and showed it to her. It appeared to be old and well worn. Beautifully soft.

"That's the same as the leather you're working," he said. "Do you think you can stick to it until it's like that?"

"Yes," Carlen whispered.

"Good."

Carlen stayed up on her knees until dinner, by which time she had completely lost the feeling in her legs. She had to all but drag herself to the table but, once there, she pushed herself back up into the appropriate position. They began to eat. He was studying her.

"You think I'm too strict with you," he said.

"Yes. No. I'm not really in a position to judge."

"That's certainly so. But I might watch you less if you watched yourself more."

Carlen only shrugged.

He smiled a little to himself. She was still upset about this afternoon.

"You may sit more comfortably, if you please. In fact - why don't you come sit here. At the end of the table."

He was already moving her bowl and cup over. Carlen followed slowly. Fiddled around, trying to find a position that would alleviate the pressure on her legs without giving offence to her Master. He was so particular about this.

He was amused by her dilemma and impressed with her display of discipline. And a little touched by her mounting frustration. There just was no position. None that was easy, and appropriate, and which enabled her to reach the table properly.

"Don't worry about the table," he said finally. "Just find a position that's comfortable and I'll give you the bowl."

Carlen looked up in doubt.

"Go ahead. Don't worry about it."

Carlen stuck her legs under the table, straight out in front of her and took the bowl in her lap. The meal resumed.

He poured some wine and placed her cup on the pelts within easy reach. Carlen thanked him, picked the bread out of her bowl, dipped it into the wine and bit off the wetted portion.

"Why do you do that?" he asked.

"I'm sorry - It offends you."

"No. I merely wondered why you do it."

"It makes the bread easier to digest."

"You think about that a lot, don't you?"

"Constantly-"

Another admission. Damn it. Didn't it seem that he was lately so much more adept at spurring them out of her? She'd relaxed. Maybe she was too relaxed. She'd better bloody well beware.

He was speaking again. Carlen heard the voice but not the words. Her legs were prickling like crazy. The feeling was almost fully restored now. It made her think about walking. The thought of walking made her think of how very difficult that was to do - on ice.

"Carlen?"

"Yes?"

His hair caught the glow off the candles. As Carlen stared at it she wondered where the yellow came into it. Where had that yellow come from?

"You're distracted."

"Forgive me," she said, looking away.

"What were you thinking?"

"Nothing. Just sitting here, empty headed, as usual."

"Empty headed?"

"I was thinking - about a dream I had."

"Last night?" he asked.

"No. No, before I met you."

"Do you remember your dreams?"

"Sometimes," she said carefully, wondering why she must continue answering questions to which he already had the answers.

"What was it about?"

Carlen pursed her lips. "A glacier."

He didn't ask her any more about it. Maybe he didn't really want to know. Perhaps he knew she wouldn't know how to answer.

"More wine?"

"Please," she said, a little surprised. Mostly he limited her to one glassful anymore.

"You're anxious to leave here, aren't you?" he asked as casually as if it were a request for the correct time.

Carlen blanched.

"I know," he said. "Impossible question. Still - the notion warrants serious consideration."

Carlen didn't know what the hell he meant by the remark but he didn't elaborate. He just shot the words into her head like a poison dart and there they festered.

"...by now?"

"What?"

"I said - are you feeling fit enough by now to sit up and cut the cheese?"

"Oh-"

Carlen automatically pulled her legs in and knelt up to the table where a cheese board had been laid. She hesitated, but only an instant. It was the first knife she'd handled since the night at the Checkerboard. A new demonstration of his trust.

He watched her with interest, intrigued by her poise and dexterity.

"You're good with knives," he remarked.

"It is my weapon of choice."

"I meant table knives."

"Oh."

"And table service."

"I don't know how you could possibly judge such a thing, considering how you make me - live," Carlen said, offering him a slice of cheese.

"From what I've observed, you seem to have a grasp of the simple etiquettes. The way you pour wine. The way you eat with your fingers, always with one hand only. The way you serve the cheese. You're obviously familiar with some of the finer cultural customs. You're well mannered, when you decide to be. Quite refined, in fact. You were well brought up."

"Except I dunk my bread in the wine."

"That's acceptable in France, isn't it?"

"Yes."

He accepted another slice of cheese from her. "Your thought and speech patterns give you away also. I'd say you were well educated."

"Not really," Carlen hedged.

"How far did you get in school?"

"I finished - Junior High."

"That was just around the time of the Trouble."

"That's right."

"Was your family rich?"

"Reasonably well off. Not rich. My father was just a lawyer."

"So you've said. No 'old money' then?"

"A - no. Just middle class."

He laughed. "Oh Carlen. You are anything but middle class!"

Carlen smiled, a little cynically. "The war changed everyone."

"Not quite everyone..." he murmured, almost to himself.

"Can I pour you more wine?" Carlen asked.

"Please. Take some yourself, if you want."

He'd relaxed over on his elbow, nearer to her. He'd taken very little dinner. Carlen handed his glass down to him and, at that moment, decided to take more herself.

Despite what he'd said, there she was, up in her formal position again. She was still faced into the table, the goblet on her lap, both hands clutched around it. He was touching her back with those magical fingers. Carlen was wondering how much longer it would be before he decided the skin there was too clear of the imprint of his whips.

"What's this little scar on your back?"

"You notice everything."

"I've wondered for some time."

"Perhaps you put it there," Carlen suggested.

"You know I didn't."

Carlen said nothing.

"Come on. Why can't you answer a simple question? What's so difficult? Is it too personal?"

He had that patronizing smile on his face. No danger of his being angry. Only the other danger. The danger she had to constantly guard against these days. The mood he was in. The intimacy. The way he'd touched that scar. The way he was studying her now.

"It's nothing. Only a mole I had removed."

"Why? Was it ugly?"

"I never noticed. It just began to irritate me. On the road. All the sitting. You know."

He was sitting up now. Closer. Stroking her again. Those seducer's fingers skating up her spine and Carlen was thinking of the night he first laid her down... Now caressing her shoulder - and of the night she let go of the thread. The atmosphere in the chamber before Nolty had interrupted them. She thought back to those few moments and she wondered if the Master remembered them also... Now touching her cheek - and the very first instant she had seen him, and he had come off that step, and he had touched her for the very first time... But that hadn't been the first time, had it?

She sipped her wine. His hand was in her hair.

"How long was it before your arrest?"

"I don't understand," Carlen said.

"Your hair."

"Not much longer than it is now," she told him.

Carlen didn't care for the question - or the way he was touching and looking at her hair.

"If you wanted hair, you should have let Wilma live, or taken Nolty's beast for your own."

"Yours will grow," was all he said.

He was moving in. Oh yes. Carlen knew exactly what he was up to. He kissed her shoulder and Carlen did exactly what she normally did under such circumstances. She shot every ounce of energy in her body down. Down - into her groin. Shut down as many other sensations as possible. Cleared her emotions, cleared her mind.

All this transpired very quickly and very quietly. Almost undiscernibly, save the eyes, which always blinked shut, and the tiny, unconscious intake of breath through her parted lips.

He was aware of it when she did all this. He knew it was the signal that she was preparing herself, psyching herself into the appropriate frame of mind to receive him. It was the appropriate thing for her to be doing at such a moment. It was what she'd been conditioned to do. What she'd conditioned herself to do. He also knew it didn't always work for her. He still managed to surprise her - sometimes. But, most of the time, it did.

She was perfect, as he had known she would be. Perhaps a little too perfect.

He kissed her then. On the lips. The way he kissed her the night she spilt the wine. There was wine in her hands now, and she'd thought, somehow, that might prevent or possibly delay what was happening now. But he didn't tell her to put the wine down and, a moment later, they were both down on the pelts. The wine spilt again.

His withdrawals were no longer as abrupt as they had once been. He preferred now to lay with her following intercourse. Feel the release of sleep take her. Away from him. Where he knew she was. Most of the time. Where she would probably stay. The rest of her life. Or his.

Yet, tonight he lingered longer than usual. Carlen was asleep, not worried about being wakened by him. Not worried that he should demand something more of her. Not disturbed by the weight of his body on top of her. Simply composed beneath him, like she was made to fit there. One hand she had curled into the hollow of his neck and the other... the other was wrapped around a lock of his hair.

She was forbidden to touch him, yet there she was - touching him. Why should that be? Why would she want to touch him? Why in the wide world?

Or - was it him she was touching? It could be someone else. Someone in her head. But who? Who was it she dreamed of when she pressed into him this way? What was it she was sheltering into? Did she truly feel sheltered?

When he awoke next morning he looked straight over at Carlen - as he did every morning these days.

He was surprised to find her lying on her back, stretched out like a proud cat. Her right leg and arm were in a line from ankle to wrist; the left leg, crooked out slightly, the arm also tossed back and crooked around her head. She looked relaxed, secure, contented.

There was a little more meat on her these days, although her hip and rib bones still protruded noticeably, especially in this position. Her breasts had dropped slightly, also, and there were more gray hairs in her head, but she was still one hell of a woman.

He smiled and left her in peace.

* * *

The most exhausting part of Carlen's routine anymore had become the attention and stillness demanded of her during presentations. The silence no longer bothered her. The Master talked to her every day, sometimes late into the night. But \- the stillness required of her during business hours had become a real trial.

The break between afternoon presentations and dinner was the time she'd come to look forward to. The Master always left the chamber then. Carlen guessed that was the time he took to clean up. His hair was sometimes damp when he returned.

But for her? This was her hour or two of private time. Her freedom break, as she'd come to refer to it. A time when she could move about, use the can, have a drink of water \- anything she pleased.

Mostly, though, she used the time for exercise, her one secret pastime, and an extra wash afterwards, for his return. Lately, however, he'd been returning earlier, because of the work they were engrossed in, so Carlen had tightened up her schedule. She had less time to exercise now, so she worked twice as hard. She saved just enough time for a quick bath afterwards and was always in position, by the wall, waiting, when he reappeared through the archway in the evenings.

He'd take his seat at the edge of the Stage, look over the day's work and she would wait until he called her over. Then they'd work a few hours before dinner. It was usually a good time between them.

"You moved this afternoon," he told her one evening when he came in.

"I... don't think so."

"You scratched your leg."

"Scratched my...? Oh, for fuck-"

Instantly she clamped down on it, and every defensive tendency that was straining to break loose. She didn't need that cold stare to tell her what she'd nearly brought down.

"I've become used to more activity, I guess."

"I guess you have," he said at last. "Come to work."

Carlen crawled over to the edge. He gave her the piece she'd been working for him. The fourth.

"You've been exercising also, haven't you?"

Oh damn him. "Yes. I hope that's allowed."

"Certainly it is," he said, handing her the saddle soap. "But don't overdo it."

Carlen sighed and dipped the saddle soap into the water bucket thinking One step forward, Two steps back. As she lifted the soap out of the bucket, she suddenly lost grip and it slipped out of her hand.

With the reflex of a cat, the Whipmaster snatched it right out of the air. Carlen was amazed, but more amazed still when it escaped his grasp also and she had to reach for it. She missed and it hit the step. Carlen swiftly bent to retrieve it.

"I'm sorry-" she began when the soap slipped from her grasp and rocketed into the air again. The Master had no better luck catching it the second time and they played the comical pantomime again.

By now they were both laughing - Carlen, hitching like an excited kid and his laugh, rolling out of him with the spontaneity of a waterfall. Carlen thought she'd never heard a more beautiful sound.

At last Carlen caught the flyaway soap and sat laughing and clutching it to her chest with both hands.

"I've got it! Got it!" she cried giddily. "I think... What I'd better do... is stick it someplace... Someplace SAFE!"

"I know where I'm going to stick it in a minute, if you don't hold on to it!" the Master laughed, playfully darting a hand between her legs.

Carlen was laughing so hard she barely noticed. Not until an instant later when the Master's laughter abruptly ceased and his mood altered entirely. He drew back and the look on his face caught her breath.

"Have you been touching yourself?"

"Touching myself?"

"Masturbating."

"What? No!"

"I'd better never catch you at something like that."

Carlen didn't understand this. Or his sudden mood swing. "You think I would do that?"

"Who knows what you'd do when my back is turned."

"Why the hell would I?"

"I know every answer there is to that one," he said. "Even if you don't."

Carlen was genuinely put off. "Well, I haven't! I don't even know what would make you ask me such a thing."

"You're wet," he said. "Sopping wet. I'd like to know why."

Carlen didn't know why. She wasn't even aware of the condition until he'd told her. And besides, why the hell should he be angry about that? Wasn't that her 'duty'? Her 'job'? To be ready? First time? Every time?

"You don't think I've learned anything," she said.

There was an awkward silence. The Master took the soap from her. Laid it aside. He took her hands and gently rinsed them in the bucket.

He'd hurt her feelings. Again. She'd become so very sensitive and this had accentuated her femininity. Brought out a delicacy of feeling in her he'd never suspected was there. A delicacy he found absolutely irresistible.

He touched her cheek lightly with his wet hand. Allowed the hand to slip down over her shoulder. He touched her breast and Carlen fought down the impulse to recoil from that touch. He kissed her and, in another moment, he was laying her back, yet again.

He began making love to her. Slowly. Sweetly. Ever so gently. Carlen accepted him quietly, submissively, but the scene had thrown her. She was shocked and genuinely offended by his accusations and the tenderness of his attentions now did not allay these feelings.

He began but, a minute or two into it, he fell still. A second later he abruptly withdrew. He stepped down to the first landing and stopped, his back turned. Carlen sat up suddenly.

"Why did you stop?"

He didn't answer. Didn't turn.

"What's wrong?" she demanded. "Afraid you might get a little pleasure from it?"

"Are you?" he asked, very low.

Carlen didn't know what to say. She glanced down at her legs. Still outstretched. Still open - for him. She pulled them together slowly and folded them under.

He was still standing there, his back turned, his pants refastened. Those pants that never came off completely. Like the boots. Never came off. He never came to her nude. She wondered about that.

"Were you as cold with all your lovers as you are with me?" he asked in that same low voice.

"You're not my lover."

He turned to her sharply. "I'm the closest you'll get to one again."

He made it sound like a death sentence.

"You depress me sometimes," Carlen murmured.

He stared at her a moment then made a sarcastic sound in his throat.

It dawned on her then that he was the one who actually seemed depressed. But why? Why the devil should he be depressed? What the hell about? Everything was going his way, slick as ice. What did he have to be depressed about?

Don't try to second guess his feelings, a small voice inside her said. You can't be him. You don't know what he's feeling tonight. May not be your fault at all. You're okay. Bouncing, but okay.

He wouldn't let her near him. She knew that. But - she could place one foot on the ice field and he would know she was there. Within reach. Susceptible to use within the boundaries of the need he employed her for. That was all she really wanted. All she wanted him to know. That she was at his disposal.

She'd missed one chance before. Missed it and made him come to her for an answer which had not pleased him. Well, Shay was dead. She had accepted her position. There were no more barriers. Should be no more barriers. She'd missed that one chance and she wasn't going to blow this one too.

"I apologize," she said softly. "I shouldn't have said what I did."

After a moment he looked up. "Well. I'm glad to see at least you know how to conduct yourself, even if most of the time you refuse to do it."

"It was just..."

"Just what?"

"I... was hurt you felt you couldn't trust me to serve you without... deceit."

His eyebrow arched. "That is an odd thing to say."

"Odd?"

He leaned toward her slightly. "Do you know why I am sometimes disturbed by the things you say? It's because behind them I can feel the impact of things you don't say. I know they're there, Carlen. Deceit is wrapped around you like a shroud... At least I've been able to render it nearly invisible."

Carlen said nothing. Did nothing. Hadn't the vaguest idea what to do, or say.

He came back then. Sat down. Picked up the work but he didn't work. He just sat there, his elbows rested on his knees and, in his hands, the piece of leather she'd been softening for him.

"Why do you refuse to be moved?" he asked after a long time.

"Moved?"

"You know what I'm talking about."

Carlen looked away.

"You came for me before. Twice. Why not again?"

"...I can't."

"Why?"

She gave the merest negation with her head.

His tone turned hard and crude. "I know what to do, Carlen. I could force you. Even in that I could force you. ...I know which buttons to press."

"...yes."

"Then why?"

Why should it be so important to you? she was wondering, but she said nothing.

More gently he said, "Don't you wish to take the slightest pleasure at all from this relationship? Are you truly so stubborn?"

There were a million things she would have liked to have told him then, but all she said was, "The only pleasure I seek in this relationship is yours."

And there it was. The trap. The very trap he'd so ingeniously laid - for her - only he was the one who now lay in it.

This was the only bone of contention that remained between them. His burn to really arouse her again - without force - and Carlen's blatant refusal to be caught out a third time. Carlen had known. She'd known by the way he touched her sometimes. The way he looked at her.

It wasn't difficult, becoming excited in the man's presence. He was the consummate lover, when he wanted to be. He knew how to do it all. The problem was, this was the last thing she had left to herself, the very last, and she wasn't willing to surrender it. Not for him. Especially not for him. She was afraid to. Much too afraid, despite his determination to change her mind about it.

He raped her that night. The first time since the night he'd passed himself off as a stranger. When he withdrew, Carlen sat up, the blanket clutched to her chest, her eyes wet and angry.

"That wasn't necessary!" she shouted after him, her voice tight and shaky.

He swung around, equally incensed. "Necessary or not, it's nothing less than you expect of me generally, is it?"

Carlen would have liked to cut into him good just then, but she knew better. He was just too angry. She went to the basin and cleaned herself off. Thoroughly.

No more was said about it, but he knew what it was she was refusing him when her cries no longer rang out when he whipped her. The resolve had re-solidified in her and the thing that irked him the most was, he knew it was no longer his to touch. To attempt to do so would be to spit in the face of the result he had fought so long to extract. At long last the battle was over. He had won. The turn was complete.

It was a peculiar arrangement between them. They were peculiar days. Carlen didn't know why, but the Whipmaster knew.

* * *

Ultimately the leather working distilled down to one project into which the Whipmaster focused his entire attention. The project concerned the four pieces Carlen had softened for him. All rectangles of similar size. He'd taken each piece as she finished it and painstakingly punched tiny holes along the edges. Now he had all four pieces. All were punched and he was in the process of re-wetting the leather for shaping.

Carlen was there, knelt and attentive, ready for a task, but he seemed to have forgotten her.

"What can I do?" she offered.

"Nothing."

"I prefer to work..."

He glanced up. "No. Not now. Sit there. Like that. Don't move." He bent to the work again and Carlen sat quietly and watched.

He had a steel ring which had come in about a week before. A ring about six inches in diameter and hinged. The opening ends had been molded into small loops which crossed over and matched, making one loop which thus formed a self holding catch.

He placed the smaller, thicker pieces of leather around the inside of the ring and was now shaping the lighter, larger pieces to fit around the outside. It appeared he intended to fit the ring with a leather sleeve which would not hamper the operation of the hinge and catch. A terrifically intricate job. It looked altogether impossible to Carlen but, as she watched him, she saw that he was completely confident it would all work out to his satisfaction. That is to say - perfectly.

And, of course, it did. All the edges matched; the ends met. The holes lined up like little soldiers and he'd made them all just big enough for the needle and thread he used to stitch the whole thing together.

He became very solitary during the last stages of this project. He gave Carlen nothing more to do. So she sat and watched, not in the least bored by the long stretches, although she was a little depressed by her sudden exclusion from the work.

She thought, most probably, the item he was designing was a collar. When he was finished she was sure of it, although why he should take so much trouble over this one little thing she could not fathom. And it was little. All put together it looked tiny. Too tiny for a neck.

And once it was finished, he looked at it only a moment. Carlen was perplexed by the careless way he dropped it into the trunk after the hours of intensive attention he'd given the thing, and taken from her, but, by the end, she was too tired to give the matter much thought. He'd made her sit up every precious minute until it was done - until three A.M. on the morning of its completion.

He didn't even notice Carlen's exhaustion until he'd packed up the work materials and stored them away in the trunk. Then he saw how glassy-eyed she was and sent her immediately to bed.

* * *

Just before dawn Carlen's sleep was disrupted by a cramp in her thigh. She tried to ignore the pain and get back to sleep but it was impossible. As quietly as she could, she massaged the muscle but it only grabbed on tighter.

"Shit!" she muttered as the spasm began to draw the leg up. She rolled onto her back but the condition only worsened. "Oh Christ!" she gasped, wakening the Master.

"What is it?"

"I can't sleep."

"What's wrong?"

"I've got a bloody cramp in my leg!"

The Master was down on the floor in a movement. The bell rang and the Master was lighting one of the wall torches when Spane appeared out of the shadows.

"Get water. Basins. Hot and cold, and towels. Bring liniment. Metholeen. Go!"

She left on the run.

The Master brought the torch onto the Stage and only minutes later two girls returned.

"Up here!" he called.

Spane was almost there already. Water, towels, liniment. The other brought more water. The Master gave the second girl the torch, grabbed two towels and immediately wet them. One hot, one cold.

"Get Jaim," the Master told Spane.

"He's asleep."

"Get him!"

Spane dashed away.

By now Carlen's groans were loud and free, shaking the sleep out of the hollow chamber.

"Hold the torch steady!" the Master snapped, wringing out the first towel and wrapping it around Carlen's leg.

"Carlen - get your hands out of the way."

"What?"

"Move your hands!" he insisted, wrestling her grasping hands back to the wall chain. "Grab that!"

Carlen groped blindly back and took the chain, freeing him to work with the towels.

Jaim came to the chamber on the run, the medical bag in hand. Spane followed.

"Spane, take the torch," the Master commanded. "Hold it steady. You-" he addressed the other. "Get out."

The girl handed the torch over and left immediately. Jaim knelt beside Carlen.

"What do you think?" the Master asked. He was perspiring.

"We'd better stretch the leg out."

"I agree."

"I'll get down and pull from the ankle. You push from the top."

"No. You'll have to do both," the Master said. "I'll be holding Carlen." The men's eyes met. "I don't want to use restraints for this."

"Alright," Jaim said, after a brief pause. "Let's do it."

The Master moved to Carlen's head, and Carlen's hands clutched his wrists as he drew her arms back. Jaim gripped her ankle, bracing his other hand against the top of her thigh. "Carlen?"

"Yeah? What!"

"This is going to hurt."

"Going to? Humorous fellow!"

"Hold on," he said, as much to the Master as to Carlen.

He began to apply pressure and, as he pulled, Carlen howled. The Master clung on grimly, secretly amazed to see her cry that way over something like this.

"That's it," Jaim announced.

A few minutes later Carlen quieted down. The crisis was over. Jaim worked with the towels, hot then cold, massaging, then working with the liniment. The Master's grasp loosened. Carlen's didn't.

"Alright?" he murmured.

"Fucking wonderful."

Jaim gave her a tablet, helped Spane clear up and left. The Master left also, returning shortly after with a mug of hot cocoa and the cigarettes. He helped Carlen sit up and draw back to the wall, the pillow propped behind her. With a damp cloth he wiped the perspiration from her brow and arranged the blanket around her. He gave her the cocoa, lit a cigarette for her, then sat down with his arm around her - exactly as she'd put her arm around Wilma in the cage.

Carlen enjoyed the cocoa and the cigarette as they silently stared into the shifting shadows created by the light now dawning through the bars overhead. Everything was extraordinarily peaceful.

But Carlen was thinking about the expression she'd seen in Spane's eyes. When the Master had pulled her arms back. And, as she sat there, warm and secure, comforted by her Master's protective embrace, she was thinking of this, and she couldn't understand why she should feel afraid. Could not figure it out. But she was afraid. Terribly.

CHAPTER 40 \- THE WAGER

He was very careful about Carlen's leg over the next week or so and surprisingly solicitous. He kept her warm and comfortable, and he made sure she followed the prescribed exercise program to prevent the leg tightening up again.

Carlen was somewhat taken aback by his concentrated attentions but it was proof positive of one thing. What happened to her was important to him and Carlen was finally satisfied that the Whipmaster did care for her - in his own way.

He continued to spend whatever time he could with her and Carlen found a certain sense of security in their private life together. She felt close to him, related to him and the respective stations they occupied. She even felt he was close to her. At least, closer. But these were very delicate feelings, very delicate securities, very easily disrupted. Much more easily than she realized.

The beginning of the end came the day Nolty dropped in for a friendly game of cards with the Master. Carlen was frankly insulted when he came up and assumed a seat on the corner of the Stage, just as though he'd been there often and was assured of his welcome there in future.

He shared drinks from the Master's flask while they played and their interaction bespoke a close relationship between the two men. Birds of a feather, Carlen thought darkly, drawing back, tight to the wall.

She loathed Nolty's presence in the chamber, more still, his presence on the Stage, and she hated his intimacy with the Master. She found it hard to accept that Nolty had known the Whipmaster before she had, and the fact that the Master knew Nolty better than he did her.

Stupid things. Unreasonable and silly. Things she would never have thought or felt two months before. Yet, there it was, and she could no sooner have denied these feelings than she could conceal them. They dumped her into a black, broody mood, and matters were not improved when Nolty threw down a losing hand and said, "Why not put some salt in the bet?"

"Meaning what?" the Master asked, collecting up the cards.

"Carlen."

The Whipmaster glanced up. "Does she interest you?" He seemed surprised.

"She's the best piece on the compound. Who wouldn't be interested?"

His eyes locked onto Carlen's as he said this and she became aware of a sudden pressure exerting itself inside her.

"She's anything but boring. Besides," and here he looked away, "I was curious to see how she's come along."

For Nolty, all the fun had gone out, but the Whipmaster seemed mildly amused.

"When?" he asked.

"Right now."

"What have you got?"

Nolty hesitated. "Half a case of Chivas Regal."

The Whipmaster's eyebrows shot up. "Only half?"

Nolty was forced to chuckle and Carlen realized, with a jolt of horror, that he'd been holding his breath.

"Done!" the Master said, apparently the only one who viewed the whole thing as a game.

He shuffled the cards. Set the deck down between them. "Cut."

Nolty cut the cards and the Master picked them up.

"Coolhand alright?"

"Fine," Nolty said.

The Master dealt the hand.

Coolhand was a rather long winded and intricate poker variation, with several draws and discards, and two blind exchanges. A player's hand evolved according to sets, runs, and, sometimes, came down to face values.

Carlen knew the game well and kept a surreptitious eye on the Master's hand. He was an excellent gambler and a daring, agile foe at this game particularly. Carlen was secretly amazed at the unpredictability of some of his moves.

She was also pleased to see he was developing a very strong hand. What Nolty had, she could not see, but the Master had a winner. Or so Carlen thought. A moment later Nolty called, "Flush!" signaling the end of play.

Carlen's heart jolted.

"Kid me not!" the Master declared in astonishment.

"Believe it," Nolty countered, laying out his cards.

It was the perfect hand.

"Well, I can't beat that," the Master conceded, tossing his hand into the pile. "Would you rather I left?"

"No," Nolty said. "Stay..."

His attention had already reverted over to Carlen. He stood up slowly and skirted the Whipmaster by going down to the floor and around. Near the back wall, he stepped one foot on the bottom stair and leaned over to pick up Carlen's chain which was draped over the edge of the Stage. All the time his eyes never left her and she, likewise, kept a sharp bead on him. Her peripheral vision told her of the Whipmaster's move to Nolty's previous position on the corner of the Stage.

The first slight tug on the chain was like a red flag to Carlen's aroused resentments. She knew right away what she would do and she took care to keep her eyes averted from the Whipmaster, lest one glance from him would somehow force her to succumb to this gross indignity.

When Nolty made a second tug at the chain, Carlen actually grabbed it and yanked it - right out of his hand. Nolty could hardly have been more surprised.

Carlen waited but the Master didn't say anything. A moment later Nolty climbed the steps. She met his touch with forceful resistance, twisting away as he attempted to push her down. She tried to crawl away but he caught her ankle and dragged her to the edge of the Stage. There was another tussle but he wrestled her to her knees on the second tier and shoved her down flat to the pelts.

Carlen fought him with unbridled savagery but she could not match the flash of fury she'd incited in him. He jammed his knee down between her locked legs and Carlen emitted a groan as he forced her legs apart, wider than necessary. She continued to buck, delaying the inevitable by a few precious seconds, but the instant Nolty achieved penetration, Carlen fell completely slack.

The rape was brutal, as she knew it would be, but no matter how hard Nolty tried to stimulate her to some reaction, he could not arouse further response from her. She lay stock still, staring into empty space.

Nolty finished unsatisfactorily, half ejaculating, half waning. When he withdrew, Carlen hesitated only a second before drawing her legs together and climbing back onto the Stage where she sat quietly, her back turned.

Nolty stepped down to the floor, his eyes smoldering. He crossed to the wall and reached for one of the heavier whips in the Master's collection.

"Not that," the Master admonished mildly.

Nolty ran his eyes along the wall and picked out the brown crop. He approached the platform again.

As his foot hit the second step, Carlen turned her head and saw him a split second before he struck. She scrambled to the wall where she twisted and turned, trying to protect herself, but the ferocity of Nolty's blows didn't waver and Carlen broke for the stairs in an attempt to escape him. She slithered down to the floor, hugging the wall, aiming for the corner where she could dig in. Unfortunately, the chain didn't stretch that far, catching her three feet short.

She cowered there, against the wall, her head and limbs tightly tucked. Nolty snatched her arm and dragged her out, slashing any exposed area he could reach. Carlen was frightened and furious but she did not shout.

Then, suddenly, the storm was passed. Nolty stood motionless, panting with exertion. There was no sound in the room but Carlen's labored gasps, which she quickly pulled under control.

When she glanced up to check on Nolty, the Master saw that her eyes were perfectly dry and clear. She was fighting Nolty with every fiber of her being. It was a strange and unexpected discovery.

He himself loved the fear he kindled in Carlen. He nurtured it, cherished it, even thrived on it, but he did not need it for his own survival. It was different with Nolty and he wondered if Carlen knew this. Sensed it somehow.

He knew Carlen feared Nolty, possibly more, in some respects, than she feared him. But she had taken her fear away. Withdrawn it. Every inch of ground Nolty believed he may have won from her, gone in a sweep. She had pulled her respect and he couldn't stand it.

Carlen was greatly heartened to see how much she'd fouled Nolty's day. He was really enraged but, if he was, the Master could be as well. She'd soon see if it was really worth it.

The seconds clicked by and Nolty watched Carlen so intently she was sure, any moment, the beating would resume.

Finally, however, he stepped back and re-hung the crop. His eyes stayed on Carlen and she sensed a subtle change in his mood.

"Something is not right about this," he said in a deadly tone. "About her."

"It's alright," the Master said, apparently unmoved by the scene. "I'm satisfied."

Nolty looked at him briefly, an odd expression in his eyes, then he turned and left, his solemn footsteps fading into silence.

Once he was gone, the Master did not come down on Carlen, as she'd expected. Nor did he reprimand her. He did the worst thing of all. He spoke to her - softly, directly.

"Get up here."

Carlen uncurled and, almost in a crouch, climbed the steps up to her place. She took some minutes settling down, fussing needlessly, like a self-conscious dog who knows it has displeased its master. Ultimately, the silence overruled Carlen's distracted activity and, an instant later, she was locked into the green ice.

"Why did you do that?"

"Are you going to punish me?" she asked, knowing it was wrong.

"You don't think Nolty was thorough?"

Carlen's eyes dropped away. "Then it was punishment for something."

"What in particular?"

"...you know. You let Nolty hurt me because I won't come for-"

"No," he cut in. "But it certainly served, didn't it?"

Carlen didn't argue.

"Why did you provoke him that way?"

Carlen's thoughts were buffeting around like a ping pong ball. The shock of the incident was beginning to set in and nothing seemed altogether sane or reasonable. But he was waiting and finally the front line circuits determined pure dumb animal savagery would be passable, if not actually acceptable.

"I hate him," she said at last.

There was a terrible silence. He was watching her. Reading her. Then the hint of a smile appeared. "I must say I'd be surprised if you liked him."

He seemed to relax then. He brought the flask over and poured two drinks. Carlen couldn't have been more surprised at being handed one of them. She downed it quickly and he poured her a second, more generous helping. He settled into a comfortable position across from her.

"There are still some things you must come to understand," he said.

"I don't understand any of this," Carlen muttered, unintentionally undercutting everything.

"Be specific."

Carlen glanced up in shock, the drink jittering in her hand.

"Go on. Speak your mind," he invited. "You may not get another chance."

Carlen felt defenseless and worn. As though she'd come to the end of a very long battle.

"I'm confused," she began inadequately.

"What confuses you?"

"All of this! The way you - The way I've been treated."

"What confuses you?" he asked again.

"What the hell does it mean?"

"That's it?"

Carlen lapsed into embarrassed silence. She wished she'd rephrased the question. Fuck. She wished she knew the question. She shrugged stupidly and sipped her drink.

Amazingly, miraculously, he broke out laughing. "Carlen! For such a worldly woman you certainly have retained some naivety!"

He'd laughed but the sound was edged with cruelty.

Carlen sat tight, savoring the warmth of the Scotch, which was now hard at work on the lining of her stomach. She was grateful to receive a third helping.

The sound of her name on his voice was ringing in her ears. Was he truly so at ease? So amused? So unaroused by what had occurred? Or was there a hidden question behind every syllable of his remark? A thousand invisible traps for her to fall into.

She watched him from the corner of her eye and saw that his gaze had dropped. He sipped from his cup.

"Are you afraid to come to the point?" he asked softly.

Carlen's stomach was in knots. She hesitated. "I thought I belonged to you," she said finally.

"Every piece of property on the compound belongs to me," he said.

"I just thought..." she tried, but trailed away.

His eyes came up suddenly. "You were exclusively mine?"

Carlen was amazed to find her cup was empty and even more amazed at the words spilling forth. "Nolty's got a woman. Why did you let him touch me after all this time?"

"He wanted it."

"So you just hand me over at the turn of a card?"

He smiled a little. "I didn't think he'd take the hand."

Like shit you didn't! she thought - and that wasn't all.

"Anyway, it's not your place to question it. I'd have thought you'd know that by now."

"I just don't want that monster near me!"

"You think he's a monster?"

"Don't you?"

"Nolty's a methodical man. He's good at what he does. Very good. He's valuable to me."

"And I'm of no value."

"I didn't say that," he said, effectively freezing the flood of accusations he sensed was coming. "You need to gain a perspective of your position. The sooner you do that the better off you'll be."

He could see she was hurt. The welts Nolty laid on were standing in high purple ridges. She was going to be very sore. And the pain in her eyes. He wondered about that. Well, it was just too bad.

"You're foresworn," he reminded her in his schoolmaster tone. "Deviation into rebellious behavior will be met with force and your opinion of the condition warrants no consideration at all. How you're treated has long since ceased to be any choice of yours."

He gave Carlen no room to respond but simply rose and moved down to the floor. He left the flask and his cup on the table and strapped on his belt in preparation to leave.

Carlen watched him through a sort of haze, grimly wrestling with emotions that were completely alien to everything she'd ever thought or believed. So bound up was she in this demented jig-saw that she nearly missed the portent of his parting remark.

"Besides," he said, his voice a little roughened. "The man I'm giving you to is no fucking aristocrat."

Shortly after his departure, the agonizing silence in the chamber was briefly overthrown by the denting ring of the silver cup Carlen hurled across the room into the cement wall.

CHAPTER 41 \- ALL THE STERLING HORSES

Carlen didn't trust anything or anyone after that. Particularly herself. It made absolutely no difference. The Master continued to use her, when it pleased him, but the pampering was over and so were the questions. He didn't seem concerned about her reactions anymore and he was no longer the companion he had been. Things had changed. Again. And no wonder.

So it was that Carlen was surprised one morning to waken to a very special and personal view of the Whipmaster, framed in the archway, practicing some form of Oriental martial art. Actually, it looked like Tai Chi, for he moved with a slow fluid control that was more a dance than an attack formation.

It was very early and he seemed to shine there, illuminated by the light gathering in the chamber, the sleeping shadows of the presentation area as his backdrop. He was poised like a golden coin, spinning on its edge, appearing by halves as he turned along that line of shadow and light.

He was completely involved, locked into the concentration of his discipline, much the way he was when he worked the leather. Ego less and utterly unconscious of Carlen's observation.

Carlen watched with aching fascination. The poetry of his movement, the focus of his energies, the perfection of his executions, the breathtaking beauty of his body. Looking at him was the only pleasure she had left and to see him like this was a unique privilege. His concentrations all turned inward, his thoughts, his power, his eyes, turned inward. The sight of him like this gave Carlen a small insight into the awesome strength of this man. The centeredness. It was no surprise he'd grounded her. He'd been destined to do it.

He worked for about an hour without ceasing and Carlen never took her eyes off him. When he was finished, he turned his back, drawing his arms smoothly down to his sides and paused in absolute stillness, his head bowed. He stood like this for about a minute, and his circle of concentration had seemed perfect - but he gave the tiniest flick of impatience with his head before he stepped off.

Carlen stared into the space he'd emptied until she dropped off to sleep again - her mind a blank.

* * *

"Carlen-"

Carlen opened her eyes, automatically pushing herself into a sitting position before consciousness even caught hold. It was full daylight. The Master lighted on one knee before her and Carlen watched dull-mindedly as he produced a key and opened the linklocks between her manacles. He turned the rings and slipped the bracelets off, laying them aside.

Carlen had come fully awake by the time he took her wrists again and examined them for bruising. She was not so much impressed by what he had done as by the way he had done it. Just as though it were something he did every morning. Something was going on here but she couldn't quite grasp it.

He pulled the blanket away and reached around for the food bowl. Carlen glanced over her shoulder with admonishments on her lips. Then she saw her wash basin wasn't there. It was gone. So was her towel. Something...

As she turned around, she realized he was about to leave the bowl on her lap. In a sudden impulse, she reached for the bowl, taking hold of his hand at the same time. He glanced up then and Carlen had her confirmation. She knew what it was now. The place had that 'churchy' smell to it. That nerve destroying pervasion of ceremony and sacrifice. But the chamber was quiet and empty. There was no one but her and him... and that disturbing look in his eyes. He wasn't going to say anything. Carlen let go his hand. No bath before breakfast this morning.

The Master stood up and Carlen followed with her eyes. He looked at her for a moment, then left the chamber, dropping the blanket and shackles on the lower platform beside the trunk. Carlen started to eat, but there was a lump the size of a India rubber ball lodged in her throat and she wasn't sure why.

Not long after breakfast the women came. Three in all. Spane was not among them. They brought in one of the larger wash tubs and placed it, not in the presentation area, but in the space at the left between the small and grand platforms. They took Carlen's bowl away and, while one of them directed Carlen down to the floor where the tub stood, the other two carried in a second tub and left that on the floor near the end of the grand platform. Next came the water and a lot of other paraphernalia which they lined up along the edge of the platform next to the trunk.

Carlen was agog with all this activity, the two tubs especially, but what came in next she could not quite believe. With all the bustling around and splashing of water, Carlen could hardly have heard her Master come in, but there was one sound that would have been impossible to disguise along the cement lined passageways of the inner sanctum - that of a horse being led into the chamber.

Carlen may have gaped. It wouldn't have been inappropriate. She could hardly have been more astonished. The sly bastard.

He stood the mare just inside the archway, dropping the halter rope carelessly to the floor. He picked up a towel which had been left on the step for him, dunked it into the tub there, and wet the mare's back. The chain which still attached Carlen's collar to the ring over the Stage pulled slightly on her neck as the women conducted her into the tub between the platforms. They began to sponge her down.

The Master worked up a lather over the mare's white haired hide. The women soaped Carlen. The Master shampooed the mare's white mane and tail. The women shampooed Carlen's hair. The Master slapped the sopping towel over the mare's back again. The women had Carlen squat while they rinsed her off.

Carlen got soap in her eyes, trying to retain her view of the horse. She was a nice horse. Seemed to be gentle and well mannered. At home in the space and with him. And, on her flank, the left, was a mark. The exact same mark the Whipmaster had on his shoulder. Carlen didn't know why that mark disturbed her so much.

The Master used a curved metal scraper to sheet the water off the mare's hide. The women directed Carlen out of the tub. Toweled her down. The Master picked up a dry towel and rubbed the mare's coat sleek and dry. The women rubbed Carlen over with scented oil. The Master toweled off the mare's mane and tail and very patiently worked out the knots. The women toweled Carlen's hair all but dry and thoroughly brushed it. He checked the mare's hooves for refuse or tenderness, while the women cleaned and clipped Carlen's finger and toe nails. Lastly, he looked into the mare's mouth for signs of decay or disease, and the wretched women brushed Carlen's teeth until her gums bled.

After this, the Master gave his horse an approving look, an affectionate pat. The mare nuzzled her velvet nose against his chest. One of the women looked Carlen over carefully then nodded in dismissal to the others. She opened the linklock on Carlen's collar and released the wall chain, refastening the linklock to keep the collar in place.

"Don't move," she said curtly and left Carlen standing there.

The horse was taken away. The tubs, sponges, towels, water, all taken away. All but two pools of water standing on the floor. One at Carlen's feet. One at the Master's. As the last of the women disappeared around the corner Carlen felt a sudden shock of silence. A deadness in the air. Like the ending of something.

Before she could consider doing anything, the Master turned to her. There was a rare quality to his eyes. Something alien. Hostile - yet, a hostility that was contrary to something it veiled. Something Carlen could not put a finger on.

He came at her, almost in a rush, seized her wrists and hauled her onto the small platform. She tripped on the blanket as he pulled her over to the wall where the whips hung. He yanked down a length of leather from one of the pegs, lashed her wrists together tightly, and bound her to the ring in the wall there.

He chose the black, four foot quirt and laced Carlen across the backside and legs with twelve searing lashes that, within seconds, came up in fresh red welts.

There was an agonizing silence. He came up behind her. Very close. Carlen was trembling. His voice came right down into her ear. It was the voice he used with the condemned.

"You've done well," he said. "But remember your orientation. Don't forget one consonant of anything I have told you, nor any of the things I have taught you, nor one single moment of your detainment here.

"When you close your eyes - think of me. Remember what you have learned and live by it. No backsliding. Return to me, in disgrace, I'll put a bit in your mouth and you'll haul funeral wagons out of here until your back breaks. Fail me and it will be the end of you."

Carlen was stunned by these remarks and the odd strain in his voice. Why should he say such things to her? How important all this must be to him.

That was how he left her.

CHAPTER 42 \- THE EXCHANGE

Shortly after, Nolty came in. Carlen heard him climb up to the Stage and descend again but she couldn't guess why. She didn't try to. The fresh welts still burned and she was trying to figure out what she had done to deserve them.

When Nolty came onto the low platform, Carlen instinctively flexed away as he reached overhead to release her. He took her arm and led her to the base of the grand platform where two thick skins were laid on the floor against the bottom step. Carlen panicked momentarily when he indicated she was to kneel there. He met her sudden opposition with quick decision, seizing the collar and forcing her immediately down before she could jump out of her tracks.

"Don't you start!" he warned and Carlen took note. "Don't worry yourself," he added. "I'm not going to touch you."

His words said "Relax", but his tone said "I dare you!"

A moment later the Whipmaster came in and passed behind them. The lid of the trunk knocked against the wall and the Master approached, carrying a medium sized wooden box which he set on the floor at Nolty's feet. He seated himself on the step, his legs astride Carlen's knees.

From the box he retrieved the new collar he'd made. The collar that had seemed too small for a neck. The masterpiece which, Carlen suddenly realized, had been designed specifically for her. He checked over one or two details of the finish, then picked a linklock out of the box. It was also brand new and gold in color.

He unlocked the collar on Carlen's neck and lifted it off. Again he reached into the box and pulled out a strong, but fairly fine-linked chain. He locked the new collar in place, incorporating the end of the chain into the connection. Carlen noticed that the key to the gold linklock was also gold and it remained in the bottom of the box.

He removed the leather binding from her wrists and they refastened her hands behind her with a pair of handcuffs. They made her stand.

The Whipmaster took the box back to the trunk and returned with a piece of cloth which shook loose of its folds into a fairly large square of thick, fringed material. Beautiful material, almost a brocade. He folded it into a triangular shape, forming a very elegant shawl. His brow creased in concentration as he wrapped the shawl around Carlen. The bulk of the material draped under her right armpit down to her knee, and he arranged the two longer corners of it over her left shoulder, toga style, the front flap laid over the one crossing over from the back.

This make-shift dress felt peculiar to Carlen who, apart from the pelt blanket, had not had any covering on her body for several months. True, the thing did not completely envelop her, neck to knees, but it effectively concealed all the personal parts of her anatomy, and she wondered at the necessity of it.

The Whipmaster stood back to view the final result. Carlen was watching him, but he never looked into her eyes and it seemed deliberate. Finally he nodded, and a moment later he was gone again. Carlen followed him with her eyes, startled by Nolty's tug at the new chain as he led her into the presentation area. She flinched as he reached up to flick out a lock of her hair which had caught under the collar. There was a spark of cold amusement in his eyes.

"You had better get hold of yourself," he said.

A thousand questions crowded Carlen's mind but, apart from the fact she would never give Nolty the satisfaction of revealing her uncertainties to him and, apart from the fact she knew it would be very wrong to question him at all, she could not deny she already knew the answer to the major question plaguing her.

This was the moment she'd been traveling towards since the first instant the Whipmaster set eyes on her. All these months. Everything they'd done to her. The questions, the tests, the pressure. The whole bloody thing. All for this.

Now she was the same as any other conscript. Well, not exactly the same. She'd never been exactly the same, had she? She'd always been the special case. The one special case all along. They'd kept her in blind ignorance and she had struggled to find her way, to assume the role she thought was expected of her.

But she hadn't known. It was just another blind. Another deception. Another technique they employed to get her in line. Back her into position. Tricks and foils. All of it.

Carlen hardly knew which was more pronounced. Her bitterness, her outrage, or her horror. They'd spent all this time and energy getting her to this place, the very spot where it all began, and now they were sending her away. Just one more piece of merchandise up for trade.

The real question was - for whom? And for what? And where was it he was actually sending her? All that time and effort signified something big. Something important. She was not just another ruin. Not just another party girl and she was certainly not just another mutilated hag being sent out to be killed for the sake of a strip of black and white celluloid.

Oh no. She knew she'd been prepared to live, and function, and survive for one purpose in particular - one man in particular? Who the hell could it be? And what could be the exchange rate? And how - how was she supposed to deal with this?

Carlen turned her head away quickly. Nolty caught her chin and turned her face up. "Well, well. He taught you to cry."

There was a horrible finality in Nolty's eyes. A kind of... relief. Yes. For the first time, Carlen actually saw relief in those graveyard eyes. Nolty was glad she had made it this far. Glad the Whipmaster was satisfied. He was relieved this particular moment had finally come. She also saw something else there. Nolty still did not trust her.

Kick's step sounded, entering from the corridor that led to the interior. He stopped somewhere close behind. Carlen was facing the opposite entryway. She sensed rather than heard the Master approach and take position on her left. Nolty was on the right. His hand hooked into the collar. Carlen didn't turn. Didn't move.

There was a tense silence, then Carlen heard footsteps approaching through the entrance from outside. She was grateful they hadn't blindfolded her - grateful, that is, until she was confronted by the three men who emerged from the shadowy corridor a moment later. Nolty saw her hands suddenly fist up behind her back. He wondered if the Whipmaster had noticed it.

The central man of the trio was over six feet tall and painfully thin. He was dressed in a pair of denims, black suede boots and a battered leather jacket. Under the jacket was a red, fake satin shirt that lent a madly wild streak of color to this drab ensemble.

Around his hips he wore the finest leather belt Carlen had ever seen. It was fashioned from two strips of thick leather which had been stitched together with cording between to make it appear curved on the outside. Stainless steel rings were artfully inlaid into the leather, hinged rings, and from each one hung a small, suede, drawstring pouch.

This belt was the only clean and orderly thing about the man's overall appearance. It was a stunning thing and, apart from the fastening and the extra fixtures on it, it could have been an exact copy of the collar Carlen now wore. She realized, with a shock of surprise, there was only one place such a belt could have been made.

The two who accompanied the thin man were dressed entirely in black, although their clothes were civilian and the outfits did not match. All of them wore dark sunglasses, and there was something else they had in common. They were all Black.

The central man nodded a cool greeting to the Whipmaster. "I've got your goods," he said in a voice that rasped.

The Whipmaster must have signaled because the two flank men came forward carrying a fairly large wooden box which they set on the bottom step of the grand platform.

The Whipmaster crossed to the box and opened the lid to examine the contents. Carlen was too far away to see what was inside, but the Master lifted out three separate trays, taking time to inventory the contents of each. Then he returned to the assembly of people in the presentation area.

"Well?" the stranger asked.

"The quantities are inaccurate," the Whipmaster said.

"Shortages," the stranger explained. "I made up for it in other areas. The ratios are about the same. Interchangeable. But, if it's no good-"

"No," the Whipmaster cut in. "It's adequate. It meets the contract."

It was easy to see the men were not friends. The Whipmaster exuded an almost bestial aggression. He was as tense as Carlen had ever seen him, almost angry, as though anxious to be rid of the business at hand.

By sharp contrast, the other man appeared calm and relaxed. In fact, his manner seemed inappropriately casual. Nevertheless, Carlen picked up a strong current. The man had power, alright, and he did not like the Whipmaster.

While the men talked, Carlen felt invisible but, once she was pushed forward for viewing, a fist of terror clenched inside her. She wanted to break, run, scream, protest, anything to prevent this transaction from taking place.

She closed her eyes tightly to lock in the tears threatening to blow her composure. Her throat ached with suppressed sobs. The thought of this man's hands on her - touching, examining; those unseen eyes appraising, judging.

His fingers latched onto the material of the shawl, drawing the corner of it off her shoulder. The weight of it dropping caused the material covering her back to slide also. The Whipmaster caught it and pulled it away from her. She felt the material brush past her hands as Nolty took possession of it.

Carlen thought she was going to lose it. After all she'd been through, she never imagined she'd ever again suffer this kind of humiliation. Yet, there it was, and so acute it nearly overrode every pressure she was exerting on herself to keep still and do nothing that would cruel this deal for the Whipmaster. That, she knew, could be her last mistake. The things he'd said to her that morning still burned like a brush fire in her head.

It was actually Nolty who saved the situation. As if in reply to a telepathic message, his hand tightened around the collar, and somehow the surety of his grasp prevented Carlen from a breach of control. The circumstances brought up the memory of her first presentation to the Whipmaster, and Carlen was strenuously blocking the idea that this man may wish to make a similar examination of her.

As Carlen forced herself to look up into the man's face, a phrase from one of the Master's books circled in her head.

"Smooth as a stone."

That was what the woman in the book envisaged as her image of compliant perfection. Maybe there was something to that. Many of the things she had not understood in that book were now things she'd come not only to understand, but also recognize as truth. Hard truth, but surprisingly simple. If she could meld herself with this image, she knew she could render herself divinely objective, impervious to this man's scrutiny, no matter how detailed it may be.

So she tried to be as smooth as a stone and, although it hardly reduced the profanity of the situation, it was probably the one thing that got her through it.

She discovered very quickly, however, that this was going to be an examination by a person handling something which did not yet belong to him. Despite her determination to maintain control, Carlen jumped slightly when he touched her breast, and he responded with a grin, but he only touched her twice. He did take a good long look at her, both before and behind. Especially behind. The fresh welts drew his attention and he touched her buttock, the way he'd touched her breast - briefly.

"You beat her a lot?

"Yes."

"What for?"

"Practice."

The Black man gave a humorless snort. Nolty turned Carlen to face front again.

"She knows pleasure?"

"How to give it, how to receive it, and how to live without it."

"She's healthy?"

"Very."

The entire ritual was like a game. The questions a formality. Expected answers to anticipated questions. Each man riding the other's nerves.

The stranger paused a moment, eyeing Carlen again.

"She knows silence?"

"Yes."

"But she can talk?"

"Oh yes."

"Is she a liar?"

"Not anymore."

The Whipmaster said this with a confidence that surprised Carlen. The statement played over in her mind, but it didn't come to mean anything to her until much later.

"Does she know her place?"

"She knows everything."

"You haven't tired her out now, have you?" the stranger asked with a smirk.

"She doesn't tire easily."

"She looks a little peaked to me."

"I imagine she's nervous," the Whipmaster said.

The Black man showed his yellowing teeth. "Yes. I expect she is." He eyed Carlen again. "What's her name?"

"Carlen."

"How old is she?"

"Old enough for you."

The stranger ignored the bite in the remark and chuckled.

"She's the best in the compound - probably the whole city," the Whipmaster proclaimed tightly. "She's the best you'll ever get."

"You got her in cuffs. You think there's need for that?"

"Until you get across, yes. What's the matter? Don't you have keys for them?"

"I've got the keys," the stranger said. "I just don't want no wild animal to contend with."

"She won't give you any trouble."

"You better be sure."

"If she backslides, bring her back."

Another mirthless chuckle rasped in the throat of the visitor. "Oh yeah? And what would you guarantee on returned goods?"

"Equal value to the Bond, if you haven't ruined her."

"You got high value set on this mink," the Black man remarked.

"Are you going to accept?" the Whipmaster pressed.

The stranger eyed Carlen once more.

"Yeah," he said slowly. "I accept."

He put his hand out first but the Whipmaster remained motionless, the green ice bombarding the reflection of the other man's sunglasses. Finally the stranger's face cracked another smile. He shrugged in an overly deprecating manner and, with his other hand, raised the eyeshades just enough to reveal his black eyes. Something else about him - he was wired.

There was a cold and brutal death in yet another compartment of Carlen's heart as she watched the Whipmaster accept the stranger's hand. The Bond was sealed.

Nolty arranged the shawl around Carlen again. The Whipmaster gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him. His voice was low and oddly strained but Carlen understood every inference behind every word he said, although she could not bring herself to raise her eyes any higher than his shoulders.

As he spoke the words, he knew he was committing the one act she would not forgive him for.

"You belong to the Dealer, now. Accord to him the same respect you would accord me. Remember."

He took the chain from Nolty and held it out to the Black man who accepted it with a smile.

"Do you want a blindfold for her?"

"Uh-uh," the Dealer replied. "I believe women should cross into the Men's Sector with their eyes open."

When Carlen stepped forward, vacating the space beside him, the Whipmaster noticed the knotted fists behind her back. The last expression he saw of her feelings that morning.

As they led her away, he felt as though something had been torn out of him. He uttered a bitter curse under his breath.

PART THREE ~ THE DOMAIN OF MEN

CHAPTER 43 \- TRANSPORTATION

They rode over to Blacktown in a black Cadillac, although it was by no means any rich man's dream. It was about thirty-five years out of date, had no windows and it blew one heck of a lot of smoke. All the same, it would have taken some kind of mechanical genius to get an old wreck like that chugging and it ran pretty darn well.

At any rate, it was a ride. For Carlen, a slightly better ride than the last three. Slightly. At least she was sitting down and she did get a small view of the western side of the park before they plunged into the Men's Sector.

Blacktown bordered right on the park and took up most of the northwestern quarter of the city. They rolled through areas that were the first to be built. Housing for the workers. Rows of brownstones, strictly adhering to the structure of the their predecessors of the 1930's and 1940's, presumably to duplicate their 'quaintness'. Unfortunately, as in the case of their forerunners, all the quaint was long gone out of them, and the neighborhood looked just what it was. Old and ruined.

Another thing Blacktown had in common with ghetto districts of older cities was rubble lots, a fact of life which had existed scores of years before the wholesale leveling had taken place. In this virtually new city it was a tragedy.

This section had been hard hit during the conflict. Entire city blocks completely flattened and denuded of buildings. In certain areas there were still large piles of bricks, the only reminder of the buildings that once stood there.

The streets were all but empty in the daylight, like the Women's Sector. What life there was looked just what Dalroy had said it would be. Pretty heavy. Half of what walked appeared to be wasted, the other half wasters. Carlen didn't see one white face.

The Dealer was headquartered in a five story building surrounded by rubble lots. He lived on the top floor, too. A position that would command a pretty decent view of most of Blacktown, except that the Dealer never looked out windows.

The five flights of stairs was an exertion for Carlen who hadn't done any serious walking in a long time. She marched up, sandwiched between the three men on the stairs, praising the stars the Dealer hadn't wanted her blindfolded. At the top of the last flight they rounded the banister, walked about ten paces down the hall and entered the Dealer's room.

As Carlen passed through the doorway, the men cleared a path in front of her and she got a view of her new environment. All she took in was the first thing her eyes lighted on - the far wall where, mounted in a block of wood, in the middle of the wall was a single iron ring, with a chain that dropped to the center of a very large mattress on the floor. The sudden visual impact of this configuration caused Carlen to faint and the men, fumbling and nonplused, were obliged to carry her. She came to briefly as her head contacted the deadness of the mattress. Black faces hovered above. Some concerned, some angry.

"What the hell-"

"Damn! Damnation! If that man sold me down there's going to be fire!"

"What do you think?"

"Sit her up! She'll come around."

"Yeah. You're the doctor! Get by..."

"Slap her!"

"No. Leave it! It's alright. Get by! I'll fix it."

All the faces cleared away but one.

"I'll fix it."

Carlen took flight.

* * *

The very next thing she knew was an impulse like an electric shock and she was wide awake, staring at the ceiling, the caustic stench of smelling salts burning her nostrils.

"You going to die?" the Dealer asked, capping the salts.

"You're asking me?"

"You're the only one knows for sure."

"Not unless you kill me, I guess," Carlen said, pulling up on her elbow. The handcuffs were gone, but Carlen noticed the chain had been locked onto the one connected to the wall.

"Now, why would I do that?" the Dealer asked.

He was sitting, cross-legged, at one of two cut down tables he had pushed together to form one L-shaped table around the far corner of the mattress. Amongst a litter of papers, powders, corks and bottles, he was currently engrossed in some process of combinations. Mixing, tasting, mixing, testing, his dry fingers delicately poking into the papers again and again. He looked like he fit the table and this was what Carlen came to know as the 'business end' of the mattress.

He glanced up briefly. The glasses were gone and Carlen searched his eyes for signs of trouble. There seemed to be none.

"Well? Are you?"

"No. I'm not dying."

"That's good," he said emphatically, turning back to his mixing. "That's good, because I traded heavy for you. All Hardchange."

"Hardchange?"

"You never heard that before?"

"Yeah..."

"That's Top Note. Cold Currency. Hardchange. Just like this shit on the table here. That's what you are. Hardchange. Of course they got other meanings for it over there. I expect you know that. But me?" He glanced over at her again. "I Bonded on you. You better not come up short." He turned back to his fiddling and a moment later he held a fuming jar out to her. "Here."

"What's this?"

"Now you don't want to be asking me that. You just trust the Dealerman."

Carlen took the glass reluctantly and gulped the gas as she'd seen it done with, what she hoped, were similar substances. The Dealer smiled broadly and nodded.

Within seconds she became suddenly, starkly aware of every detail of Every Detail in the room. It wasn't a pretty place. And so it began.

* * *

The first day was a terrific strain on Carlen who didn't know what to expect, or when. The whole day she clung to the few inches of mattress she'd sat up on, the rarest feelings and reactions coursing through her. She felt like a time traveler. The Queen on the chess board. First you're here and then you're...

She was in shock. She could not shut down the questions and realizations bombarding her and they caused the shock to deepen.

When the light faded, the Dealer switched on an old electric standard lamp in the corner of the room. Someone came in with food which was dumped on the Dealer's table.

"There's food here," he said over his shoulder.

Carlen suddenly realized how paralyzed she'd been all afternoon. The scene at the table looked inviting. Three people were seated to eat and there was enthusiasm over the food. No one was bothering about her. They hadn't bothered her all day.

Carlen drew herself toward the circle of light created by some candles on the table. The Dealer put something down in front of her. The food wasn't great but she ate everything she was given. Plus a cup of God-awful tea in a plastic cup. Then she faded. Dead asleep.

CHAPTER 44 \- JUMP START

Carlen didn't notice much of anything for three days. Not who came in, not who went out and not what went on. Mainly she slept, and ate, and drank water. Lots of water. She was provided with a can which was kept in the corner by the wall diagonally opposite the Dealer's table. She put off using it for as long as possible and then used it only when the Dealer had no visitors - which wasn't often.

Apart from this, she paid attention to nothing until the night Braidshawk made his first appearance. Not only was it impossible for Carlen to miss noticing this man, it was impossible to ignore the notice he took of her.

To say Braidshawk was large was more than understatement. The man was massive. He filled the doorway of the Dealer's room. Commanded attention just by walking in. And he was no two-bit junker.

Although clad in his own version of street battle dress, he was reasonably clean and his clothes fit well, unusual on a man of his stature. Apparently a figure of some authority, he had clear, sharp, intelligent eyes, and he was obviously close to the Dealer.

"Braidshawk, my man," the Dealer greeted with a grin. "How's it going?"

"Everything's cool," he said with a resonance that matched his size.

"Good to hear. Good to hear."

Braidshawk took a seat on the floor across the table from the Dealer. The Dealer was ferreting around in an enormous wooden box he kept to the right of him, on the table at the end of the mattress. It was similar to the box he had given the Whipmaster, although not quite as large.

"This the new jade?" Braidshawk inquired.

"Yeah. Yeah," the Dealer said with enthusiasm.

"How long you had her?"

"Couple of days."

"You waited a long time for her."

"Yeah," the Dealer chuckled. "Well, he said it took some doing to get her 'oriented'."

Braidshawk nodded slowly without smiling. He was looking at Carlen. Hard. It made her wish the shawl was about ten layers thicker.

"She looks alright. You satisfied with her?"

"Yeah. Been no trouble, so far," the Dealer reported, looking around at her. "Though she ain't said or done nothing much, yet."

"You haven't tried her?"

"No. She needs time to settle in some." He chuckled again. "I don't think she's figured out what's happened yet."

"He probably didn't tell her," Braidshawk said.

"Yeah. Probably." The Dealer had laid four powder lines out on the table. He proffered a small carved ivory tube to the other man. "You want some of this?"

Braidshawk took the tube, snorted two lines up and handed the tube back to the Dealer who took the other two himself. "Oh yeah!" he exclaimed on a gasp. "Mighty nice. Migh-ty nice. What do you think?"

"It's good. Better than the last. How much you got?"

"All you want, man. The lines came clear."

"Glad to hear it. I'll take two K's."

"Okay. You want it now?"

"No hurry."

The Dealer nodded, set up four more lines and took the first two himself. "What else you need?"

"Everything. Thorazine, Penethol, Mescaline."

"Can do. Can do. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Cantharis, if you can do it."

"Whoa! Hea-vy."

"Yeah, well. One of the den mothers wants to spike out some reluctance."

"I'll say!"

"It's okay if you can't do it."

"No. I can do it. Take a couple of days, though."

"That's fine."

"It's going to cost," the Dealer warned.

"That's alright. Oh, and the man on Hill Street wants some ludes, if you've got them."

"I got rolls."

"That'll do, but I want powder on the rest. As usual."

"Okay, man. Busy days."

"Yeah, well the trade's been heavy. A lot of new blood."

"That's good news. Keeps things quiet."

Braidshawk gave half a nod, like he only half agreed. He took the tube, drew up the remaining two lines and sat back, his eyes on Carlen again. "You going to give me a look at this mink?"

"Yeah! Sure." The Dealer glanced around at Carlen. "Lose the cloth, jade. Let the man have a look at you."

Carlen didn't move.

"Hey! You hear me, girl?" he said with an edge Carlen dared not ignore.

She dropped her eyes in agonizing embarrassment and slowly pulled the corners of the shawl off her shoulder, allowing it to fall around her. The Dealer reached over and pulled it away. Carlen could feel the other man's eyes all over her.

"She looks pretty good," he remarked after a moment.

"Yeah. But she ought to be, the price the bastard wanted for her."

"You'll be the envy of the Sector."

"Yeah," the Dealer grinned. "I expect I will. She's supposed to be the best in the city."

"I believe that."

The Dealer turned back to the table. "You want some more of this?"

"No. I want to stay clear. I've got business to do tonight."

"Sure. I'll get your stuff." The Dealer got up and left the room.

While he was gone Carlen didn't look up, didn't move. She was sure Braidshawk was watching her and she thought she'd never felt so utterly naked in her life. She considered reaching for the shawl but the Dealer had left it too far away. She'd have to crawl over to get it and she didn't want to do that. So she just sat there, paralyzed with embarrassment, wishing to hell the Dealer would hurry up and bring the man's goods so he would leave.

Yet, in another minute, Carlen sorely regretted her decision not to break for that shawl. Two more men came into the room preceded by Will and followed by Bodeen, the Dealer's two bodyguards. And, not long after, two more came. The Dealer came back, Braidshawk left and the party began.

The new visitors all knew each other and were congenial enough company, except for one man, who was distinctly broody. One look at him and Carlen recognized him plainly enough. His type, at least.

His was the kind of personality Carlen privately referred to as "Cold Black". A Negro who had never adjusted to being black, but carried his color around like a barricade and wielded it like a weapon. This was a man who hated the rich, hated the poor, hated Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians alike. Most of all, he hated Caucasians. Carlen suspected these were feelings he'd harbored long before the Conflict had destroyed whatever decent racial relations had developed in the country after three hundred years of struggle. It was a bitter, parasitic distrust he would carry to a lonely, neglected grave.

These men had not come to score big, like Braidshawk, but only to load up big and party a while. Carlen came to see that the Penthouse, as it was most commonly called, was not only an outlet but also a popular social center. The Dealer was something of a diplomat and, unlike the Whipmaster, he enjoyed a lot of company and a good time - for the right price.

By the time this group had assembled and settled down it was too late to grab for the shawl. Besides, the Dealer had landed on it when he resumed his seat and Carlen was not game to ask him to get off it. So she sat rigid, now cursing her timidity in front of Braidshawk, and tried to maintain a front of invisibility.

"Now. What can I do for you gentlemen?" the Dealer inquired expansively.

"Ecstasy, baby. Ecstasy!" one of them oozed.

"Uh-huh. Could have guessed that," the Dealer said, turning to the next man. "You too?"

"Yeah. Me too."

"That make three?"

"Not me. I want the colors tonight."

"Okay and fine," the Dealer said. "I've got just the thing for you. Now - what's everybody got to offer for all this pleasure?"

The first man smacked a handful of change on the table. The Dealer nodded. The second laid down about one third that amount.

"That's not enough," the Dealer told him.

There was an awkward silence.

"I'll cover him," the first said, throwing more money on the table.

"I'll owe you," the second said quickly.

"You bet you will!" the first assured him.

"I brought the usual," said the third. "It's downstairs."

The Dealer looked up at Will who nodded solemnly.

He never asked the fourth, the Cold one, and he never moved or spoke at all. There was apparently some other arrangement there.

The Dealer collected up the money and turned to his box. "Ecstasy, Ecstasy, Ecstasy," he prattled as he started pulling gear out of the box. "You boys must have some high tension."

"It's mean on those streets," the first man said.

"You don't need to tell me," the Dealer said. "Now, I know you two are shooting partners, so let me set you up first..."

He made a mix, drew it into a hypodermic and shot the first two. He took a second needle out of a box but the third man railed.

"No, man! No needles! Ain't you got something else?"

"Oh yeah. I got everything."

"Pussycat," the first taunted, rubbing his vein.

"Now, now. Don't hassle the man," the Dealer soothed. "Each to his own. Each his own."

The third took his orally.

"I know what you want," the Dealer said to the fourth.

He made up something entirely different for this man and gave him the hypodermic to administer it himself.

"Oh Ecstasy!" the first exclaimed. "Ec-sta-sy!"

The Dealer cleared up the fixings and the men began to talk. After a while he got out a pipe, packed it and they began to smoke.

Over the course of the next hour the men got more stoned, and more talkative, and Carlen just got tired. Braidshawk's visit had somehow drained her and the smoke off that pipe was making her woozy. She figured the men wouldn't notice or care if she just rolled over and went to sleep, which she was right on the verge of doing, but her movement caught the Dealer's eye and he turned.

"Hey jade! Come here. Come sit by the Dealer here."

Reluctantly, Carlen edged a little closer to him. She could see he was very high. He, too, had taken a shot, but she didn't know of what.

As she came into range, he grabbed her arm and pulled her right up beside him. Threw his arm around her. Squeezed.

"What do you think of my girl here?"

"She looks a fine thing."

"High score, Dealer!"

"Wouldn't mind a piece of that myself!"

Laughter.

"I'm surprised he'd give you something that good," the Cold one said, speaking for the first time.

"He got his price," the Dealer said, pawing Carlen's hair and looking at her proudly. "She's good, though."

He touched her face. Grabbed her breast. Carlen involuntarily recoiled.

"She don't look all too willing," the Cold one said with a sardonic smile.

"I expect she's shy yet," the Dealer said, squeezing Carlen tighter. "Haven't had her long. Only three days. She'll warm up."

"Those iceberg Lindy bitches never warm up," the other said rawly.

"I expect she'll be okay," the Dealer said mildly.

"You mean you haven't tried her yet?" the first man asked in astonishment.

"Not yet. Wanted her to accustom herself some."

"My God, man! What are you waiting for?"

"I got that thing in my bed, she'd never sit up for a week!"

"What are you, man? The king of self-control or just plain dead?"

There was another outbreak of raucous laughter. Everyone but the Cold one.

"Just giving her some time to get used to things around here."

"What things?" came the Cold one's brittle reply. "Only thing she got to get used to is the meat you ply her with."

Another outburst of giggling.

"Oh yeah! She's going to love you fine, once she gets a load of the sweet thing you got for her."

The perspiration was forming rivers down Carlen's rib cage.

"You boys making me hot now, all this crude talk, and you'll embarrass the lady," the Dealer chuckled.

"Do her good," said the nasty one. "Put a flush of color in that pale skin."

"Yeah," the second remarked. "She's sure pale, alright."

"You hot now, Dealer, why don't you try her?" the first suggested.

The Dealer chuckled. "No."

"Break her now, Dealer," the Cold one goaded with sinister persuasion. This one would do anything to see a White person hurt, Carlen was sure.

The others were more than keen.

"Yeah man! Give us a show! I can see you're ready."

"More than ready, I'll bet, waiting on that for three days!"

The Dealer laughed amiably, unhanded Carlen and lit another smoke. This one he offered to Carlen first, but she begged off, so he handed it over to one of the others.

Things fell quiet for a while and Carlen was just beginning to relax when the Dealer turned a scrutinizing look on her. She could sense the others freeze in anticipation and, next thing, the Dealer got to his feet, dropped his pants and Carlen got the first view of her new roommate.

She would have crawled up the dude's rear and out his mouth, if he'd only asked, but it didn't work out that way. He had some ass of his own in mind and, a second later, he threw her face down, fell on her and rent her before she could say two words about it. Her shouts should have put a crack in the wall.

Good fortune processed the encounter in three and three-quarters minutes to the serenade of hoots and howls from the other men. Carlen was left with only the echo of the Dealer's playful "Let's go!" in her ears and the question of whether it would have been significantly different if he'd taken a moment to ask her if she was ready.

When at last she peeled herself off the mattress and crawled to the can there was blood. Lots of it and, for the first time since the entire ordeal began, Carlen felt a whole lot like a ruin.

* * *

The next morning there was more blood. Carlen stuck a wadded tissue against the wound and sat in grim silence by the wall, watching the Dealer who was already up and hard at work, weighing and bagging a mountain of white powder he'd dumped on the table. After a while he glanced around.

"You awake-huh? Good. Get your rump over here and help me with this," he said.

Carlen scowled and dragged herself over to the table.

"You see what I'm doing here?"

"Yes."

"Good. You can lend a hand."

He plopped one of the filled bags down in front of her. Carlen picked it up and began folding the top of the bag over. After a few minutes he looked up briefly. Carlen's mood was plainly evident.

"What's the matter with you today?"

"Nothing much," she said. "You just busted me up, that's all."

He glanced up sharply. "Who did?"

"You did. Last night."

The Dealer looked her up and down. "I never hit you."

Carlen could see by his eyes that he did not recall the incident specifically.

"No," she said gruffly. "You didn't hit me."

She went back to the wrapping and, as the Dealer watched her, it dawned on him suddenly what she'd been talking about. He picked up the stapler and set it down in front of Carlen, a little heavily. "He was supposed to have you ready," he said in a tight voice.

Carlen had a sudden sense of foreboding. "Hey," she said. "Don't worry about it. I'm ready now. You just took me by surprise, that's all."

The Dealer's anger melted into a satiric smile. "You come over here, after all that time in the compound with him, and tell me you're surprised? That's a good one, Lindy!"

Carlen smiled lamely, sick inside. "You just have more to offer than I expected, I guess."

The Dealer laughed. "More than him, you mean?" He laughed again. He was flattered.

* * *

Talking with him was surprisingly difficult. It had been a long a time since Carlen had really interacted with anyone but the Whipmaster and her style of communication had fallen into distinctive patterns.

She quickly discovered relating to the Dealer was going to be a different prospect altogether. The man's intellectual processes differed significantly from those of the Master and Carlen had trouble grasping the curve of his understanding.

Carlen was aware the Dealer would be experiencing similar feelings of strangeness with her but she knew he'd be less subordinate to them. He didn't have to worry about impressing her. He was Master here and she was his slave. The onus was on her to please or impress in any way she could.

It wasn't all that hard, at first. He was nowhere near as demanding as the Whipmaster. Not physically and certainly not mentally. She had only to stay in tune with his need of her and, otherwise, cause no trouble.

Not to say there was ever any doubt about his authority over her. The assumption of this was as casual as it was irksome. Carlen did her best to anticipate, translate and appease every whim, but the man was no more predictable than the Whipmaster had been, although the reasons for it were entirely different.

She wasn't altogether sure how to go about winning his trust, or his grace, and part of her rebelled at the very idea. She harbored a violent resentment at being dropped into this intimate domestic condition with a total stranger - like some secret betrothal. The Whipmaster had given her the ring, but she was actually wedded to this guy. Very complicated world these people had created.

The major demand, the sex, was abysmal. Agony, actually. Carlen could not make the adjustment but she stubbornly went on accepting the Dealer's unreasonable abuse - partly because she assumed it was expected of her, and partly because she was so uncertain of him yet. Mostly, though, it was fear. The fear that the Dealer would find cause to reject her, a disgrace she could not afford to risk. But Carlen was like a blind man stumbling in the dark and there were a lot of things about the situation she did not see or realize yet.

She reminded herself of the pain and frustration she'd suffered at the hands of the Whipmaster. Ultimately, the acceptance of these things had, in part, become the comfort of that situation. But the comfort of this man's pain was no comfort she could seat for long. He came in from a meeting one day to catch Carlen in tears. Like any normal man, he reacted with embarrassment, that is to say, anger.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing."

"Don't tell me nothing, girl. I don't want no moody, weeping woman here. Stop that crying."

"I can't stop the bleeding."

"What bleeding's that?"

"You keep hurting me... I can't take it anymore."

"You can't take it-huh? Well, you better get yourself together, bitch, and quit worrying about what I do."

They were the first really sharp words he'd said to her. Carlen sat up and quickly wiped her eyes, forgetting the tissue she'd been clutching against the wound.

The Dealer had taken off his belt and boots and was settling down at the table. He perched first on his knees to make several transfers into and out of the box before he sat down, cross-legged, and started mixing.

Carlen watched him without really seeing him, suddenly thought of the tissue and snatched it up. She'd already decided not to say one more mother-fucking word about it when he spoke, startling her.

"You bleeding-huh?"

"Yes. Every day."

"I don't touch you every day."

"I'm aware of that. That's why I'm concerned," she said, trying to sound reasonable.

"Concerned," he repeated with a cynical smirk. "Yeah, you should be concerned."

He was scaring her again.

"There are other ways I can serve you."

"You bet there are, Lindy," he said, a little roughly.

"All I meant was - you paid for a woman, but you..."

"I what?"

"I only wish you'd use me like a woman sometimes, instead of a boy."

He looked straight at her. "Your ass, you mean?"

"You're ruining me."

"You could have said that," the Dealer said.

"You understand me."

He turned back to his mix. "Yeah. I understand you alright."

Carlen was watching his fingers. Those dry, clever fingers. She couldn't tell at all how he was taking this, but she was suddenly afraid she'd made a very grave mistake.

"Look-" she said, prickling with fear. "I apologize."

The room was very quiet. It was sunset.

He smiled. "You do-huh?"

"I spoke out of turn."

"Well, you got that right, newblood."

"I meant no disrespect," she said softly.

"I hope not."

Silence fell between them and Carlen assumed the dialogue was closed. The Dealer went on with his fixing and Carlen sat, imprisoned by the silence. Her stomach growled. It was time to turn on the light.

"Some of these jades don't give a shit what happens to them," the Dealer said.

Carlen looked up. "Well, I do give a shit."

"Seems like."

Carlen was kneading that wad of bloody tissue to pulp in her sweaty hand. "I only want to be the best for you I can," she said.

It was nearly dark. The Dealer struck a match and lit a single candle on the table. "You good with words, anyway," he said.

He put the finishing touches to his preparations and, when he sat up at last, Carlen didn't know what would happen.

"Come on over here. Smoke some of this good shit."

Carlen edged over to the end of the table.

"You done any smoking?"

"Yes."

"Oh yeah? What'd you smoke?"

"Cigarettes."

"Cigarettes! Is that so?"

"Yes."

"Serious lady! To-bac-co," he said, reaching a long arm back into his box. "Got some of that, too." He tossed a pack of tailor-mades on the table in front of her. "Your brand?"

"Ah..."

"No? Never mind. Smoke those. We'll get yours in."

Carlen couldn't quite believe it but she took a cigarette and allowed him to light it for her. He leaned back against the far table and proffered the packed pipe to Carlen with a huge, leering grin. "You like hashish, lady?"

Carlen edged a little closer, smoked her cigarettes, and the Dealer's hash, and everything was fine.

Carlen was encouraged by the swing in his mood and the gift of the cigarettes. It seemed he was not particularly anxious to find fault with her and that was a positive sign. Maybe things here would not have to be as hard as she first imagined.

No verbal agreement was ever struck regarding the other matter but, the next time he turned to her, his hand on his fly and that look in his eyes, Carlen was at his side in a second. The man froze in surprise as Carlen reached forward carefully, folded back the material with her hand and ducked her head.

The Dealer was not the cleanest man in the world but Carlen didn't allow that to prevent her from laying claim to his sensibilities.

* * *

Carlen made only one serious mistake during those first few weeks in Blacktown. It wasn't in the least deliberate and the Dealer completely misread the incident.

Things had been going pretty smoothly and Carlen had managed to keep the Dealer from getting behind her. She was allowed to keep the shawl around her most of the time, although the aroma of the cloth was now rich with scents, hers and the Dealer's, and spots of blood.

It was a temperate day, quiet and lazy, not much going on. Carlen hardly took notice when the Dealer got up from the mattress, put on his boots, belt, vest, and hat, then came and crouched over the linklock adjoining the two chains. The next thing she knew, the chain came free and she was being yanked by the neck, toward the end of the mattress.

"What's this!"

"We're going out," the Dealer said, still pulling.

"Going out?"

Carlen was trying to grasp his meaning and the shawl, which she'd left off that morning to air.

"Come on. You want to go, don't you?"

"Ah - yeah! Sure..."

Carlen scrambled in awkward haste across the mattress, dragging the shawl behind.

"Where we going?"

It took two pushes to gain her stance on the floor. She dropped the shawl. Pulled against the lead to retrieve it.

"Promenade," the Dealer said.

They met up with Will and Bodeen downstairs and the four of them stepped out into the afternoon. And promenade was just what they did.

They left the rubble lot, heading into the northwestern corner of town. Here the sidewalks glittered, as though strewn with diamonds, a carpeting of shattered glass that had never been swept away. The men walked the middle of the streets for which Carlen was grateful. They all wore boots but she was still barefoot.

By now she had the shawl arranged the way she normally wore it anymore, wrapped around under both arms and tucked in at the front. Except for her shoulders, she could cover herself almost completely with it. All the same, it was a pretty rare feeling to be paraded through the streets of Blacktown arrayed and chained as she was.

The walk was easy and they saw no one. The Dealer didn't seem to mind what Carlen did but mostly she was content to stick quietly behind him, carefully dodging the odd bit of glass underfoot. It was unusually warm for the time of year and the streets had a unique yellow hue, lent partly by the color of the buildings in the area.

Yes, it was a unique hour in a unique day and Carlen was uniquely happy to be a part of it. Nobody spoke. There was only the sound of the men's boots against the dry, gritty pavement.

As they proceeded along, Carlen became aware of the whisper of a sound up ahead. She was listening to it before she consciously acknowledged hearing it, and she knew what it was before she consciously listened.

Carlen understood nothing of moth psychology. She could never fathom why the moth, its precious wings singed again and again by the flame it longed to embrace, had never learned to distinguish between a safe and an obviously self-destructive situation.

Yet Carlen did not pause at that moment to consider the plight of the moth. There was only this irrepressible excitement, mounting with every step that brought them closer to the source of that enchanting sound. She was sure her instincts about the sound were true but she was afraid to believe the message. She turned her head to the echo, which seemed to bounce and change direction as they drew nearer.

It was very close now. Across the street. No, here. Here! That building. No... That one!

Carlen stopped short, wheeled suddenly, and broke for the curb. The Dealer turned in question as the chain wrenched from his loose grasp but Carlen was already gone. Will and Bodeen watched in slack-jawed disbelief as she sprinted away, disappearing into a building a few yards back.

"Well, get her, you fools!" the Dealer shouted and Will and Bodeen took off running.

Carlen found herself in a narrow brick passageway that led her around in a maze-like configuration. A dark, cool place, and damp. She emitted small gasps of discouragement, her hands running along the wall as her feet ran along the ground. She was lost. She'd come into the wrong place!

She came to a T-junction, quickly chose the left passage and ran on, the end of the chain skipping along the ground behind her. She'd forgotten the chain. Forgotten Will, Bodeen and the Dealer. All she knew was a crushing disappointment which, an instant later, turned to shocks of ecstasy. At the end of the corridor, three shafts of light cut in through the roof above. A broken pipe hung in that light, blatantly gushing shining, silver, life giving water onto the slick, mossy green cement.

With a shriek of rapture, Carlen leapt into the downfall, sacrificing herself to its icy touch. She shuddered, face up-turned, the water pounding her. How long it had been! How very long -

The next thing, she was choking in an echo chamber of noise as she was sucked, backwards, through the maze and out, onto the hot yellow street. She nearly fell as Will shoved her toward the Dealer, and she lifted her face to receive the ringing slap he dealt her. She staggered. Will and Bodeen moved in close behind. Someone picked up the chain.

Carlen couldn't see the Dealer's eyes behind his dark glasses but she could read the set of mouth plainly enough.

"Get that shawl up around you."

Carlen groped for the shawl, now wet and heavy, and pulled it back into position.

"Real bad move, newblood," he murmured ominously. "Real bad." Then to Will and Bodeen, "Get this jade upstairs."

The men seized Carlen and marched her back to the Penthouse. Bodeen locked her lead to the wall chain and, when the Dealer came in, he dropped the hat, the belt, the glasses and all the restraint he'd shown on the street.

"What the hell was that!"

"Nothing. I swear! I only-"

"You don't try to get away from me, bitch!"

"I wasn't-"

"You tell me lies, hag, and you'll see where you end up!" He turned away, kicking at the piles of clothing and refuse on the floor. "Where's that wire? I had some wire here, someplace..."

He snatched up an old leather belt and came after her with that. He attacked with unrestrained fury, entirely unconcerned with where he struck her or how hard. Carlen protected herself as well as possible, brutally aware that, unlike the Whipmaster, this man was an amateur, which made him extremely dangerous.

When at last he was satisfied, he tossed the belt back into the rubble. "Now maybe I begin to see why he beat you that way," he said.

Carlen raised her head cautiously but recoiled as he stepped toward her, his finger pointed in menace. "You don't go out anymore!"

Whoa!

* * *

Carlen was still cowered into the wall, burning, when the sun went down. Will turned on the light. Some junkers came in. The Dealer loaded them up. Things were quiet. Carlen hadn't moved.

"Hey there, girl," the Dealer called, without turning. "You won't be sitting back there, all sulky. I don't expect you to come apart on me. Come sit up here."

Carlen didn't want to go over there, or anywhere near him, but he'd made her the center of attention. She wasn't anxious to cause another scene, especially in company, so she drew over to the end of the table. To the Dealer's left hand. The position she was more and more often called upon to assume.

"You got to get on track, jade. You know that." Real soft and low. "You're smart. You've figured out the Dealer's got a cure for every malady..." Just mixing and fixing. Dry stuff, wet stuff. "I can cure the blues, baby."

He turned to her, a benign smile on his face. With his left hand he took her arm, in the right was the hypodermic.

Carlen's first inclination was to wrench away. The Dealer's grip tightened. "You don't want to backslide now, do you?"

Carlen was terrified, outraged, but she didn't pull back. She knew well enough what he was talking about. That's why she sat there, only inwardly screaming, as he eased the needle into her vein...

YOU EVER BEEN STRUNG OUT?

...and jacked the load into her.

When it was done, he took her wrist and bent her arm up to her chest. "The Dealerman set you straight."

Carlen nodded faintly.

The moment was past. The men forgot about her. She sat tight, pretending attention, waiting for something drastic to happen.

After a while, she experienced an intensive flush of heat, but that was all. Nothing.

Only, a little while after that, she was feeling better. A lot better. The cloud of depression lifted, the pain disappeared and, although she was not exactly euphoric, she was feeling reasonably sensible.

It felt good. It felt healthy. She felt about ready to conquer a new day and she was thankful.

She was thankful.

CHAPTER 45 \- GOINGS ON

The men were highly suspicious of Carlen following the water incident. Carlen wanted badly to explain to the Dealer but she dared not broach the subject immediately and, for the next couple of weeks, she conducted herself with absolute censure.

She was still self-conscious of the way the Dealer and the others looked at her sometimes, and frightened to death of his needles, but she kept an eye on things and she came to believe, at least in some ways, this set up was probably safer for her than her position at the Zoo. By now it was clear she had been groomed, in particular, for the exchange with the Dealer who, by his account, paid dearly for her and waited for the privilege to do so. She was his. Acquired through power. Part of his presentation and his position. A valuable symbol of his power. This was more than she had been to the Whipmaster. Or, was that strictly so? Either way, it was the first time she'd been given credit for it.

There was gold in these bleak realities and, overall, he was pretty lenient with her. He didn't seem to care how she sat, or how she ate, of if she ate. He cared where she sat, sometimes, and she ate, like everyone else, when there was food.

He didn't tell her when to speak, what to say or how to react. She had to learn for herself, as she had before - the hard way.

He gave her more freedom - and left her alone more often, either away or involved on business or altogether crashed.

And he didn't interrogate or corner her the way the Whipmaster had, always trying to find out how it was with her, although their conversations took off on spooky tangents sometimes.

All the same, the adjustment was hard for Carlen. A goldfish bowl existence she found uncomfortable and demeaning. Every time the Dealer touched her she felt uneasy. She didn't like the constant audience and she didn't like being the only White person. Her pale skin stood out like a banner in the dingy decor.

And she didn't like a lot of the men who came around there. Not the sort you would take home to mother. And not all of them Black.

There was Braidshawk, of course. Outside the Dealer, he was the biggest mover in Blacktown. But he was more than that. He was the Boss of Blacktown. The Dealer was the Man, Lord of Blacktown, but Braidshawk was the Boss. He had a handle on everyone's lead. He wasn't a man for idle gossip but, when he did speak, he was direct, frank, articulate and, Carlen suspected, highly intelligent. And he had power. Lots of it. He ran the streets of Blacktown for the Dealer. Whatever other bullshit might break out, Braidshawk was there to insure little to none of it was drug related.

The Women's Sector ran on fear. The Men's Sector ran on drugs. There were a hell of a lot of strung out people in Blacktown and they were more than amply supplied. The overdosers overdosed and the addicts went on forever, kept cool under the wide-spread wing of Braidshawk and the Penthouse. Dope was relatively cheap and plentiful and the system kept the peace - relatively well.

For a long time Carlen was far too intimidated to come forward or open her mouth around Braidshawk. She knew he would never touch her so long as she belonged to the Dealer. The Dealer did not lend or wager his jade. All the same, she sensed something there. Something assumed. She didn't think he'd hurt her but she figured he'd hunt down and kill anyone who tried to. He'd do that - for the Dealer. What he would do if the Dealer wasn't around might be another story entirely.

The third major power in the Men's Sector also happened to be a customer of the Dealer's. Another drug distributor. Jack Hos was a Canadian. He was King in Southtown, the White section of the Men's Sector, or "White City", as the Blacks preferred to call it.

Few people were permitted to sit in the room alone with the Dealer and Carlen. Braidshawk and Jack Hos were two of them. When the men were in the room together, there was tension.

Carlen was encouraged by the sight of another white face but she quickly realized this was not a man she would seek close contact with. He stood about six two; crewed head; unwashed denim pants; denim vest which refused to close over his well padded stomach; studded belt and wrist band; black, shit-kicking boots and a stained tee-shirt that hugged around him like a skin disease.

He was a temperamental S.O.B., a real red mentality, with nothing on his mind but squeezing the best price and getting the hell out of Blacktown. He moved with abrading arrogance, laughed loudly, but Carlen saw it right away. The man was crazy. Mean and two-faced as they come. A gambler.

Carlen took an automatic interest in Jack Hos. Not at all for his own sake, but for that of the young man who companioned him. Apollo was a gaunt creature with a shock of shoulder length honey blonde hair. Even draped in an oversized shirt and tight denim pants, he carried himself with an air of regal grace. He was almost beautiful, but his hazel eyes were bereft of life and there was a cruel curvature to his sensuous mouth. Carlen very nearly succumbed to intimidation in the face of his haughty superiority until she realized it was the veneer worn by a man who clung with unyielding desperation to a pride and dignity long ago lost. His fey emaciation was a brutal contrast to Jack Hos' coarseness.

Apollo was Jack Hos' boy. Accompanied him everywhere - by the chain strung between the collar on his neck and an iron ring on Jack Hos' belt. The collar he wore was iron. Heavy Trade. Male Trade. More specifically, "Walking Trade". A notch above Carlen's position.

This creature was a thing of intrigue to Carlen but intrigued wasn't all she was. Jack Hos was neither decent nor restrained in his use of Apollo. He treated him roughly, used him badly, often misused him just for show. Some strange things went on at the Penthouse, but Carlen's introduction to this couple stuck in her mind with unwelcome clarity for a long time.

Jack Hos had a way of walking in like he owned the place. The Dealer was polite but cool. Cooler than usual.

"Your order's ready."

"Yeah. Willy-boy showed me. Looks okay."

The Dealer carefully counted every cent Jack Hos dumped on the table. It was a big order.

"Set me up now, will you? I got a big game. Want to be primed."

The Dealer nodded, cleared the money off the table and turned to the box.

Carlen was distracted by Apollo. The sight of that collar and chain blew her withered thoughts into a whirlpool of speculation. This was the first piece of Trade Carlen had seen since the Zoo. It hadn't even occurred to her there might be male Trade in the Men's Sector.

Jack Hos was talking, demanding all the attention in the room. He frightened her. Repulsed her. She wished he would leave - yet - not before she could drink her fill of his young companion.

"What did you pay for that?" Jack Hos asked, abruptly fixing a look on Carlen.

"That's not public knowledge," the Dealer said smoothly.

"Is it any good?"

"It's excellent," the Dealer said with a lean streak of superiority.

"What does it do?"

"Everything."

"What about a demo?"

"Everything but demos."

Carlen was starting to shake inside.

The Dealer poised the tube over the table. Jack Hos snatched it from his hand and ducked forward. The Dealer sat back, serenely watching. He had set up four powder lines, two tablets, four red capsules and Jack Hos gulped the lot in less than four seconds. Some constitution.

"What about your boy, here? You want a set-up for him?"

"Yeah. Give him a shock tonight. We're flush."

"You been winning."

"Streaking."

The Dealer nodded over the fix he was prepping for Apollo. "I hope your luck holds," he said.

"It's all in the dealing."

"One man's guess, I suppose."

"You're holding the best cards, you know it," Jack Hos said. "You know it."

The Dealer shrugged, proffered the loaded hypodermic to Jack Hos who shot Apollo himself. In the rear.

Carlen thought the whole scene was a little sick but she was flat out appalled when Jack Hos seized Apollo by the neck one night and forced him to go down, right there. He was absurdly rough with the boy who, somehow, managed to bring Jack Hos on and end the unsavory exhibition. He tossed Apollo off like wastepaper, at the same time boasting on the boy's apparent expertise.

Apollo regained his seat, a position not unlike Carlen's, and said nothing. Carlen was watching him, though not overtly, but he didn't look up. And, most especially, he never looked at Carlen.

* * *

The only female Trade Carlen saw up at the Penthouse was a jade called Fox. Fox was property of not one, but three men. Nillen, Angel and Flowers. All Angloids. None of them in the least as gentle as their names. But then, by comparison to most of the men who came to the Penthouse, they really weren't such bad guys. Basically, they were fun loving rogues. Young, healthy. Not into anything in particular. They traded what they could lay hands on for whatever they needed and, mostly, just toured the streets of White City, looking for something to amuse them.

None of them were especially imposing entities, at least physically. Angel was the smallest, only about five six, but powerfully built. Nillen was the biggest, six foot, perhaps, but also the shortest on brain power.

Flowers, evidently named for the color and flamboyance of his costume, was obviously the guts and motivation of the group. Slim, like the others, about five ten with a quick manner and alert eyes. He had an easy smile which apparently camouflaged an active urge to fight - and the cold determination to win.

All three men had fingers missing - now, apparently, the dubious property of the NCL, and one of Nillen's ears was half sliced away, although that wound still looked pretty raw.

"Hell, man. What happened to you?" the Dealer asked him.

"Some fucking punks tried to waylay the jade," Flowers told him.

"We wasted them," Angel said.

"Good," the Dealer said. "Can't have that shit going down."

"Damn right," Flowers concurred.

"You know who they were?"

"No. Nobody I ever saw before."

"Were five or six of them, though," Nillen said.

"Six," Angel stipulated. "And we wasted them. Fuckers."

"It was close, though," Nillen said.

"Close for them," Angel said.

How these three ever got up the scratch to pay for Fox in the first place was anybody's guess, but one thing was clear. The streets of the Men's Sector were dangerous for Walking Trade - especially if it happened to be female. Apparently these boys were a good tight fighting unit which was probably the only way they were able to hang on to Fox.

As for Fox - well, Fox was a little fragged. One thing about her, though. She sure was horny. She took care of all three of those boys - with change to spare. A stone cold junker, but she was active and kind of funny sometimes.

She was a little thing, quite young with a head of black shaggy hair and crazy blue eyes. They had her dressed in a tight, black tank top, tight denims and sneakers. On her arm was the tattoo of a three pronged spinning spiral, a symbol which Carlen saw repeated on Angel's arm.

Fox had a certain rough and ready charm of her own. She was a little reckless and crazy, and not especially bright, but she was quite feminine and apparently not afraid of revealing her femininity. A very rare quality these days. And she seemed to like the men who owned her.

The men were obviously fond of her and very protective. Carlen didn't need to feel sorry for her. Fox was doing okay. Not all that far left of her natural environment. A product of her times.

* * *

They were stimulating days. Everyone who was anyone in the Sector came up to the Penthouse. Some were White. Most were Black. Some were Traders. The independent Traders in the Men's Sector were called Capitals. That is, the ones with the wealth and position. Many of the people who came were junkers of varying degrees, many were distributors. Many were punks, and some were gang members - the men's version of Territorial behavior in the Women's Sector. Some were Veterans, though very few, and all of them were Black.

Others were aligned, with jobs of various descriptions, and a few were Specialists. "Speakers" or "Voices", as they were sometimes called, were the elite of the Runners and usually they serviced only select parties of two, maybe three. For instance, if the Dealer wished to communicate with the Whipmaster, he would send a man who carried a verbatim message to only the ears of the Whipmaster. The Voice between these two, in fact, was a guy named Garen. An Angloid. He came around quite frequently, but he never delivered a message and the Dealer never sent one.

Speakers of rank were the most highly specialized people in the city. They did nothing more than relay messages when necessary and for this they were kept on handsome retainers. Speakers of lesser rank were often no more than glorified snitches.

Other Specialists included knife or gun makers - such as the Cold Black dude Carlen met her third night in Blacktown. And there were the Contractors. The ones who wielded the knives and guns, for a price.

It was all quite an insight for Carlen. Everything in the Men's Sector seemed to revolve around the Dealer but he rarely interfered with non-drug related business. He kept himself pretty exclusive, allowing Braidshawk to handle most of the heavy front work. Occasionally he went out to deal with particular matters, but mostly he stayed in the building where he serviced the select group who were allowed upstairs to see him personally, and the masses on the street, who were serviced by the network of distributors of lesser rank.

The Dealer could supply just about anything on The List of Forbidden Substances - and that was a long list. He could supply most of those substances in just about any form, too. He imported a great deal of prepared and packaged pharmaceuticals, but the bulk of his merchandise he manufactured or distilled right on the premises. And he had something for everyone.

Anything that could be smoked, snorted, sucked, chewed, dropped, inhaled, inserted, injected, or dermically absorbed. He had pills, capsules, powders, tabs, granules, flakes, crystals, liquids, syrups, seltzers, salves, herbs, flowers, fungi, barks, and roots. You could have your shocks administered by needle, gas, tape, roll up, suppository, or merely by tipping a cup to your lips.

You could get drugs for enjoyment, relaxation, light headedness, or lightheartedness. Drugs for the pain of headache, toothache, backache, infection, broken bones, amputations, or venereal disease. Drugs to induce strength or weakness. Alertness or unconsciousness. Bravery or cowardice. Drugs to expand the mind or limit thought. Drugs to induce aggression, depression, paranoia, or fear. Drugs for escape. Drugs for manipulation of subordinates. Drugs that could make a person do or say anything. Anything in the world.

These people were crazy. Just about everyone was stoned just about all the time. That, or coming down. None of them were really themselves, any of the time. They operated on some abnormal frequency and, therefore, could not be viewed as anything but abnormal. Subnormal.

The people were lost. They were insane - and they were frighteningly alive, some of them. It was an ugly, painful world, full of passions and unrealized dreams. They'd had the rug pulled out from under them, and that's what life in Blacktown was like. That tiny instant of flight as you are jerked off your position and caught in mid-air.

Men without women. Mm-mm.

The Penthouse was a busy place. There was a surprising amount to do when things were running heavy. The Dealer had Carlen help him with the packaging sometimes but, apart from that and only occasional sex, usually at someone's else's instigation, Carlen had little to do with it or the Dealer during those early days.

The continual ebb and flow of people gave Carlen a pretty good view of the Dealer's social persona, but she hardly knew him personally at all. She was sort of a non-person herself, largely ignored if not needed for work or to be gawked at. She felt alienated and unsure of herself. It was a lonely existence. Frightening - and pointless.

But the people weren't the only thing that made Carlen uncomfortable. She felt ill-at-ease in the surroundings as well. The Dealer's room was a slum. There was no plumbing in there. No amenities of any kind. Carlen owned nothing, except the gradually deteriorating shawl, her present pack of cigarettes and, of course, the Whipmaster's ring. She wasn't given anything but insufficient, inadequate food, and water and, every once in a while, an injection.

The conditions were intolerable, bordering on dangerous, and Carlen was reaching critical mass. She thought she'd better do something - something besides clench her teeth and go on trying to bathe in her drinking water. She had better find a way to approach the Dealer.

She waited until very late one night, when everyone was gone and she was alone with him, assisting with some last minute packaging. The way the days had been going, she wondered how she was still, so to speak, "on her feet". Strangely though, she felt alert and reasonably with it. The Dealer had spiked her earlier in the evening and perhaps that had helped.

She waited a long time, too, to seize her moment. She was a little cold with fear.

"About the other week..." she began, trying to sound casual.

"What week's that?"

"I wanted to explain why I broke..."

"You were trying to run."

"No! I wasn't."

"Uh-huh. I'm surprised you'd bring that up."

"I wanted to explain."

"Explain what?"

"It was the water. That's all."

"Water?"

"You haven't given me any water since I got here."

"You get water."

"I mean bath water. I need to keep clean."

"You do-huh?"

"You don't want me to get sick, do you?"

"You won't get sick."

"Maybe you don't understand... Women have to keep themselves clean. You don't allow me to bathe and there's no telling what could develop. Could be something you might pick up."

"You want baths."

"Just a basin of clean water. Every second day, or so. Keep it right here in the corner."

"A basin-huh?"

"And a towel."

"A towel."

"If there is one."

He made a grunt in his throat.

"If you like, I could wash your clothes for you."

"You saying I'm dirty, now?"

"Not at all. You're a busy man. No time for niceties."

He grinned. "Niceties?"

"I'll get them very clean. Wouldn't you like fresh clothes to put on once in a while?"

"It might be alright."

"...well?"

He forestalled answering and Carlen thought he would refuse. Finally he said, "I'll ask Will to set it up for you."

Carlen sighed. "Thank you."

CHAPTER 46 \- THE GREAT PRETENDER

The basin provided was enamel, old and chipped, but it was an improvement. The towel came a couple of days later and Carlen was finally able to get clean - at least personally.

Generally, though, she was depressed and appalled by the living conditions. She began to wonder if she'd ever see genuine, indoor plumbing again. She hadn't even used a proper toilet since the day she became sick in the Workroom at the Zoo. What an animal she'd become.

But, there was plumbing in the building. She heard it periodically and, despite all the comings and goings, Carlen knew there were other people living there. She never saw them, but she knew there were other rooms on the floor. She also knew that much of the time when the Dealer was 'out', he was not actually out but somewhere else in the building.

It didn't matter one heck of a lot. When they left her alone she was quite alone. Even Will, who was virtually her personal guardian, was not with her all the time and, when he was with her, he treated her as no more than a distrusted prisoner.

The solitude was tough but it was preferable to Will's cold surveillance. Carlen was afraid to do anything when he was watching her. Not that there was anything much to do and this was the most devastating of tortures. The unbreakable, unbearable tedium. After all she'd been through she could certainly appreciate the privacy, but privacy without activity was a breeding ground for thought and Carlen was afraid to think too much.

Her fear of these dead periods overcame her fear of approaching the Dealer. Whatever the outcome, she knew she'd have to fight for herself and her sanity if she was to survive the ordeal of this predicament. She asked him if there might be something around to read.

"Read? No. What for?"

"My brain is going to mush."

"He didn't warn me you had a brain," the Dealer said.

Carlen grimaced. This wasn't going that well. "Then, what about something to write with?"

"You want to write, now?"

"Or draw. Just some scrap paper would do. And a pencil."

"Well, I guess we can do something about that. You can use some of this shit on the table, if you want," he said, shuffling vaguely at a few sheets of the paper he used for wrapping.

He watched Carlen gather the papers as though they were precious documents. "You're a strange jade," he remarked.

"Strange?" she asked, a little nervously.

"You're pretty up front for a Newblood."

"I'm not Newblood," Carlen said tightly.

"You lived in the city, then?"

Carlen's tone altered slightly. "Lived?"

"How long you been in here?"

"What month is it?"

"You don't know what month it is?"

"No."

"April."

"Oh. About ten months, then. Ten or eleven."

"You been in-hand all that time, ain't you?"

"Not strictly speaking."

"You had a scene going?"

"No. Not exactly that either."

"Exactly what?"

"I took up with some girl. Spent too long with her. She turned me over."

"Yeah? Why?"

"I wouldn't go to bed with her."

The Dealer laughed. "Oh yeah! That's really good. Probably more common than you think. Some of these cold bitches would turn their sisters over for a heel of bread."

"Same everywhere, Dealer," Carlen said.

"Yeah," he said. "I guess it is."

The paper the Dealer gave her was actually quite nice. A sort of thick, rough parchment, cut into six inch squares. It folded well. You could wrap anything small in it. The Dealer had several ways that she knew of. Her pencil was ferreted out from the bottom of the Dealer's box. Carlen was satisfied with these things, in fact, elated to get them.

* * *

Carlen was at the table scribbling away with her new 'art materials' several nights later when this real raggy dude came in with a full length, if broken, mirror. Wanted to trade it for some shock treatment.

The Dealer was incredulous. "You want the fiend for that?"

"Yeah, man. Can't you see what this is?"

"What am I going to do with that?"

"Hey, man, whatever! Check out your duds, shave your face, watch you and the jade fuck. It's up to you."

The Dealer chuckled and shook his head. "No. No flight tonight, junior."

They wrangled for ten minutes and finally the dude settled on two flat tops.

"Set the mirror in the corner there," the Dealer said, waving towards the lamp.

Carlen was amused by the transaction. With so many desperate cases in and out it was easy to develop an unsympathetic attitude toward various customers' difficulty in finding suitable things to trade for their hits.

Carlen was coming to see that, for all his power and authority, the Dealer could be a reasonably soft touch. Maybe this was a dangerous thing, but she figured it was probably the one thing which kept the flow reasonably cool and friendly.

Carlen didn't think another thing about that mirror until the next day. She woke up feeling tired and slow witted. She wasn't thinking about the trading, or the men, or the room, or about how much more she and the Dealer needed in order to have a decent lifestyle. She wasn't thinking about the past or what the future would bring, or how complicated life can get.

The Dealer was out. Both Will and Bodeen were gone. The place was quiet as a tomb. Carlen was alone.

She stretched across to pick up some of the Dealer's things to wash, more for something to do than anything else. The Dealer didn't give a damn if she washed his clothes or not, but cleaner clothes did make him slightly easier to live with. Slightly.

At any rate, she had heard somewhere that cleanliness was next to Godliness and, if that were true, then perhaps it followed that a certain spiritual meditation could be found in the act of washing. She'd do it for the sake of patience.

She made use of the clean water for her own bath first, then rinsed out the two shirts she'd been able to reach on the floor. On limited extension, the chain sure didn't stretch very far. She supposed he kept it hitched up short to prohibit her access to his box. As if she'd be messing around in there behind his back.

She hung both shirts from a single nail in the wall, arranging the basin underneath to catch the excess water. The shirts took a long time to dry this way but it didn't matter. The Dealer had plenty of clothes. She considered rinsing out the shawl but decided it would take too long to dry, so she just left it off to air.

She sat on the edge of the mattress near the basin, just watching the shirts drip and, after ten minutes of this, realized what she was doing and quickly swept the room with her eyes for another diversion.

She caught no more than a fleeting glimpse in the mirror and her eyes traveled on - but not far. She turned her gaze back and sat in dumb repose staring at herself, reflected there, staring mutely back.

It didn't occur to her at first what she was seeing. That it was her, Carlen, nearest friend to herself. She thought it might be a portrait. Or a stranger, behind a marred window. One of the girls at the Zoo...

Carlen had never viewed herself as particularly beautiful. She'd been handsome, yes, regular and well groomed... but this. My God, she thought. Let that be some other person. Somebody else!

She crouched there, studying the image. Not the hollow, lifeless eyes, nor the drawn face, nor the emaciated arms, but something else that had now caught her attention. That woman in the mirror had a dark patch on her hip. A smudge or something. She squinted at the reflection. No. Not a smudge. A... pattern?

Carlen inched along the edge of the mattress, sideways. Yes. It was a pattern. A design of some sort. Tattoo, perhaps. That lady had a tattoo on her hip.

That lady is you, her mind whispered, and Carlen chilled suddenly. She pivoted her head slowly around but she could not really see the mark. Must be a fluke of the eyes or the mind which had come out of the Dealer's box, she thought. She reached a hand back and froze when her fingers contacted a rough patch on the skin. She tentatively explored the shape of it, the scope of it, then checked in the mirror again. Yes. That was the exact spot on that woman's hip where the dark patch lay. That tattoo-

Only it wasn't a tattoo.

Carlen rolled away, her guts suddenly clenched like the fists of a gleeful demon. It was a brand. The son of a bitch had branded her! That bastard. Branded her common Trade and now, no matter what happened, that mark would never come off. All this time and she never suspected! All those weeks, washing herself. Why hadn't she noticed it before? How could she not have noticed such a thing?

The rag. She had washed with a rag.

Carlen crawled to the wall where she hung, fists white knuckled around the chain. As though seized by a sudden mania, she thrust her feet against the wall and pulled that chain, grunting and snorting with animal fury.

"That son-of-a, son-of-a-"

She twisted around and hoisted the chain over her shoulder, again levering her feet against the wall, straining fit to rupture herself.

"That son-of-a, son-of-a, son-of-a..."

Then, as abruptly as she'd launched into this frenzy of activity, Carlen's movements suddenly slowed like some character in a cartoon, ultimately winding down to a complete standstill. She dropped to her knees, panting and staring at the doorway where the biggest, ugliest thing that ever walked on two black feet now stood. He was watching her with a very grim eye. Carlen let her hands slide from the chain and placed them in her lap. The monster went away.

So that was it. If Will and Bodeen weren't around there was always Behemoth. Fucking hell. Carlen sighed, her eyes still on the doorway, but her hand was reaching for the chain again. More specifically, the linklock adjoining her lead to the wall chain.

As long as she'd worn them, Carlen had never taken the opportunity to examine one. Marvelous piece of engineering. Stainless steel. Beautifully round. Clean tight, joints. Cold, hard, efficient. Very much the Whipmaster's sort of thing.

These men and their infernal games. Well, if they thought they could hold her any longer with locks and chains...

'You are not confined here by chains. It is my will that keeps you here...'

Yeah? Well, we'll see whose will prevails.

There was a key to this thing somewhere... Carlen's eyes scanned around the room, finally landing on the Dealer's box. That would be the place.

Her suspicions about the placement of that linklock on the wall chain were confirmed the minute Carlen attempted to reach the Dealer's box. Even extended as far as she could go, her hand was still at least two feet shy of the table where the box rested. If she lay down and stretched out she could undoubtedly reach it with her foot, but what use was that?

She sighed again with more force. What then? Well, the lock could be picked - if she had a tool. Her eyes darted around again. The table. Just about everything on this end of it was within reach.

She scrambled over and quickly shuffled through the litter on the table. The keyhole was tiny and deep. She needed something small. About the size of a match stick. No, smaller. A toothpick, but something metal would be better. There was something that came to mind. A small stiletto the Dealer used for burning the impurities off solidified blocks of resin. It might just do the trick. But where was it?

Carlen searched again but turned up neither the stiletto nor another object suitable to the task. She slumped in frustration. All the junk on this table and that would be the one thing he had stored away. Of course. She snapped her head around, pinning the hapless box with an accusing eye.

Then she spotted it. The stiletto, not in the box after all, but lying beside it. That was almost as bad but perhaps not hopeless. With a glance at the doorway, she quickly shifted position.

Lying stretched across the mattress, the collar wrenched up fit to hang her, she actually could reach the edge of the far table with her foot. The table, yes, but not the stiletto. Not quite.

She dropped her leg to the mattress. This was a joke, right? An ugly, cruel joke.

Think. Think...

What she needed was something she could use to extend her reach. She sat up suddenly, nearly choking herself on the collar, and returned to the table. A moment later, she was stretched out on the mattress again, her leg contorted up as she inserted the end of the pencil between her toes.

Her eyes quickly checked the door again. How incredibly odd she would appear at this moment viewed from that vantage point. It would make anyone wonder. The monster had not reappeared.

'You are not confined here by chains...'

Hopefully not much longer, you sadistic bastard, she thought savagely.

She craned her neck up to monitor her progress and began to extend the leg out. Slowly...

There were advantages here she hadn't had before. Oh yes. She knew the way out of this place. Yes. There were clothes around that she could dress herself in. Yes. Maybe even a weapon... The pencil crossed the edge of the table. She twisted her leg over and touched the stiletto with the eraser. Yes! Slide it over. Steady... Steady...

She would go back to the Zoo. She'd go back and kill that S.O.B..

Carlen gripped her leg with both hands to quell the tremor in her strained thigh. "Don't you cramp on me..." she muttered through clenched teeth.

She inched the stiletto a little closer to the edge. And a little closer...

Her eyes checked the doorway. Empty. Yeah, she'd leave this dump...

Closer...

And go back and...

There! The stiletto tipped over the edge and plopped onto the mattress. Yes!

Carlen pulled her leg in quickly, retrieved the pencil and dropped the leg and her head to the mattress. She was panting again but she rested only a moment, too excited now to wait a second longer than necessary. She craned her neck up again to see, and used her foot to inch the stiletto along the mattress toward her. A minute later it was in her hand.

She drew back this time, to slacken the chain before sitting up and, with one final glance at the doorway, snatched up the linklock. She turned the point of the stiletto over and aimed it at the lock. It slid in easily - but the point of it didn't broaden out enough to catch or make an effect on the mechanism.

Carlen closed her eyes, swiped at the perspiration on her brow. She struggled and struggled with the lock until her frustration was a physical pain. Tears mingled with her sweat. Nothing worked. The lock could not be picked. Of bloody course.

She punched the mattress. Punched again, now more furious with herself than with the failure of the stiletto to spring the lock. Had she survived so much for so long only to throw it all away on a dimwitted scheme like this?

She shuddered to think how the Dealer might react if he caught her messing with this lock. And, even if she could escape and get back to the Zoo, killing the Whipmaster was not the solution to anything right now. She'd only succeed in setting up a domino effect, the consequences of which were too hair-raising to even consider. Why would she want to place herself at the center of such a controversy? She'd made enough critical mistakes already.

She stared down at the stiletto in her sweaty palm. So what are you going to do, smartass? Put the damned thing back, of course. Right now.

She glanced over at the far table. But how? If she tossed it, it might slide right across and off the other side. That wouldn't do.

What then? Put it somewhere else? Was he likely to remember where he'd left it? Could she, somehow, 'accidentally' misplace it? That was an idea. Not a good one, but the only option left. So... where?

In the end, Carlen tossed the spike under the table, near the edge of the mattress where the Dealer normally sat. Could have dropped down there last night, unnoticed. Could have...

She drew back to the wall and sat, staring at the stiletto, her heart pounding.

You're caught, old girl. Face it. Trapped and branded. Branded...

Carlen sat forward suddenly and reached around to touch the brand again. Oh yes. There it was.

She scooted across for another look in the mirror, but she couldn't see it very well. It was too far behind her, apparently deliberately so, and the mirror was too far away and shot, besides. More black spots than mirror. How pathetic these people were. How pathetic she'd become...

She turned back to the table and reached for her pencil and paper. Using her fingertips, she tried to read the configuration by Braille, then attempted to draw what she'd interpreted. She kept touching and drawing, drawing and touching, never coming up with the same thing twice.

She assumed the design was based on the Whipmaster's mark. She tried to think of that as a blueprint, but she'd seen parts of that configuration in many subtle variations and, for some reason, the Whipmaster's personal mark had always dizzied her if she looked at it for more than a second or two. Yet, this seemed to be quite close to that. Sort of...

The patterns stimulated rushes of images in her head. Images that scattered across the Women's Sector and memories of Him. Funny how it always came back to him. Or 'Himself', as she was now accustomed to referring to him in her head.

She'd tried to block thoughts of the Whipmaster but, strange as it seemed, she missed him. She missed his attentiveness, both psychologically and, yes, physically. His physical knowledge and care of her, particularly. The Dealer didn't even feed her properly and it was not for the sake of punishment or subjugation.

She missed the Whipmaster's clarity and sobriety of action concerning her. His sense of responsibility. She missed the solidity of his presence and the affirmation of his interest and authority.

By now she realized that nothing in it had been personal or important, except in terms of her overall development. She had been a contract. That was all. Nevertheless, she was hurt by what she took to be his rejection of her. She felt renounced. Declined.

She couldn't help it and she finally acknowledged this sense of rejection. Faced up to it. She saw, too, that it was not a thing she could ever carry back to the Zoo. Under no circumstances could she ever return to him, feeling the way she did.

She would have to get over it. All that was ended. The relationship, as it had existed, was done. Her status had changed. She'd been changed, to fit the condition. The condition of the contract. The trade. The Bond.

Obedience for Life

This was the trade she had made, when all was done, but of course it wasn't enough. Having won this from her, he had to test it further by handing her over to another man. Another she must now prove herself to. Like in the book... Just like the wretched book.

A tear splattered the page as she slid it aside to begin another. The point of the pencil was nearly blunt.

Yet, she had promised. Sworn. In the end she had done it. She believed that promise was the only link left between them, yet he was the only person in the entire city she felt the remotest commonness, attachment or loyalty to. She had made her trust over to him. Only him. She just hadn't known...

The symbols weren't working but Carlen's tear ducts were. She wiped her eyes and scribbled on but the pages were wet and the symbols muddy. Why? Why had he done this to her?

Carlen was startled by the sound of the men's boots on the stairs. She fumbled at the papers, not realizing how many she'd scattered in her distraction with the symbols. She shuffled them into a sloppy pile, roughly folded them over, and just got them tucked between her knee and the table leg as the Dealer and Braidshawk came in.

Carlen's concern about the papers was temporarily forgotten when she realized the men were talking about the Whipmaster. This was an uncommon occurrence since the Whipmaster was not a popular topic of conversation among the Blacks. That she picked up who they were talking about at all was a small wonder. They had other names for him in Blacktown.

"The Lunatic had another slave warren burned last night."

"Mang's place?" the Dealer guessed.

"Yeah."

"Fool. Trading through unauthorized channels. The Man was bound to find out. Mang knew the rules."

"Damn the rules!"

"I thought you didn't like Mang."

"Mang was a blood sucking parasitic leech but he should have been taken down by his own."

"Come on, man," said the Dealer, dumping his belt and boots on the floor and stepping onto the mattress. "You know who's going to take him down. Where the power's seated."

"Someone ought to stop that bastard," Braidshawk said, sitting down across the table from Carlen.

"Someone ought to stop us all..." the Dealer murmured, his head under the box lid. He, too, was now seated. He'd taken out the hash and the pipe and was again searching around inside the box. "I know I had a spike here someplace. Where is that thing?"

Carlen's heart was pumping double time.

"Not on the table," Braidshawk affirmed.

"Well, where, then?"

"A... it's on the floor," Carlen volunteered.

"Where?" the Dealer asked, sitting up.

"Under the table," Carlen said, pointing. "Dropped down there last night."

The Dealer was too close to the table to see beneath it. "Well, get it, girl, you know where it is."

Carlen ducked her head under the table to retrieve the stiletto. As she sat up, the papers sprung loose and slid out on the floor. "Here," she said, giving the Dealer the spike.

He smiled. "Well, that's good. You keep track of things, don't you?"

Carlen smiled lamely.

"What you been doing while I was away?"

Carlen paled. Waved vaguely at the corner. "Oh, I did some washing."

The Dealer glanced around and saw the dripping shirts. "Well, damn, you did!"

"What's this?" Braidshawk asked, reaching for the papers.

Carlen turned quickly. Reached too. "Oh, just some-" He already had them. "...pages."

"Oh yeah?" He leafed through them quickly. "You draw these?"

"Show me," the Dealer said, reaching for them.

Shit, Carlen thought. Fuck Braidshawk.

"Well?" the Dealer asked, still looking at the drawings. "Why you doing this shit?"

"I think it's a brand... they put on me..."

Braidshawk gave a 'thought so' nod. "Well, they're not quite right," he said.

The Dealer tossed the pages on the table with disinterest.

Braidshawk took a sheet. "Where's the pencil?"

Carlen gave him the pencil.

"Turn around," he said, so Carlen turned. "Uh-huh. That's it."

He drew the symbol.

"There," he said and turned the page to Carlen. "That's what you're wearing."

Carlen squinted at it a long time.

"You've never seen that before?"

"Well, not that exactly," she confessed. "Variations. Some not like that at all."

"Nobody ever explained that to you?"

"Actually, they tried to keep it from me."

Braidshawk picked a fresh page and drew five circles.

"This is the symbol of the 'Zoo'."

"This line, joined to it, is the symbol of 'Rule'."

"This is the symbol of 'the Whip'."

"This... the symbol of 'the Key'."

"And this one..."

"...is the symbol of 'the Power'." He glanced up. "You've been through the Workshop?"

"Yes."

Braidshawk nodded. Drew another circle.

"That's the symbol of 'the Seat'. 'The Chair'. 'The Workshop'." He tapped the page with the pencil. "These symbols arranged different ways signify different things. That's how you know who's who."

Carlen studied the page. "It's intricate."

"Yes, it's intricate," Braidshawk agreed. "And you could be wrong and dead in the second it takes you to misread someone's mark."

"What about this?" Carlen ventured, showing him the earring.

Braidshawk poised the tiny charm on the tip of his massive forefinger. Looked at it closely. "It's the same," he said.

Carlen sat back. Looked once more at the first drawing. "Why do I have so many of the symbols?"

"Because of your position."

"But I've seen people carrying guns around wearing a lot less than this."

Braidshawk smiled. "Job description. That's all. Look here."

He drew again.

"You've seen that before."

"Yes."

"Well, what you're wearing is that, minus two lines. 'Grace' and 'Possession'. The one on the bottom left is Grace. The Grace line is an extension of Rule. It indicates license, privilege. Without it, you are merely under the rule of the Zoo. Subject to the whip, rather than empowered to use it, as this symbol depicts.

"The Possession line, above, joins the Chair to the Key. The absence of the Possession line indicates you were a subject of the Workshop. The presence of the Key on your brand indicates you are to be kept under lock and key. You see? You're not in possession of the Key, you're subject to it.

"Without Grace or Possession you're Trade. It's very clear." He set the pencil down.

This whole thing was spooking the hell out of Carlen but she felt she had to know. She went back to the initial sketch and pointed. "What about this one? The 'Power'?"

"That?" Braidshawk smiled grimly. "That's him. The Power."

"The Whipmaster?"

"That's right."

"Is there a particular meaning to it?"

Braidshawk paused, his eyes shining with strange intensity. He glanced at the Dealer but the Dealer remained uninvolved. "It means you're subject to the Power."

"Well, of course I was-"

"Not was. Are," Braidshawk amended.

"You mean - still?"

Braidshawk nodded.

"But he traded me to the Dealer. The arrangement's permanent, isn't it?"

Braidshawk had averted his eyes. "Yes. It's permanent, so long as the Dealer doesn't tire of you."

"In which case?" Carlen said slowly.

"You revert back."

"To the Zoo?"

"That's what it's there to guarantee."

"What if, say, the Dealer should... die?"

"Same thing."

Carlen's features had gone quite pale and bloodless.

"You're a Bond Slave," Braidshawk explained. "So long as that mark never changes, neither does your status. Where ever you are. If you fuck up here, you may well have to account to Him for it later." He met her gaze again. "You're His. For life."

Carlen was too stunned to speak.

"Oh, yeah," he murmured, accepting the pipe from the Dealer. "That's the special one. That's what makes you Hardchange."

Now she knew.

Obedience for Life

This was not a trade she had struck with the Whipmaster. In actual fact it was an oath. A Bond.

Obedience - for life.

CHAPTER 47 \- REQUESTS

Carlen's viewpoint of things underwent some radical changes following Braidshawk's revelations. There were several things she had not understood before which were now patently clear.

True, she had been shocked to discover how quickly the decision of her fate had been made. The immediate issuing of that earring, for one. The brand for another. Both these things had marked her course practically from the beginning.

'Condition One'

She even knew when the brand had been issued. They'd burned her ass the night they burned her feet, although they'd done it in secret - after the dropshot - so she wouldn't know.

There was something else she realized. She had not been rejected by the Whipmaster. Quite the contrary. She'd made a success of meeting the high standard he expected of her for the exchange with the Dealer - apparently a trade of great importance to him. She also had a pretty definite idea of what he'd traded her for.

Yet, that hadn't been the end of it. Evidently the Whipmaster valued her highly enough to insure his permanent ownership of her. The Bond, although an unbreakable vow of trust, was reversible, at least in terms of cash value. This much she'd heard him tell the Dealer during the exchange. But it had been more than a simple guarantee for the Dealer.

Ah, yes. This entire thing was so much more intricate than she'd ever paused to imagine. It sure involved a lot more than getting away from the Dealer - a move she determined never to attempt again - certainly not without an airtight scheme. There was no escape, a fact she finally had to face for good.

There was one other thing she learned from her little discussion with Braidshawk. She pulled out those pages again and looked at the symbol he had drawn. The complete symbol.

Seeing it there on the page, she suddenly understood why it had always disturbed her so much. What it was that made her wince and shiver. She'd thought it was because it was "His", on "Him", a part of his general effect on her. But that wasn't it.

She drew the basic format -

When she saw it, minus the symbols of the Whip and the Power, she finally recognized it as the symbol on the front of the museum.

Warren Mathie. They were initials. Warren Mathie. W.M. Whipmaster. That had to be it. Even upside down it said the same thing.

Carlen quickly jotted in the missing "T" from the original inscription on the museum.

The Warren Taylor Mathie

Museum of Natural History and Science

Dalroy's place.

Carlen screwed the page up, tossed it aside and posed over a fresh piece.

So... The whole thing was break downs of these initials, and all those people were connected with Him. Job descriptions, as Braidshawk had put it. The trick was working out what the various combinations meant in themselves. Precisely what they meant.

Carlen thought long and hard about the tattoo on Dalroy's arm. The one on Kick's. The Jobgirls and others she had seen. Like the one he had burned on Ginty's arm...

One line giveth and one line taketh away.

Oh yeah.

Carlen's obsession with this doodling went on for quite a period, but she kept it a secret and hid the drawings under the corner of the mattress by her basin.

* * *

Along with the revelations of the drawings came the reappraisal of her situation. Carlen now knew she had to make a concerted effort to adapt to her new lifestyle. Like it or not, this was where she must stay for an indeterminate length of time.

The worst thing, first and foremost, was the Dealer's room. As far as Carlen could see so far, this was the only thing she might be able to do something about.

The filth depressed her. That, and the complete lack of amenities, at least for her. There was no privacy, no comfort. The mattress lay on the floor, pushed up against the wall opposite the door. Well, there was no door, either.

There was a small space between the right hand wall and the mattress. About eighteen inches in width. Carlen's can was kept in this corner, along with her basin of wash water. In the corner, down along the wall, beyond the mattress, stood the standard lamp and the mirror behind it.

Rested on the floor between the corner and the door was an old phonograph. A wire was strung from this over the door trim to a single speaker that stood in the narrow corner formed there. The bulk of the space in the room lay between the edge of the Dealer's table and the far wall where the windows were. The windows. There were no windows either. They had long since been crudely boarded over, a fact poorly concealed by two sets of gray green curtains that hung in tatters to the floor. One of them looked to be splattered in old blood.

On the floor lay an old oriental rug, fairly large, but quite bereft of its former color or beauty. There were one or two odd cushions near the table for the Dealer's guests. Apart from these, the space was unfurnished - except for a single, stuffed armchair that sat alone in the corner, along the back wall across from Carlen's can and wash basin. Nobody ever sat in that chair and Carlen thought the neglected, unlit corner gave off a spooky vibe.

The entire collage was drawn together by piles of the Dealer's clothes and personal belongings.

In partner to the phonograph was a single Long Playing record, hung by its hole on a nail in the wall near the door where it appeared to function more as a piece of art work than a source of musical entertainment.

That was all there was but... Carlen did have the space down the right wall, alongside the mattress, and she could visualize something good happening in that space. She had a few requests in mind.

She began with what she hoped would be the smallest thing in the Dealer's view. To test the water. Small thing. Big request.

He was distracted, working with his precious substances, as he most usually was. Maybe that was a good thing, maybe it wasn't.

"Can I have a shirt?"

"You want clothes?"

"Certainly I do. I get cold sometimes."

"Where's that rag you been wearing?"

"It's dead."

"Well..." he said, hardly paying attention. "Minks don't have clothes, anyway."

"A shirt, is all. I'd take it off any time you said," Carlen promised.

He did provide a shirt. A large plain white shirt. It had only two and a half buttons but it wasn't too bad. It was a covering. And it had a pocket - waiting to be filled with something.

* * *

Over the next weeks, Carlen talked him into quite a bit more. Bar soap, more nails in the wall by the mattress and hangers for drying laundry.

She had a board and four bricks brought in with which she built a shelf against the wall alongside the mattress. Here she kept coffee mugs, four of those, and any coffee, tea or sugar she could beg up. She got two spoons, one of them silver, and a saucepan. Of course all these things were of little use in themselves without the element of heat. She had to ask him for a cooking ring and that was the big one. That, he nearly refused.

"God damn, woman! I don't want you lighting no fires in here."

"No fear, Chief. I'm good with it. No danger to you. No danger to me."

"No danger-huh?"

Carlen sighed. "Well, we can't go on like this. I mean, what good is it being this fucking rich if I can't even serve you and a guest a cup of tea once in a while? You see my point?"

He didn't really have a comeback for that.

Naturally the chain had to be locked on full extension so Carlen could reach all these things collected and operate properly in her new function as "tea mistress". The Dealer wasn't too happy about that, either.

"I'll do this for you," he said, pointing that long black finger. "But it's understood you keep yourself out of the Dealer's box. I catch you in there - just once \- I'll flay the hide right off you. You got that?"

"Oh, yes."

"That's good, because if that happens, you might find yourself up for promotion, and there ain't many places for change in that condition to graduate to - if you take my meaning."

"Yes, Dealer. I understand."

Thus Carlen went on doing what she could to transform her ten by twelve universe into a home, tending first and foremost to her own needs, but always looking for ways of including the Dealer's needs in her requests.

The Dealer did no more than grant the requests but it wasn't all that difficult to convince him. At least he was approachable. Carlen had to feel her way. Judge her timing. Following his hard treatments she was able to substitute "things" for apologies.

* * *

Even with more to do and look after there were still long stretches of empty obsolescence. Carlen started doing quite a lot of writing. Recording the words to song lyrics. Sheets and sheets of lyrics she could recall from the old days.

Sometimes she composed poems of her own, but they were a pretty strange testament to her state of mind, and most of these she destroyed. The song lyrics seemed to be the safest thing and she kept herself amused this way for hours. When she came to a particular favorite, she sometimes opened up and sang it out loud.

The Dealer heard her from the street upon his return to the Penthouse one afternoon.

"Was that you, singing that way?" he asked as he came in.

Carlen had fallen dumb.

"I didn't know you could do that," he said. "God, what a noise."

"I'm sorry," Carlen murmured.

"No need to apologize. You just don't hear too much music around here."

"Then, you don't mind?"

"No. I guess not."

Carlen certainly never thought music would become part of her life again but, apparently, the sound of her singing so moved the Dealer that he showed her the one record he possessed. He played it for her.

He was very proud of that record. He loved it. He got into a mood sometimes and played it over and over until Carlen thought she'd lose her mind. She must have heard that one lousy song a hundred times before she woke up to the fact she'd learned it - word for word.

She was working at the table with the Dealer one afternoon when he stuck the bloody thing on. Quite unconsciously, Carlen began singing along.

"It's late, too late for these twisted creatures,

all their dreams undone.

Mushroom, cake, themselves? No matter,

for they've eaten every one.

So eat, if you can still reach the shelf

and you'll be complete as you out grow yourself.

And there's just no telling where you'll end up

if you let yourself drink from that poisoned cup.

Only Alice can help you to withstand

the sights and sounds of Wonderland..."

Carlen stopped singing abruptly and glanced up, the rarest look on her face. "Ah! Ah-ha!"

"What?" The Dealer looked up, startled.

Carlen's eyes were bright with excitement. "You're Alice!"

"What the hell you talking about?"

"The song! Alice. That's what the snorts in the Women's Sector call you."

"That right?"

"Yeah! Yeah," Carlen said, energetically returning to her chore. "...the sights and sounds of Wonderland," she sang along with the next chorus, chortling to herself.

"What those women say about me-huh?"

"Oh..." Carlen said, dipping a finger into the mountain of white powder they were leveling into little bags. "I think they'd like to get closer to the source..."

The Dealer smiled, then laughed. "I expect they would," he said. Then, after a moment, "How much stuff you think is circulating over there?"

"Oh," Carlen said cautiously. "Not a lot. And not very good, either. The stuff I saw was brown."

"Oh yeah? You hear any names around it?"

If Carlen had, she would not have told the Dealer, but she didn't recall hearing any of the names at the table that night, although she did remember the faces.

"No," she said. "No names."

The recollection of that night at the Checkerboard dredged up the cold memory of Shay and Carlen fell quiet, her spirits suddenly at basement level. The Dealer didn't really notice her quietude until he'd stacked up another ten bags in front of her for sealing.

"Hey, girl. You working, or what?"

"What do you say, Chief? How about we toot some of this stuff?"

"This?"

"Yeah. Why not? You got a royal ton of it. Enough to turn on the whole city for a day."

"You asking me for a toot?"

"Yeah. What do you think, I'm immune?"

The Dealer chuckled. "Okay."

He scraped a row of four meticulous lines away from the mountain on the table. Proffered the tube to Carlen. She took it gingerly and edged closer to the table.

"Now - how do we do this?"

"You never done this before?"

"We all got to start somewhere," Carlen said. "What do I do?"

"Stick the tube here," the Dealer instructed. "On one side. Block up the other side. Now toot. Remember, suck, don't blow."

Carlen bent over the table and took the first line.

"All of it," he encouraged.

Carlen watched the line disappear before her eyes.

"Oh wow. Wow. Magic, man."

The Dealer chuckled. "Feel it?"

"I want to sneeze, is all."

"Take the next one."

Carlen bent again.

"No - use the other nostril."

Carlen changed sides, bent again and took the second line.

"You could have been born to it," the Dealer remarked.

Carlen sat back, handing him the tube. "Undoubtedly was," she replied, squeezing her nose.

"You like it?" he asked.

"Can't say as I really feel it, yet."

The Dealer shook his head with a smile, took the two remaining lines himself and cut out four more. Gave Carlen the tube. "Try again."

Carlen took two more lines while the Dealer got up to put on the record. By the time he returned, Carlen was beginning to realize some results. She felt suddenly energized and all the personal hurts and memories just melted away.

"Oh, my my my. This is really lovely stuff. Lovely. I feel just WON-der-fulll..."

The Dealer laughed. Took the remaining lines.

"This record of yours is really a rage! Where did you get it?"

The Dealer shrugged. "Found it."

"You found it? Just that one record?"

"Yeah."

"Shit, man. That's kismet!"

"What?"

"Never mind. Let's get into some more of this stuff!"

"You scrape it up," the Dealer said. "Let me play the song..."

"Hey, how come you only play that one track all the time?"

"Only track that plays," the Dealer said.

"Kismet," Carlen marveled again, scraping together four more generous, if sloppy, lines while the Dealer reset the needle on the record.

After two more jolts, Carlen began singing loudly. The Dealer laughed and joined in, singing in a grizzly, tuneless monotone. They carried on laughing and singing together, articulating all the syllables in a ridiculous, exaggerated chant.

"Nobody cares if you drown in your tears as you

swim with the beasts, lose faith in your fears.

No one will forgive you or what you're about or

hand you the key to let yourself out..."

They made it only a few lines into the song before they collapsed on the mattress in fits of childish giggling. They didn't recover until the track had nearly done and Carlen picked it up again.

"So look in the mirror at the thing that was you.

Watch as, like the Cheshire cat, you fade from view.

Only Alice can help you to withstand the

bitter fate of your remand..."

She began hitching again and didn't catch up until the last couple of phrases.

"So, take her hand, she'll lead the way

only your need could make you stay since it's

only a game if you know how to play.

Only a GAME if you know how to PLAY!"

Braidshawk turned up about an hour later to discover the pair of them embraced on the mattress, Carlen curled up in the nest created by the Dealer's crossed legs, the remains of their little indulgence dusted carelessly over the table.

They were still laughing senselessly, entirely wrapped up in their own little experience.

He turned without a word and left them.

* * *

That record of the Dealer's evidently had a reputation all its own. One night a guy named Defrain came around with a couple of friends. One of them was apparently a long timer but the other? Quite obviously Newblood.

They set down some cash for set-ups but Defrain had something more on his mind.

"You still got that record, Dealer?"

"Yeah. I still got it."

"Can we hear it? I told this newboy here about it. Name's Emerson."

The Dealer nodded a cool greeting, gave the boys their set-ups and went over to put on the record. They all listened like it was the "Heavenly Word". Carlen couldn't help but smile.

"That's fantastic, man!" Emerson sighed. "That the only one you got?"

"It's more than most people got," the Dealer said philosophically. "Unless you want to hang out in unsavory company and empty your pockets for the privilege."

Defrain and the third man, Slue, gave a sour laugh in response.

"That's the dirty reality," Slue said.

Carlen didn't understand the reference but she was, as ever, keen to please the Dealer.

"Well," she piped up. "Since you like music so much-"

"Who says I do?" the Dealer cut in.

"Oh, you like it," Carlen said smugly. "You got all the symptoms of a full-on Rocker."

Dead silence. Carlen looked around. Everyone was staring at her. Oh-oh. Faux pas. She was so unfamiliar with the quirks of the frightened masses. It was just too easy to forget what an exclusive existence she'd led on the Outside.

"Hey," she said with a strained smile. "I didn't mean to embarrass you, man."

That seemed to break the tension. The Dealer turned back to his fixings. "So? Since I like music, you say," he prompted.

Carlen licked her lips, not quite so sure of herself. "Name a song. I bet I know it."

"You mean you make music?" Defrain asked.

"Well, I don't know," Carlen said. "What do you think, Dealer?"

"Yeah. She does make music, sometimes."

"You let her do that?" Emerson was plain amazed.

The Dealer shrugged. "No real reason not to, that I can see," he replied, cooler than cool.

"Come on," Carlen encouraged. "I'll bet you can't name one song."

"'Black Moon'," Slue volunteered.

Carlen knew it. Knew it well. A haunting blues composition about the slaughter of the Black races during the Conflict. She sang it to them and there were tears standing in the men's eyes when she'd done.

Well, once those guys let go, there was no end to the requests they could dream up and Carlen was able to fulfill just about every one of them.

They were all so impressed, so excited, and so very scared the whole time. The old fears ran deep. As far as they were concerned, what Carlen was doing was unheard of. What they were all doing. In fact, it was Forbidden. They had not adjusted to the fact that, within Newcity itself, rock 'n' roll was not actually forbidden. It had never been officially commented on, in fact.

Well, they wanted a lot more music after that. Carlen sang nearly every night. When the sessions began to tire her, the Dealer boosted her with injections, sometimes hitting her with different combinations in the same night. Carlen went on performing without complaint and the Dealer began rewarding her with small stashes of greenweed and rolling papers, which she kept in the pocket of her shirt.

CHAPTER 48 \- THE DEALER'S GRACE

So began Carlen's career as the Penthouse show off. Her reputation as a music maker spread throughout the Sector like wildfire.

As the weeks passed, Carlen discovered a variety of ways she could impress the Dealer. Anything she could do beyond keeping him satisfied sexually seemed to please him immensely, especially if it improved the flow of currency or enhanced his position.

It was becoming apparent life in Blacktown would be entirely different to her existence at the Zoo. Despite the obvious drawbacks, Carlen thought it would be easier to get on here, at least in some respects.

The place teemed with a life that Carlen was not necessarily excluded from. The lights stayed on practically all the time and people turned up all times of the day and night. It kind of reminded Carlen of the helter-skelter of her old way of life. The trading, the hustling, the drugs, the talk, the laughter and now her music.

There was a looseness here that did not exist at the Zoo. Carlen was subjected to none of the rigid disciplines the Whipmaster had imposed on her. She enjoyed the added freedom and she liked the fact that she was permitted a small measure of self-expression. Most of all, she liked being of service to the Dealer. Enjoyed the privilege of his grace and, as she continued proving herself, his demands increased with a spontaneity Carlen found refreshing.

"You play cards, Carlen?" he asked over his shoulder one morning while Carlen was bathing.

"Yes."

"You play poker?"

"Of course."

"Yeah? How good you play?"

"Very good."

"Well, I ask you that question tonight, you just say 'yes'. We'll see how good you play."

That night the Dealer invited Carlen into a card game with him and three of his guests. The men were suspicious of Carlen and over confident but they could not fathom or out-maneuver her style.

She played an intelligent, if defensive, game, taking what pots she could or raising bids and folding when she sensed the Dealer had the winning hand. She never bet against him and, if the men noticed, they probably assumed it was because of her station. It was a good night's take.

* * *

Carlen established a pretty good rapport with the Dealer over this period and many of her feelings of alienation dissipated. She was finally coming to understand certain aspects of the conditioning the Whipmaster had engaged to prepare her for habitation with the Dealer and, although she wasn't crazy about the situation, she was developing a respect for her new master. Of course he did not possess the Whipmaster's style or finesse with her but, when he was seated at his table, weighing, cutting, packaging his merchandise and dealing with the assholes who came in, he was an expert. A genius, actually.

As to the Dealer, he was very pleased with Carlen. He made a great show of his disapproval at being charged so much for her but, the fact was, he knew the trade had been more than good. Carlen was alert, apparently quite smart and she seemed eager to please. She had improved conditions at the Penthouse and there didn't seem to be a limit to what she could do. Yeah, he felt he got a bonus in Carlen. Maybe even the better part of the deal with the Whipmaster - and that pleased him, too.

Unfortunately, anxious as Carlen was to establish a good track record with the Dealer, not all his demands were reasonable or easily met. Once Carlen came to recognize the men who came to the Penthouse, she could quickly predict what kind of a night it would be. When necessary, she replayed the mental tapes she'd stockpiled at the Zoo but it wasn't always sufficient to protect her.

She glanced up in writhing hostility one evening when Thorn walked in, followed not long after by Zedder's mob. Zedder was a rough bastard with a troop of four cohorts who accompanied him around Blacktown. None of them Trade. All of them his boys, anyway. Still he wanted to come around to see Carlen get it on with the Dealer. What a creep. Thorn, the Gunmaker, came, as always, only to see Carlen hurt.

Carlen's jaw automatically clenched at the sight of these men. She was tired already from a long session of song the night before and was in no mood to give these yahoos their hahas for the night. She gathered up her gear and retreated to the wall, although she didn't dare try to pretend sleep. She watched in tense silence as the Dealer doled out the usual set-ups. There was a little perfunctory talk but, soon enough, the Dealer turned to her. "Get the shirt off, jade."

Carlen slowly undressed, eyes smoldering.

"Come here," the Dealer beckoned but, when she failed to move, he got up and went to her.

He wrenched her around, opened his fly and jammed himself into her mouth, in the process knocking her head into the wall. The others laughed and shouted encouragement. Carlen struggled, even pushed him a little.

When he backed off, Carlen rocked forward, coughing, eyes awash, nose running.

"My God, woman," the Dealer declared. "The man told me you had some grit! Come on!"

He grabbed her arm, rolled onto the mattress, rolled Carlen toward him. She came across, as though to mount him, but he blocked her with his hand.

"No. Turn around."

"Turn...?"

"Move!"

Carlen swung her leg over, turning to face the Dealer's feet. He gripped her hips. Carlen looked up, saw the expectancy in the men's faces. The monster was at the gate.

"Dealer - this won't work. You can't-"

"Shut up."

Carlen braced her hands against his legs as he tipped her forward. "Dealer!" she implored. "You're going to kill me-" He got it lodged. "CHRIST!"

Carlen didn't see, hear or think another thing for about twenty minutes, but her anguish didn't detract from the enjoyment of the men. When the Dealer was done, Carlen rolled off and crawled back to the wall where she curled up, her hands clenched between her legs. No one paid another bit of attention to her until the men left some time later.

"Come help me clear up this table," the Dealer called.

Carlen turned her face to the wall.

After a moment the Dealer looked around. "What's wrong with you now? You bleeding again?"

"No, but it's a damned wonder."

"It still hurts you? Even straight like that?"

"You call that straight?"

The Dealer shrugged and turned back to the table. "I told you before not to give me a problem with this."

"I don't know why you have to do that to me in front of those - men."

"That bothers you-huh?"

"Yeah, it bothers me. It's like... gang rape."

The Dealer smiled a little. "Well, it makes no difference what you like. You perform when you're called on."

"I still don't see why you have to make public display of me that way."

"It goes with your station. Part of your job."

"Oh that's stretching it!"

"I think you're forgetting where you are," he said.

"Not for a second."

There was a pause.

"Come here," the Dealer said.

Carlen hesitated, then crawled over to the table. The Dealer set two tablets down in front of her. Carlen stared at them, motionless.

"You in pain?" he asked, a little sharply. "Take them." Carlen took the tablets. More softly he said, "This is Blacktown, girl. The Men's Sector. How many women you think there are here?"

"I don't know," Carlen murmured. "I heard about kidnappings."

"Kidnappings? Not too likely. Not too likely at all. You need to understand, baby. Most of the men here never get in touch with a woman. Some turn to each other but a lot of them can't bring themselves to that. Seeing you perform with me is the only sex a lot of these men get. It's... kind of a responsibility."

Carlen scoffed.

"They pay for it, you know," he said softly.

"Pay!"

"Yeah. What do you think?"

There was another pause.

"Well, I still don't like it."

"You don't have to like it, baby. You just have to do it."

* * *

In truth, Carlen's resentment of public performance had less to do with personal modestly than it did with her aversion to being hurt so much in the company of those men. It seemed no matter how the Dealer approached her it hurt. He certainly had the endowment of a porno star but, luckily, he came to full erection only rarely. He was just too doped up most of the time, a condition which was worsening. When he was in top form, Carlen hurt for two or three days afterwards. If the pain was too much, she'd just get him to shoot her more frequently. Did she know what she was doing? She did and she didn't.

One thing she did know. She knew better than to give him an argument over it. She could see it was one thing that would bring down real trouble. He didn't want her that often but, when he did, he would not accept refusal. A playful romp was just too easily transformed into blatant, careless rape. Not that he was deliberately cruel but he was somewhat boorish and insensitive. If Carlen didn't flow with him she was likely to come off battered or ripped up.

She consoled herself with the fact that the Dealer didn't make her wait, hour upon hour, wondering how soon the next attack would occur, or how many he would squeeze into an hour. He was rough and unpredictable but he was not a repeater. Usually no more than one show a night, no more than once or twice a week. When he was finished, he was finished. If he abused her, it was during sex, not before, not after, and this was not abuse for its own sake, but more a demonstration of his personal appetite and appreciation for her.

When Carlen finally learned to release her resentment and take more initiative during their 'performances', she discovered the Dealer could be a friendly, communicative and fantastically enthusiastic lover. It was work, but then, the Dealer had lots of substances in that box which were conducive to good hot sex. She knew he was using some of them on her and that they were helping her quite a lot. Some nights they generated an enormous excitement between them, which made for an excellent show. And it helped the relationship a lot. In fact, it became the foundation for all that was good between them.

CHAPTER 49 \- DISCLOSURES

Of all the creeps and crazies that came up to the Penthouse there was no one Carlen felt less likely to find her fate attached to than a strange little character that dragged in very late one night.

It had been a long, quiet night with nothing special happening. The kind of gathering Carlen privately referred to as a 'Town Council Meeting', a collection of the elite of Blacktown. Braidshawk was there and both Lowsmith and Random, the two most successful Traders in Blacktown. Warehousers. Both Capitals.

There were no super heavy drugs circulating. Just a nice easy mingling of smoke and conversation. Carlen was seated near the Dealer, idly folding origami animals with some of the Dealer's wrapping papers, neither included in nor excluded from the conversation.

At about two thirty A.M. there was a step on the stairs and the Dealer glanced up as a White, porcupine headed man came through the door.

"Yo, Freddie!" he greeted. "Where you been, man? I was beginning to seriously wonder about you."

"Yeah, man. I know," Freddie said breathlessly. "I been caught up."

"In what?" Random said under his breath. "Barbed wire?"

Braidshawk snorted softly in response.

Freddie was a tousled creature in a stained, overlarge, turquoise linen jacket and a pair of old, crushed tuxedo trousers. He looked like a refugee from Las Vegas.

Freddie was a freak. That's what they called him. Freddie the Freak. A real case. Blacktown had a way of doing that to people. Especially White people.

He took a seat around the far side of the table, nearly, but not quite, behind the Dealer's box.

"I can't stay long," he said and he certainly didn't.

Carlen couldn't watch him directly because the Dealer was between them and she had pretty well forgotten him by the time he left, about twenty minutes later.

"Who's party did he escape from?" Random shuddered.

"He looks worse every time I see him," Lowsmith remarked.

"Bad habits," Braidshawk said.

"Bad habits?!" Random exclaimed with a nasty laugh.

"Too many doses of Fancy," said Lowsmith.

There was a sour tang to the men's chuckles.

"Is that a drug or an unsavory condition?" Carlen asked unexpectedly.

Braidshawk glanced up sharply. Nobody said a word. It was only him. "Not what," he said softly. "Who."

"Oh," Carlen murmured, wishing she'd kept her mouth shut.

"Fancy is a lady," the Dealer said.

"That ain't the word for it," Lowsmith said with a twisted smile.

"She runs a house in the Coral area," the Dealer told her.

"A whorehouse?"

Random scoffed. "Whorehouse?"

His cynicism coupled with Braidshawk's glowering restraint spooked Carlen. Embarrassed her. She was going to retreat to her corner but Braidshawk was speaking again. His hands were working along with the Dealer's, rolling another smoke. Despite their size, his hands were almost as good as the Dealer's. Steadier, some nights.

"'Whore' implies the ladies are working for profit," he said, his eyes strictly on the mix. "Those ladies just work. The profit goes to Fancy."

"One heavy lead bitch," Lowsmith murmured.

"It's a slavehouse," Braidshawk said and looked up. "The ladies are supplied by the lunatic at the Zoo."

Carlen didn't know whether to be shocked, disgusted, or insulted. Braidshawk was bombarding her with all kinds of vibrations. Questions behind statements. Always this game with her. Carlen was thinking: He shouldn't be telling me this.

"He set her up to keep the men out of the Women's Sector," the Dealer said.

"He's a greedy son of a bitch," Random said.

"He's not alone in that," said the Dealer.

"Well, it's sure a different thing to that other shit he's got going, down Southtown," Lowsmith remarked.

"That ain't his deal," the Dealer said.

"It ain't?"

The Dealer shook his head. "It's mostly his product that eventually filters down there but he draws no profit."

"Must be the only thing he doesn't draw off," Random said.

"Man's got power, alright," said the Dealer.

"Too much power," said Braidshawk. "Stretches too far. Swallows things up."

Lowsmith smiled. "And you're going to change that, I suppose?"

"Could be one day I am," Braidshawk said.

"Things are presently best left as they are," the Dealer said. "The system works alright."

"You support White Supremacy?" Random challenged suddenly.

"I don't support nothing," the Dealer answered. "Except peace."

"Peace," Random sneered.

"Let it lie," the Dealer said softly and Random let it drop.

Braidshawk turned back to the mix. "You don't want to know nothing about Fancy, girl," he said softly.

* * *

Well, Carlen didn't hear anything more about Fancy but she did see a lot more of Freddie.

There were people who came to the Penthouse for reasons disguised behind reasons. Freddie was one of those. Started coming round regular as clock work. Every two weeks, on a Tuesday, he'd turn up and, like a lot of the junkers who came over, it looked like it was the only regular habit he had. Except - Freddie didn't have a habit. At least, it wasn't dope.

Freddie's weakness appeared to be women but he didn't have the where-with-all to set one up. No wonder, the way he was reported to whore around the Sector. He was also a boozehead and, when he was tanked up, he'd jump just about anything for just about any price. Or so the story went. One thing Carlen knew for sure. He never left the Dealer's with anything more than a couple of roll-ups.

In view of this, there were a couple of things about Freddie that didn't jibe right away. For instance, the regular pilgrimages to the Penthouse when he never seemed to have any business to transact. And then there was his behavior toward Carlen.

Unlike the other men, he didn't attempt to interact with Carlen, yet it could never be said he ignored her. In fact, between the time of his arrival and departure, there was hardly a moment when his attention shifted away from her. He watched her, constantly, although not in a leering, demeaning manner, as one might expect from a man of his reputation. Freddie's observation was more in the nature of curiosity, and it wasn't in the least open. He was surreptitious about it, as though to keep Carlen unaware of his scrutiny. Carlen was aware, alright. It was like he was studying her, gathering information.

When Freddie reached across the table one night for his tokers, it all came together in a flash. His sleeve drew back and on his arm was a tattoo that duplicated the brand the Whipmaster had bestowed upon Ginty.

'Licks up information for the Zoo.'

'Is she clean? Is she well? Is she holding the line?'

Why should you care what he thinks?

Oh brother.

* * *

The discovery of Freddie's identity and position shocked Carlen into a new storm of speculation. The Dealer didn't say a word to her about Freddie but there was no doubt he knew. She figured the others probably knew, also. They could read the mark as well as she could.

So, the Whipmaster was keeping an eye on her. But why? Was it perhaps an attempt to gain foreknowledge for this possible 'accounting' Braidshawk had warned her she might be forced to make in future?

The whole thing was indecent. She was just beginning to realize a small sense of security and belonging, now this! It scared her. But maybe that was the point. Perhaps this insidious surveillance was meant to serve as a reminder of her Bond with the Whipmaster. To keep the razor's edge in sight. Maybe that was the only purpose. Shit. Did the man never tire of this ceaseless manipulation? Where the hell would it all end?

Carlen could have driven herself insane wondering about it but she decided she'd rather not know. Thoughts of the Whipmaster filled her with rage and discontentment.

So she didn't stop to think for a while. During the day when she was alone she kept on the move. Laundering, cleaning, tidying, everything - anything within reach. When the work ran out she exercised or wrote and, when every diversion ran dry, she went to sleep. Rested up for the night shift.

She dropped the curtain on introspection. Marched stubbornly on in the present. Left the future to chance and the past for dead, never suspecting the treacherous ways in which it could loom up and slap one down.

CHAPTER 50 \- MISCARRIAGE

Apart from his chemical manipulation of her, the Dealer only did two really rotten things to Carlen. The first incident occurred one night when she woke up and saw the Dealer sitting in the chair. In the dark corner. A place he never sat. He had a bottle of hooch standing alongside his boot and another, empty, dead on its side on the floor.

It looked like he'd been sitting there for quite a while. She'd been asleep but he'd been in that chair quite a while. Drinking, apparently. Something she'd never seen him do.

Carlen sat up slowly. The Dealer didn't move. His head was bowed over. He might have been asleep himself. Bodeen was leaned in the doorway, staring out into the hall. Will was crouched against the wall between the far window and the speaker. Everything was dead quiet. A tense, aching sort of quiet.

There was a fit on the table. A dirty fit, left in a litter on the table. Something else the Dealer never did. The two accompanying glass vials were red. Split open, part of the contents of one spilled into a wet spot on the table. Dinosaur Dust. Jack Hos' favorite. A substance the Dealer never touched himself.

There was a sound. Carlen glanced over at the corner. The Dealer wasn't asleep, although his head hadn't come up. He had something in his hand. The handcuffs. He was concentratively manipulating one of the bracelets with his fingers. Fastening it, unfastening it, full circle, over and over.

Carlen's eyes were caught by the activity, the glinting of the steel as it arced into and out of the light. Into the groove, through the ratchets, up and over the top, let it drop. Over and over, until Carlen thought she'd go into a trance just watching it.

When the movement stopped, she looked up at his face. He was looking at the handcuffs. When his eyes turned up to her, Carlen knew there was a crisis. She knew that fit on the table was his. That dust was in him. Playing with his sensibilities. Poisoning his judgment. She'd seen that look before, in Jack Hos' eyes. It meant trouble. She knew it did.

He looked at her a long time. Only her eyes. He didn't move at all, just fixed her with that cold stare. A stare that could look you into oblivion and never really see you. A look that cared only to the farthest perimeter of the self, then reflected self-care onto self-care, back into itself.

Carlen sat perfectly still, absorbing this harsh knowledge, and did not break it off until he sat forward and reached for the bottle. Her eyes followed his hand and she kept them pinned to the floor by the chair as he raised the bottle to his mouth.

Things went on like this for another block of time. He staring at her. She trying for all she was worth to disappear from his sight. She thought she'd just about succeeded, too. Thought she'd created a definite separation between their auras. A privacy from his attention. In fact, she wasn't even sure he was still watching her.

"Get it over here, jade."

Carlen jumped. He was watching alright, and there was a color in his tone she'd never heard before. Carlen crawled over, off the mattress, onto the floor and knelt between the Dealer's two massive feet. But not too close. His eyes were just too strange.

After a pause, he leaned forward. He yanked open the front of Carlen's shirt, popping the buttons off, and jerked it off her shoulders. She had to move smartly to avoid entanglement as he pulled it free of her arms. He held the shirt suspended a second before tossing it back into the corner.

She flinched as he raised the bottle again. He sat back. Carlen's eyes remained glued to the spot on the floor where the bottle had been. He picked up the handcuffs. Click. Ratchets. Swing, drop. Click. Ratchets. Swing, drop. Silence.

"You like it over here, alright?"

Where in particular? By the chair? On the floor? At the Penthouse? In Blacktown? With the Dealer?

Check A to E. Answer E.

"It's fine, Dealer."

"Fine-huh?" He clicked the bracelet over again. "You respect me?"

"Yes, of course."

"Yeah? And what other lies you told me?"

"None, Dealer. I swear it."

"None, Dealer. Fine, Dealer."

The bracelet was closed. He turned it in his hand. Into a circle. Into a line.

"You been stripped and marked and sold for a price, Fancy White. Now you're a slave. Slave to a Black man. I wonder how you feel. On your knees. On my mattress... You like the feel of my Black prick in your ass, Fancy White? Proud bitch like you. Fine-huh?"

He was quiet a long time. Turned the bracelet in his hand. Line to circle. Line to circle. Line to circle. He paused.

"Will, Bodeen - get out of here." He looked up again, his eyes black and hard as onyx. "The lady and I want to be alone."

She'd heard that line before - but that had been another place, another time, and she sorely wished now she could somehow skip back to that moment - or, at least, disappear out the door behind Will and Bodeen.

There was another prolonged silence. Carlen knew he was staring at her but she didn't dare look back. The drugs and booze were having a slow weird effect on him. He was operating at some paranormal speed but, inside, he was angry. Carlen had picked up that much.

"A White woman," he said suddenly. "Sold down by your own. Now ain't that strange? Strange times we live in... Now you're with me. Given to me so I'll feel better about things. You have to service me because it's the only compensation left... What do you think about that?"

You don't want to know, Carlen thought.

"I don't imagine you feel compensated," she said.

"You're right. I don't."

He clicked the bracelet through two of the ratchets. Just two.

"I could kill you a thousand times over," he said.

You're already doing that, she thought.

He sat forward suddenly, seized Carlen's wrist and snapped the bracelet on. "May-be a mil-lion..."

The ratchets clicked. The second bracelet encircled the other wrist. He released her and Carlen's hands hung suspended in the air where he'd left them. He sat back, bottle in hand. Swigged.

There was another long pause. Carlen was watching him now. It didn't seem to make a difference. He was so far away he wasn't aware of her scrutiny. It was him. Only him.

"All that white, white skin," he was saying with that slow, cruel speculation. "So pale, you almost blue..."

Carlen winced but he didn't notice.

"Not a mark on you. Real Fancy White... Never were trash, were you? Not 'til now..."

Carlen lowered her hands to her knees. Tried to block stupid thoughts, stupid words, and stupid deeds. The Dealer sat forward suddenly, banged the bottle down on the floor and stood up. Carlen averted her head as he brushed past her but she did not look after him - as she had tried to train herself not to do with the Whipmaster. She just sat there, clenched, keeping as calm as possible, those cold bracelets on her wrists, and counted back... Anything that may have been misconstrued as a fault or digression of some sort.

Something was wrong, really wrong tonight, but she could not get a handle on it. She had done nothing. Nothing. Everything had been fine a few hours ago. And before that? Nothing. Nothing.

Carlen jerked up, electrified by the dry whistle that cut the air behind her. She spun her head in time to see as the Dealer swung again, causing a crack against the table that made her jump again. A shard of the red vial struck her. Cut her arm.

Carlen's hands fisted up. He'd found that wire he'd been talking about a few weeks ago. A length of white electrical wire. Doubled over.

"You scared, Lindy?" the Dealer asked, moving a little closer. "You should be..."

Carlen only wished she knew what the hell was going on. She wished she wasn't so bloody afraid to tackle the powder burning in him. And even more she wished she didn't know why she was so afraid to try.

"Dealer, if I've made some mistake-"

"Mistake! Your mistakes all been made."

"I don't understand-"

"Oh, you don't-huh?"

He lunged forward and wrenched her to her feet by the collar.

"I tell you your mistakes have been made and you don't believe me."

He pushed her so hard she hit the floor and rolled onto the mattress. He came after. Carlen gained a crouch. Backed away to the far edge.

"The news is - you're down Lindy! You're down for keeps!"

"Listen, Dealer - I'm not-"

"Not what? Not WHAT? Scared, Lindy? Not scared?"

"Shit. What do you think?"

"That's good. You better stay that way."

"I only mean-"

"You mean? What you mean don't stand for shit! Not any more!"

He pointed a damning finger at her.

"YOU DON'T GET ANYTHING MORE FROM US! War's over, Fancy White! War coming, the Black man will take Whitey down. All the way down. To his knees. And when he's down there, he's going to suck cock! Black cock. Ev-e-ry day. Just like you have to. He's going to swallow all that good Black pleasure and learn to say 'Thank you. Thank you, Master, for showing me how it feels to be NOTHING! Shit nothing! In-vis-i-ble!'"

Oh no. Not this.

"Dealer - there's no war between us-"

"No war-huh?"

"I only want to please you-"

"Please me!"

He crouched down suddenly and snatched the chain between the bracelets. Pulled against Carlen's resistance. There was a very ugly look in his eyes. In fact the whole scene was getting really ugly.

"You want to scream for me? You want to do that?"

Carlen pulled a little harder. He pulled back.

He'd never used restraints on her before. It had never been necessary. But she knew better than to fight those handcuffs. They were not the smooth, rounded, leather shackles she'd been issued at the Zoo. Those were designed for the struggle. Handcuffs were designed to prohibit it.

"What about I beat you - like my Black brother's been beaten by Whitey all along-huh? Want to reckon up, Fancy White?"

He yanked the bracelets and Carlen yelped as she stumbled to her feet to avoid being dragged to the wall.

"You scream for me. Tell me how it feels to be a White slave being beaten by your Black Master \- because that's what pleases me!"

He used an ordinary padlock to affix the handcuffs to the wall ring. He stepped back.

"Dealer, PLEASE! Listen!"

"Oh I'm listening," he said. "You tell me about respect!"

There was a small rush of air before Carlen experienced the first cut from that wire. She flashed back to the day the women strung her up against The Wall before they took her back to the Stage. She recalled how she'd thought that was the end and she realized she didn't know shit then.

Now, as she hung against the Dealer's wall, the black, oozing clouds of his dementia descending over her, she thought to herself she still didn't know shit.

There was no point to dodging the blows. Such moves only exposed more sensitive areas of her body. So she grabbed the ring, fought with that, bruising her knuckles against the wood, and she screamed and cried, cursed and pleaded. Said anything he wanted her to say and more, knowing all the time she was unworthy of his contempt.

Despite the level of devastation, the episode was short lived. The Dealer's fury waned quite suddenly. His upraised arm lowered in stages, the blood soiled wire dangling from his hand like a snake with a broken back.

He stared across at Carlen, who was still pressed into the wall, yipping in pain and fright, not really seeing or hearing her, but sure somewhere in his mind that he'd seen that picture before. But that was before... Before what?

Before tonight.

He slowly backed off the mattress, half turned, then swung, full around, putting his boot through the wall by the door. Carlen jumped a little at the noise and ceased her crying.

A little while later he called down the stairs for Will, who came promptly.

"Take the Little Sister down," the Dealer said tiredly. "She's had a hard night."

Will couldn't find the key to the padlock, so he held Carlen up while Bodeen freed her wrists from the handcuffs. They lowered her to her knees by the wall and left.

A while after, the Dealer came back in. He stood indecisively by the door and finally took a seat at the far end of the mattress.

Carlen was too wrecked to move or speak for some minutes. The Dealer only watched until at last she lifted her head.

"You alright?" he murmured, but Carlen dropped her head again.

The Dealer hesitated, then pivoted around to the shelf and made some coffee. When next Carlen looked up there was a steaming cup and an unusually large piece of cake beside her.

She picked up the coffee cup, carefully moved it aside. Moved the cake. Slowly eased her legs out from under her, grimacing horribly as she lowered her rump to the mattress. She picked up the cup. Blew into it. Nursed it.

"You alright?" the Dealer asked again.

Nothing.

"Well?"

"...Oh, fine. Used to it."

"He beat you like that?"

"Sure. What do think 'orientation' means?"

"You're not marked up."

"He was an expert," she said tightly.

There was a pause.

"You're not used to that," he said with finality.

"Listen, man," Carlen flashed suddenly. "Don't fucking tell me what I'm used to! And you can believe all that racist bullshit you just made me spit out - because it was bullshit. Every fucking word! I know you'll believe what you want to, but do me a favor - don't tell me what I'm used to."

The Dealer was silent. Unnaturally so. She couldn't even hear him breathing. Carlen's senses were roaring.

"You think because I'm Trade I have no position. No viewpoint, no opinion, in fact, no fucking idea at all! Don't you?

"Well, let me tell you something. I know it's been tough being Black about four hundred years too long. You think I can't relate to that, but I've been White as long as you've been Black, and every day for half my life I've been reminded just how tough it is. If my brothers hadn't fucked your brothers over for so long, you wouldn't be fucking me over like you're doing now.

"Don't think I can't relate. It was a White man who sold me to you, bro, and a White woman who gave me to him! It's a sweet story but it has nothing at all to do with what I think of your color. I've dealt and played with all kinds of men, so you can just come off that kick! I'm no fucking Lindy - and I think you know it..."

Carlen snatched up the cake and began gnawing at it.

"Look," the Dealer began. "I'm-"

Carlen's head snapped up. "Don't you tell me you're sorry, man. Don't you dare, because that might indicate what you did was a mistake - which means I'm sitting here in agony for no fucking reason at all!"

The Dealer winced. Carlen did an odd little double-take and bent again to her coffee.

The coffee was awful. As awful as the cake was hard. Situation normal. Except for him. The Man, Lord of Blacktown, who was still crouched at the far edge of the mattress, about as all huddled up as a long limbed creature like him could get. He had taken coffee for himself but used it only as a dull reflection of his own miserable face. Something inside Carlen responded to the sight of him like that.

"You think it's a big ruckus?"

The Dealer glanced up.

"Don't take it so hard, man. I'm only Hardchange. It's what you paid for."

That stung him.

Carlen looked away. Her voice dropped right down. "The world is full of hate and fear and disappointment. It's not so hard for me to understand your feelings." She stiffened slightly. "But for me? I throw open for you. You know it, man. You want it? You got it. Only, I got tortured a lot my last place of residence and the fact is, if you could be happy with it, I could do a whole lot better without it. I don't really know how long you expect me to last but I just don't run all that well anymore."

There was a pause.

"Can I do anything for you?" he asked finally.

"Yeah. Give me a drink."

"You got coffee..."

"I mean a real drink," Carlen said through her teeth.

The Dealer hesitated. "You mean alcohol?"

Carlen turned her flashing eyes on him. "Of course I mean alcohol."

The Dealer laughed, a little pathetically.

"Nobody does much of that here, lady. Not in the Men's Sector."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No. No, I'm not kidding. It's all gone. Gone. And it's hard to get in."

"You had some here tonight."

"That was Trade."

Carlen looked at him closely. "Hardchange?"

"Yeah, baby."

"Well, then you know exactly where you can get it, don't you?"

The Dealer took a second to catch her up.

"Yeah, baby."

"Good. Now, what about giving me something for this pain? And maybe something more to eat?"

The Dealer's relief was almost childlike. He gave her more cake and prepared an injection.

He approached her, cautiously, and sat, cross legged, near her. The hand with the hypo was relaxed over his knee, half forgotten. He was looking at Carlen's back. He reached a finger and collected the blood that had burst from one of the blisters.

"Don't!" Carlen snapped angrily. "Shit. Don't touch it."

"You're bleeding," he murmured.

Carlen glanced around with wild, shocky eyes. She grabbed the Dealer's hand, wrenched it across and smeared the extended finger through some blood which had spattered the wall. Spelt a word in it.

"You see that?" she asked in a spooky voice. "That's where we are, man. Let's make no mistake about that, at least."

She tossed his hand away.

The Dealer stared dumbly at the spot on the wall where Carlen had written the word HELL.

"Give me the damned shot, will you?"

He'd made up a new combination for her that night and Carlen's pain dissipated almost immediately.

* * *

There was no instant recovery from the wire incident. The scabs that developed pulled tightly and they itched. Constantly. Sometimes they broke open when Carlen forgot herself and swiped at them with her fingernails or, sometimes, during sessions when the Dealer treated her roughly. They took a long time to heal and Carlen was uncomfortable all the time until they did.

She needed another shirt after that and she was not in the least hesitant in approaching the Dealer about it.

"I need a new shirt," she announced one morning.

"You do-huh?"

Carlen balled up the old shirt and threw it down beside him. "That one's got enough blood on it, don't you think?"

The Dealer supplied another shirt without argument. One of his own. The soft, black cotton one Carlen had secretly admired for some months. It was good and long, had all its buttons, and there was a stash of greenweed and rolling papers in the pocket for good measure.

He wasn't going to try and apologize again for what he'd done, but it seemed he wasn't afraid to reconfirm her value to him. Carlen was impressed by the gift and the gesture. A week later he made good on his promise of the booze. Good? Hell! He had a whole bloody crate of Scotch brought in. Fine Scotch, just for her.

He never misused Carlen in quite that way again. Occasionally he went a little crazy, but this was what she had to learn to forgive to keep the peace. She figured it was only a matter of episodes. How many she managed to stave off, how many she managed to survive. Carlen reckoned four or five more episodes like the wire incident and she would be dead. Maybe even less...

CHAPTER 51 \- THE HOOK AND THE HYPO

Carlen was hardly recovered from the whipping the night Kody paid a visit to the Penthouse. Kody - in his black cycle jacket and eye patch. Looking quite the urban jock. Only he wasn't. He wore denims and something in the way he moved in them bespoke country stock.

Kody was into a little of everything. Drugs, guns, machine parts, information. He was a well connected Independent in the sector and the only Angloid Capital in Blacktown.

Kody was short and sinewy, with knife scars on his hands and face. A hardass guy who got by on wit and grit.

The first thing Carlen disliked about Kody was the jacket. The leather was fake. The second thing she disliked was the way he helped himself to a bottle of her Scotch. He not only didn't even ask the Dealer if it was alright but he started the Dealer drinking with him.

If that wasn't enough, Carlen resented Kody because he was one of those guys who would not leave her alone. He was an opinionated bastard with a raw manner and he was very cold about women. Once he relaxed and brought her into the conversation he never let it drop. That one eye flashed like a neon light and his remarks were like razor cuts.

No, Carlen didn't care one little bit for Kody or his attitudes. He was the only visitor that night and, whatever he and the Dealer were getting into, it was no damned good.

"What do you let the jade have clothes for?"

There was a minute pause, then the Dealer said, "Get undressed, jade."

Carlen stifled her resentment and took off the shirt.

"Real nice tits," Kody remarked. "Stand up."

Carlen only glared.

"Get up," the Dealer said.

Carlen stood up slowly. Kody looked her up and down.

"Turn around," he said.

Carlen turned her back.

"Nice ass."

Carlen started to twist around.

"Hey bitch!" Kody flashed. "Did I tell you to move?"

Carlen's eyes flashed back at him but she never murmured.

"Turn around," he commanded and Carlen turned away.

"Looks like she's in good condition, though it seems you got some temperament problems."

"She's no trouble," the Dealer said.

"That's why she's cut up that way-huh?"

The Dealer gave Kody his set-up. Kody gave the Dealer the bottle.

"Sit down, jade," the Dealer said.

Carlen spun around and flopped to the mattress. She saw the hypo jammed into Kody's arm, the bottle up to the Dealer's mouth and she knew it was going to be a bad night.

She snatched her cigarettes off the table, turned herself square to the Dealer and crooked her left knee up to her shoulder to shield herself as well as possible from Kody's cruel stare. She kept her shirt close by but just out of the Dealer's reach.

Nearly half the bottle was gone. Kody had it now and, in another second, one more healthy jolt had been sucked out of it. Carlen figured he'd probably take another. Bottle.

"You want a drink?" he asked, setting the bottle on the table.

There was a pause.

Carlen glanced up. "No," she said. Then, "I'll get my own."

She turned her back on Kody as she crossed to the crate. She took a fresh bottle for herself, although she hadn't an intention in the world of putting a dent in it. She resumed her former position of censure thinking she had better watch this man.

"So, the firewater's yours," Kody deduced as Carlen broke the seal and uncorked the bottle. "Never saw it around here before."

"It's good disinfectant," Carlen remarked, taking a draught from the bottle.

Kody laughed. A sour laugh loaded with condescension. "Disinfectant," he sneered and drank again.

He passed the bottle back to the Dealer and, as he crossed to the crate for another, Carlen snatched the matches off the table.

"You got to watch these jades who drink," Kody was telling the Dealer as he came back. "They start mouth noise. Know what I mean?"

"Oh, she got a mouth," the Dealer said. "And she use it good."

They all knew what the Dealer meant but, an instant later, the men broke into leering laughter, taking the crudest possible inference in the remark.

There was a fresh fit on the table. A different combination.

"She drink a lot?" Kody asked.

"I don't know," the Dealer said.

"Well, you got to watch them if they drink. Boozeheads need a hard hand-"

"Hey!" Carlen flashed. "I'm no fucking boozehead!"

"Temper!"

"You don't know anything about me."

"Cool it, babe," the Dealer murmured.

"Come in here and call me names-"

The Dealer's head swung around. "I said cool it."

Carlen took one last angry drag on her cigarette and flicked it back into the can. She already knew by the impersonal way he was treating her this evening that he was going to take anything Kody said over her. Bastard.

"She's bitchy," Kody said emphatically.

"Speaks her mind," the Dealer said.

"She seems bitchy to me."

Nearly all the Dealer's attention was focused into his preparations. "A little high strung, sometimes..."

"Yeah? You had trouble with her?"

The needle was in the bowl over the flame. The syringe was sucking up the latest batch of mood adjustment.

"Only once..." the Dealer murmured, freezing the plunger. He raised the needle, shot a spout in the air to clear the bubble and turned to Carlen. "Ain't that right, babe?"

Carlen gave him her arm. Flexed her hand. "Right, Dealer," she said, a little coldly.

Immediately after the injection Carlen turned to the shirt for her stash.

"Yeah. She reads like she gave you some problem about a month back."

"Could be."

"Let me guess. She tried to run."

"Good guess."

Kody didn't know it but Carlen was all too aware they were talking about two completely different incidents. She didn't think the Dealer would confide the details of the wire episode to Kody but she was insulted by Kody's assumptions and the Dealer's failure to dispute them.

"Hey, Dealer," she began. "You know I-"

"Shut up," he said.

Kody shook his head. He had shifted over to get the best possible view of Carlen. She couldn't turn any further away without turning her back on the Dealer, so she just hung tough, snatched the papers off the table and rolled a toker.

"What do you give her that greenweed for?"

"Keeps her quiet," the Dealer said.

"What? And did you spike her down now, man?"

"No, man," the Dealer said softly. "She'll be singing in a minute..." He was putting together a smoke for himself.

Carlen took the liberty of lighting her toker for one or two hits, took another jolt of Scotch she'd intended to leave in the bottle, and took the cue. She sang songs she hoped would diffuse the situation with Kody but Kody was only irritated.

"Well, she's got a voice, alright, but don't she know any songs with some grit?"

Carlen was watching Kody with a dark eye.

The Dealer chuckled. "Grit-huh?" He turned to Carlen. "Well, jade?"

"You ever heard 'Free Fall'?"

Kody shook his head. Carlen began to sing.

"Killers kill. Mothers cry.

City burns. Children die.

But no one's killed, in all this strife,

the will to survive.

Runners run. Ruler rules

but there's no control in this land of fools.

And no one's free and no one's strong

but we all belong.

And it's a long way down

a long way down from here...

Well they broke our backs, broke our wills.

Took our songs and they took our pills.

And all that's left of the will to live

is the will to kill.

Well, I made my trades, walked the line

but they took me down and I do my time.

And no one knows if I'll come out

we all live in doubt.

And it's a long way down

still a long way down from here..."

The last syllable trailed away to silence and Kody's eye narrowed. "Well. That's something, isn't it?"

"Isn't it?" Carlen rejoined. "I know lots of jailhouse songs - if that's what you like. Or songs about killing..."

"Bloody minded, ain't she? And insolent."

"Well?" Carlen goaded. "What's your pleasure?"

"Nothing, bitch!" Kody flared. "Nothing! You just hold your peace!"

Carlen nodded slowly, her eyes glittering. She relit her toker.

"I think you got this bitch spoiled. That's what I think. Clothes, booze, cigarettes, weed. You're breeding an attitude in her."

"She's my jade, Kody. I'm the only one she's got to please."

"Yeah. She's yours, but I don't see your mark on her anywhere."

"...She's marked," the Dealer said softly.

"The whip? Yeah, I can see that clear enough. And I can see why, but that's not what I'm saying. You want to put your mark on her. Right now she's just stamped property of the Zoo."

"That's where she came from."

"Yeah, and that's where she'll end up if she's picked up on the run."

"She ain't running nowhere."

"She ain't-huh? She'll try again. Nothing surer than that. This one's got runner's eyes, Dealer. You can't see that?"

The Dealer didn't say anything. Swigged from the bottle.

Kody shook his head. "How long you had her now?"

"About eight months, I guess."

"Then you're sure about her."

"Yeah. I'm sure about her."

"You should mark her, man."

"That costs, man."

"Never mind that. You could brand her."

"No need for that. Besides, I got no irons here."

"You don't need no iron." Kody reached into his pocket. Buttoned open the switchblade he proffered before the Dealer's face. "Use this..."

The Dealer finally locked with Kody's gaze. "Is that what you'd do?"

"Carve it right into her."

The Dealer snorted.

"It's no worse than branding and it sure teaches them."

"I don't think she'd like that."

"What's she going to do?" Kody argued smoothly.

The Dealer looked at that blade a long time. He took the knife. Turned it in his hand. Carlen's blood had turned to ice.

"Kody," the Dealer said softly. "Didn't your Daddy ever tell you, never give a Nigger a knife?"

"Hey - I trust you, man."

All at once the Dealer's hand shot across the table and seized the lapel of Kody's jacket. The tendons of his thin arm stood out in ridges as he jerked Kody forward. "Maybe you trust it too far."

Kody's breath hitched slightly, his ribs pressured by the edge of the table. The Dealer's black eyes bored into him.

"Don't come around here pushing, Kody. I do the pushing in Blacktown. You don't push me. You follow?"

"Yeah, Dealer," Kody gasped.

The Dealer pricked him under the chin with the point of the knife.

"You are one sick mother fucker, Kody. You're good with business but you got a rotten attitude about women. You ever come in here suggesting I do something like that to Carlen again, I'll slit your throat - and the lady can have your scrotum for a stash bag. You copy that?"

"Copy," Kody muttered.

"Now get your dirty mouth and ideas out of here."

The Dealer tossed him back, folded the knife and set it down near his box.

Kody recovered himself, stood up unsteadily and got out. There was a long silence. The Dealer was tending to the dirty fits on the table. Carlen was trying to put a rein on the adrenalin pushes stimulated by the scene. She hadn't even realized how furious Kody was making her. Her hands were shaking.

"Will!" the Dealer called out suddenly.

Carlen jumped.

Will came to the door. "Everything alright?"

"Everything's cool," the Dealer said. "I want you to send someone after the Pin Artist."

Will hesitated. "It's late."

"Get him over here," the Dealer said. "Tonight."

Will gave a nod and disappeared. Carlen had stopped breathing.

The Dealer dropped the needles into the sterilizing solution. Picked them out again, reattached them to the syringes. Sucked up some solution. Shot it through the needles. Detached them and dropped them back in the solution.

"Kody may not know shit about managing women," he said, "but he sure enough knows how to read them. I reckon he's right about you."

"Oh, Dealer-"

"Don't 'Oh Dealer' me. You'll be wearing my mark before the night's out. I put it off long enough. Kody was right about that."

The Pin Artist arrived about an hour later. Carlen was holding onto the vain hope they hadn't been able to find him or that, perhaps, he'd refuse to come. No such luck. He came alright, all the way from White City, by the look of it.

Strange mother fucker. Heavy man, bald, his arms, hands, shoulders, head, and half his face - all tattooed. Ugly. Frightening.

"You need some art work done?"

"Yeah," the Dealer said. "I want this jade marked."

"Jade-huh? That's good, cause my gun's out of commission. I just brought hand needles."

"That don't matter."

"No. Just more pain, more time," the Pin Artist said, laying his gear on the table.

The sight of those needles really put the wind up Carlen.

"What colors you want?"

"Just black," the Dealer said. "It's not complicated."

"Good as done," the tattooist said.

"Dealer-" Carlen murmured. He ignored her.

"How do you want to do this?" he asked the Pin Artist.

"Where do you want the mark?"

"On the back."

The Pin Artist gave a wave. "Just clear this stuff off. Lay her down right here."

"Dealer-" Carlen said, louder.

The Dealer cleared the surface of the table. Carlen began to back away. The Dealer swung around and caught her arm.

"Where you going?"

"No, Dealer!"

"No?" He jerked her closer. "Get over here."

Carlen started pulling - hard. "No, Dealer - don't do this!"

"You don't like it-huh?"

"No," she said more softly. "Oh don't. Please. Don't do this."

"She's going to fight-huh?"

"Seems so," the Dealer said.

"We might need help."

"Yeah. Will!"

Carlen pulled again. "Oh no. No. Please!"

Will came in.

The Dealer hooked the tourniquet up off the table. A good strong belt.

"Here, Will. Take her arms. Get her down here-"

"NO!" Carlen screamed as Will stretched over the table and seized her. As he pushed her down, the Dealer yanked her hips around so that the corner of the table nestled up against her crotch.

"Please!" Carlen cried. "Please, Dealer! Don't do this!"

"Stop your shouting," he snapped.

"Make it tight," the tattooist urged as the Dealer pulled the belt up around her legs and strapped them against the table leg. Will wrestled Carlen's arms up behind her back, pinning them securely.

Carlen's struggles subsided. She was beginning to cry. "Ah please, Dealer... don't do this to me..."

"Now, where do you want this thing?"

"Here," the Dealer said, touching a spot just left of the Whipmaster's brand.

Carlen jumped slightly. "Dealer?"

"I recommend you keep still, little lady," the Pin Artist said. "Real still..."

Carlen whimpered.

"The Hook and the Hypo," he murmured as he lay a wet disinfecting pad over the spot the Dealer had indicated.

"You fucking bastard," Carlen sobbed.

The tattoo took over an hour to complete. Carlen lay still while the tattooist worked but, as soon as she felt that strap slide loose and Will's hands lift off, she came up from the table screaming mad.

"You son of a bitch!"

"Whoa!" Will exclaimed, trying to catch her again.

The Dealer grabbed her. "You better control your mouth, bitch, unless you looking for some real trouble on top of this!"

Carlen's eyes were crazy wild but she took heed of the warning and kept silent.

"You got any handcuffs, Dealer?"

"Yeah."

"I suggest you lock her up for a couple of days so she don't try to interfere with that tool work."

"I think you're right," the Dealer said.

Will got the cuffs out of the Dealer's box and together they wrestled Carlen over to the wall where they affixed her hands to the wall chain. Soon after, the Dealer sedated her.

He kept her on that wall chain for two days, then he transferred the restraint to the chain about six inches down from the collar. Carlen had to eat this way and she was obliged to accept Will's assistance in can routines. No clothes were permitted.

The Dealer's attitude about the incident didn't soften as it had after the beating, and this kept Carlen mad. She felt betrayed and didn't speak for four days.

Braidshawk noticed the look the Dealer cast at Carlen as they came in one afternoon. The look Carlen returned him. The coldness between them.

"You talking to me yet?" the Dealer asked when they'd taken their seats.

Carlen sneered.

The Dealer shook his head. "Come over here. Let me look."

Braidshawk observed Carlen's reluctance. There was a breach here. Apparently pretty serious.

"Get it over here!" the Dealer snapped.

Braidshawk watched Carlen crawl over, intrigued by her mood and the way she moved in the restraints.

"No," the Dealer said when she arrived. "Turn around. Show Braidshawk."

Braidshawk felt Carlen's hostility intensify. He wondered what had triggered such a violent reaction in her. All she must have been through, to be thrown so far by something this simple. Didn't really make sense.

Braidshawk looked at the mark. The Dealer asked his opinion. He made some non-committal reply. He inquired as to when it was done. The Dealer told him, and how it was done.

"Hand needles, you say?"

"Yeah."

Carlen was seething. Even from behind her Braidshawk could feel it.

"That must have hurt her," he said.

"Seemed like she was looking to get hurt," the Dealer said.

Carlen turned around. Murder was in her eyes.

"Is that right, bitch?"

"Asshole!" she hissed at him.

The Dealer swung her a slap that knocked her back. She rolled, right over, and up into a crouch near the wall.

"Asshole!" she spat at him again, looking quite the savage.

The Dealer turned back to the table. "I guess we're talking again," he said, although there was no levity to the situation. He pulled out a fresh fit. Assembled the hypo.

"I'm fixing this for you," he said, over his shoulder. "And in another minute, you're coming over to get it..."

Carlen just stared daggers at his back. After a while, the Dealer spoke, somewhat more softly.

"You might as well know - I was going to do it anyway. I know you think that's hard, girl, but it's just the way we keep things straight here. It won't hurt your position none."

Carlen reared up, eyes blazing. "My position? My fuck-ing po-si-tion?"

"You got some problem with that word?"

"You MUTILATED ME!"

"Oh. And he didn't, I guess."

"First you slash me up with the fucking wire and now you pull this!"

"You're Trade, bitch!" he flashed suddenly. "You don't have no fucking say in it! Don't be worrying about what I do. I told you before." He turned away from her. "It's done. It had to be done. That's the way it is."

There was a momentary silence.

"Fucking asshole," Carlen murmured into it. "I hate you, man. Plain hate you."

The Dealer was looking at the small vial he was holding between his fingers. The atmosphere hung with the anger between them.

"Well, that's alright, baby," he said softly. "I'm glad to hear you finally say it." And as he spoke the words, he placed the vial aside, broke the fit down and put it away in the box.

CHAPTER 52 \- HUMANITIES

Over the next twenty-four hours the Dealer ignored Carlen and she, likewise, ignored him. She spent a bad, restless night and when she wakened the next day the Dealer had already gone out. Carlen was glad to have him away from her but, at the same time, angry to have been left alone.

The anger was on slow burn all day. Luckily, the Dealer had finally relieved her of the restriction imposed by the handcuffs, but Carlen was incapable of channeling her dark energy into some disciplined task. She made tea for her thirst then left it to stand, forgotten. She picked up the pencil and twenty minutes later looked down at a blank page. She called out to Will. Demanded something to eat. Will brought her something a little while later but Carlen couldn't eat. Couldn't even try.

Hours passed. The food remained in the bowl. The fourth cup of tea stood cold, untouched on the shelf where she'd left it. She'd smoked all her cigarettes. Of course there were more in the Dealer's box - the box that existed a million miles beyond the reach of her privilege. She'd smoked four tokers. Big ones. There were only a few crumbs left in her stash. No more papers left on the table anyway.

Things were ugly. Really ugly and, on top of all this, Carlen's skin itched. No - it crawled. C R A W L E D. Her stomach felt like it was seething with live snakes and her mind was a war zone.

Conditions worsened come dark and Carlen was sure - SURE she would not make it through the night.

The Dealer didn't come in until two A.M. and one look at Carlen gave him the story. She was sick. Starting to suffer. All eyes on him and in her eyes he could see she was too darn stubborn to make the first overture. Maybe she didn't even know what was happening to her.

"Well," he said, tossing down his belt and dumping a satchel on the table. "What's wrong with you?"

"Leave me alone. I don't feel well."

A small smile Carlen didn't really understand pulled at the corners of the Dealer's mouth. "No. You sure don't look too good."

He pulled off his boots and settled down on the mattress. He checked inside the empty cigarette box on the table. "Smoke all these up-huh?"

"I need some more."

"Might be able to fix that."

"There are some in your box."

"The need," he murmured, reaching for the satchel.

He carefully unloaded his latest acquisitions from the bag. Pills, powder, caps, boxes of vials - clear, blue, red. What a fucking haul. Some greenweed and rolling papers amongst it.

"You know what's wrong with you, don't you?"

Carlen stared at him with wet, defensive eyes. She was confused and paranoid and not quite with the question.

"You need something now, lady. You can only get it from me." He eyed her closely. "You understand that?"

Carlen's confusion deepened, then a small light seemed to flicker on. "You mean..."

"You're strung out," he said. "S t r u n g out."

Now the realization. The denial. The horror.

"It gets worse, baby. A lot worse."

"You did this on purpose?"

"To get your attention. I believe I've got it now."

Carlen stared with those blank swampy eyes.

"I don't expect no jade living on my means to sit there calling me names. I don't have to deal with no backsliding."

Now resentment.

"No matter what Braidshawk told you, there's lots of places you could end up. And no matter how scared you might be of going back to the Zoo, there are places that could be a whole lot worse for you."

Fear now.

"So long as you're mine, that's all you are. I do as I please. That's how the Bond works. It isn't reversible unless I say it is. I could kill you and it wouldn't make any difference." He paused a moment. "You see where you stand."

Carlen was silent.

"Of course, we could leave this 'til tomorrow-"

"No!"

He paused. "You all through calling me names?"

"Yeah, Dealer."

"Fine. So - tell me what you need."

"...I need you to fix it for me, Dealer."

Oh yeah. She understood it now, alright.

The Dealer nodded with a slow smile. "All a Little Sister needs..." he said, turning to the box, "the Dealer will provide."

* * *

Things leveled off with him pretty quickly after that. The Dealer didn't hold grudges, at least not with her. She now saw the form of discipline he could take with her and she realized how effective it could be. She depended on him and he was sure smart enough to have set it up that way.

Of course the very idea of this addiction was intolerable to Carlen. A very personal repugnance that ate huge gangrenous holes in her self-esteem.

What disgusted her the most was she had known. All along. What she had done was push the knowledge away. Just as she'd silently watched the Dealer push it into her. Week after week. Then twice a week. Day after day. Sometimes twice a day. Pushing that needle in. Deeper and deeper. You don't live on all that jack and not come off addicted to something. She knew that. She knew it.

She wondered if the Whipmaster had known the Dealer would do this to her. He must have known. That motherfucker knew everything. Shit.

Shit, and that was sure. Wasn't it enough that she was scared to be herself - let alone take on some alter-personality she wasn't at all sure she could control? Had that personality already taken over? Would she know if it had?

Of course, with the Dealer's loose hand on the rein, Carlen knew her situation here was very much a case of "self rule", and she determined to make a more concentrated effort to exercise discipline and restraint in all matters. The problem was, she was tired of restraint. Tired of discipline.

There was no development here. Only slow deterioration. After all, what would she be when the Dealer had done with her? Just another wrung out junker with no hope and no future. It was pretty much how she felt already, but Carlen still had a very short-sighted view of the elements that would influence and shape the course of her future.

* * *

Around the middle of October the Dealer took off for a number of days and something unprecedented happened. A number of things, actually.

Carlen was standing by the window one afternoon, a spot she'd come to frequent during these long, lonely days. She'd discovered that, on full extension, the chain reached just far enough that she could lean a shoulder into the window frame, peel back the curtain and get a view of the outside between the boards nailed over the window.

This was no million dollar vista. There was just the row of three rubble lots that bordered the Penthouse and the street that bordered them, fronted by the grim, tired facades of buildings that protectively shielded any view of the landscape beyond.

Carlen didn't know the name of that street but it wasn't relevant. From indicative nods during the men's conversations, Carlen now knew this window faced due north - directly into the heart of darkness for the women up there, living out their last days in the warrens. The men had dubbed it the Coral Area, but Carlen thought of it as the Warrens.

Through this dubious gift of orientation, Carlen could conclude that, to her left, would lie the western border of Newcity pen. To her right were the blocks that spanned the eastern side of Blacktown to the Park and, beyond, the Women's Sector where, if anywhere, she truly belonged.

Apart from brief visits to give her fixes, the Dealer had not been with her for three whole days and, for the first time since she'd been brought to the Penthouse, Carlen succumbed to a genuine feeling of futility. That everything, from now on, began and ended here. Not with a bang, but an unheard sigh.

She'd been depressed at the Zoo, day after day staring at that empty archway. Wondering. But the Whipmaster had kept things fresh. When he left her alone there had usually been a reason. A reason that related directly to her, or his feelings toward her or, if not strictly that, her progress. There had always been the promise of some new development.

This period in Blacktown was purely awful. Dead. Pointless. It was not a time she would have chosen for introspection, but there was far too much time to look around and realize that this was the kind of place - exactly the kind of place in which she did not want to die.

She saw nothing and no one through that precious wedge of light in her dismal universe, but it was a use for her long-sight - and her hindsight.

The deadly quietude of these days ate away at her. She sensed some self-destructive force was driving her, hour by hour, closer to the limit. The limit of what, she could not fathom, but it felt as though she was racing toward some crisis point she would not recognize until she struck it, head on, and all too late to turn back.

She was thinking of the old adage: "Don't start something you can't finish", and she wondered if she'd taken the correct course. Allowing the Whipmaster to sell her to the Dealer. Taking no primary action to insure he would kill her, before... Before things came to this.

"What are you doing over there?"

Carlen jumped nearly three feet into the air. Braidshawk was in the doorway, looking all too certain he'd caught her unawares. For such a big man, he sure could move around quietly.

"God! Give me a seizure!"

"I thought you were supposed to stay on that mattress."

Carlen had already deserted the window. She bent and casually hooked a couple of the Dealer's shirts up off the floor. "Not especially. I am supposed to clear up, you know."

"Uh-huh," Braidshawk murmured, unconvinced.

Carlen went straight back to the mattress. To the farthest corner. Her corner. Dropped the shirts in a heap there. "You got business today?"

"None of your business if I do," Braidshawk said.

Right, Carlen thought.

Braidshawk took a seat at the table. Carlen hesitated then turned to the basin and, although she hadn't intended to, washed the Dealer's shirts. When she'd done that, Braidshawk was still sitting there. He'd taken out some hash and was packing the Dealer's pipe.

Carlen turned her attention to a painstaking organization of the bedding. Pulling, straightening, tucking, here and there. Pointlessly fluffing the dead pillows. Squeezing the excess water from the cuffs and tails of the Dealer's dripping shirts.

"Why don't you stop that?"

Carlen froze.

"Or, if you have to be so active, why don't you make some tea?"

Carlen dropped back on her haunches with a sigh. She went to the shelf, made Braidshawk a cup of tea, took it to the table. He proffered her the pipe. Reluctantly she accepted it. It was sunset. Later than she'd thought.

They smoked the hash in silence. Very fine hash. It got darker. Still he stayed.

"Can you reach the light?"

"No. I can't get that far."

Braidshawk got up and turned on the light. Sat down again. Tapped the burnt ash out of the pipe. Things were extraordinarily quiet.

"What were you looking at out the window?"

"Nothing in particular."

"You can see the Park from here, can't you?"

"Yeah."

He scraped out the pipe bowl. "You go over there a lot?"

"Over there?"

"The window."

"Occasionally."

Braidshawk started to repack the pipe. "Must be pretty hard on you, being cooped up in here all the time."

"You don't need me to tell you that," Carlen said.

Braidshawk struck a match.

"You sure this is allowed?"

Braidshawk's eyes flicked up over the pipe. "Allowed?"

"You coming round here, getting the Dealer's jade high."

The resin glowed red as he pulled a couple of times on the flame he'd raised to the pipe bowl. "He wouldn't mind my giving you this," he said and handed her the pipe again.

It was complete nightfall and Carlen was wondering what else the Dealer might not mind Braidshawk giving her.

"Soon be Halloween," he said, expelling a clear breath. God, that man had some lung power.

"It's always Halloween here," Carlen replied, toking the pipe as though it were a cigar.

"Is that how you see it?"

"What do you want, Braidshawk? Confessions?"

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. Carlen handed him the pipe and averted her eyes. He let it drop and turned his attention to the layer of ash in the pipe bowl. He dug it around a bit, then relit the remains.

"What costume would you wear?" he asked casually.

"...For Halloween?"

"Yeah."

Carlen reached suddenly for her cigarettes. "Oh, I don't know."

"Come on," he coaxed.

"Oh... Something from 'Marat Sade' would be appropriate."

"'Marat Sade'?"

"It's a play. About the French Revolution. Only it's set in a loony bin... It's complicated."

"I know. The patients performed the play."

Carlen smiled a little. "That's right."

"I remember now. Very strange."

"Yes. It was. Is."

She lit a cigarette but tamped it out, not even half smoked. She crossed to the crate for a bottle then went to the shelf where she paused, a cup in hand.

"Drink?"

"No."

"Come on. One can't hurt. It's really nice stuff. Only the best for The Bitch, you know."

She was smiling but the expression was a little twisted with irony.

"Okay."

She seemed almost elated by his acceptance and scrambled back to the table in that odd fashion of hers. She poured Braidshawk's shot into the cup, then raised the bottle to her lips.

"Don't you use a cup?"

Carlen faltered. "Oh - I never think of it..."

She got herself a cup, assuming Braidshawk was concerned about diseases. She could no longer vouch for her state of health so she didn't bother taking offence.

"What costume would you choose?" she asked.

Braidshawk shrugged. "Don't know."

"Don't you?" She seemed disappointed.

"Othello."

"Othello!"

"Yeah. Why not?"

"You've read 'Othello'?"

"Yeah. In high school."

"Why Othello?"

"He was a prince."

"You think you'd make a good prince?"

"Yeah."

"You're ambitious."

"It doesn't pay not to be. Things can change fast these days."

"Yeah. That's sure," Carlen said and Braidshawk was aware of that element of sadness again. She was tinking the side of the bottle with her fingernail. "You still read?" she asked.

"When I have time."

"Shit. Time's all I've got..."

It was an awkward conversation, each sort of nudging the other along. It was making Carlen uncomfortable.

Just then, Will came in. He nodded to Braidshawk, set a bowl on the table for Carlen and left again.

"What the hell's that?" Braidshawk asked.

Carlen grimaced into the bowl. "Dinner," she said, giving it a tentative sniff. Her disgust magnified. She would have liked to pitch that bowl but - well, not with Braidshawk watching. "Excuse me," she said, taking the bowl over to the corner. With two sharp bangs, she emptied the contents into the can.

"You shouldn't do that."

"Why not? You saw for yourself. It's no different to what goes in there anyway. Just save myself the discomfort of indigesting it."

She returned to the table with the empty bowl.

"You have to eat."

"Yeah, well I'm not eating that. Not today."

She poured more Scotch into her cup. Spilled some. Lit another cigarette. Flicked the match away. The nervous tinking started up again.

"Are you late?" Braidshawk asked, watching her closely.

"Late?"

"Your fix."

"Oh. Why?"

"You seem antsy."

"Do I? I can hardly tell anymore."

"What time are you due?"

"What time? I don't know. Now, I suppose." She combed her fingers through her lengthening hair. "Hell. What difference does it make? He's not here, so what's the difference?"

"It makes a difference to you."

"Well sure! Sure it does! But he's late. I'm late and what's the fucking difference?" She gave a short laugh. "Shit. I don't even know what he gives me."

There was a short, dead pause.

"Nightswitch."

"What?"

"Nightswitch. It's a cocaine, speed mix."

"Bloody hell! Are you kidding me?"

Braidshawk shook his head. "Percodan."

"Oh! Is that all?"

"No, but that's basically your regular set-up."

"And what the hell's the Percodan for?"

"Keep you cool."

"Cool-huh?"

"And for all the pain you've been in."

Carlen huffed. "Really."

"You know he likes you alright, but you're too small for him."

Carlen's eyes cut away sharply. She ground another half-smoked cigarette to shreds in the ashtray.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just can't get used to being spoken to that way."

Braidshawk didn't laugh or sneer. Didn't speak, didn't - anything. Carlen avoided his eyes. Broke into the silence. "So! What the hell you hanging around here for?"

"Do you mind?"

Carlen shrugged. "Well, I don't see what you'd want to sit round here with me for."

"Dealer's out late."

"Dealer's out late often, anymore." Carlen lit another cigarette and thought: Don't like this. Don't like it at all. "You must have business on the streets tonight..."

"No. Everything's quiet."

"Well, as you said, Dealer's out. Probably won't be back for hours. Maybe all night."

"I know," Braidshawk said.

Carlen glanced up nervously.

"He asked me to sit with you."

"That's curious. Why would he do that?"

"He doesn't want you left alone too much."

Carlen gave a sour chuckle. "I'll just bet."

She poured another drink. Tapped the ash off the cigarette. Her gestures were becoming more frantic. "I've never been baby sat before. Except when I was-"

"What?"

"Nothing. Death of a previous life," she murmured. Then, "Oh look, Braidshawk, you might as well go. I'm tired."

"I'll go in half an hour."

"I've been neglected before..."

He didn't know if it was the booze, the hash, the late fix or just her general state of mind, but she seemed to be losing focus. He could probably learn something from her tonight. He wondered if it was worth the risk.

"It's no big thing," she was saying. "Don't worry. I'm not going to do anything wrong. It's like the Dealer said - All my mistakes been made. All been made."

"When did he say that?"

"The night he - Never mind."

"What were you going to say?"

"I said never mind."

"What do you think he meant by that?"

"...I don't know."

Braidshawk decided to take a small plunge. "He hurt you with that wire."

"More than hurt me," she said very low.

"It's too bad about that."

"Too bad about a lot of things."

"Why did he do it?"

"Fucked if I know."

"You must have done something."

"Nothing!" she flashed suddenly, then slumped again. "I didn't do shit. He just hates me 'cause I'm White."

"He doesn't hate you."

"You seem sure."

"I am."

"Yeah, well."

Her features were collapsed, pale. She looked old. Perhaps the hash had helped, but not much.

"I think you need some rest," he said. "Go ahead. I'll be gone soon."

Carlen looked at him a moment, nodded tiredly and crawled off to sleep.

He sat and watched her for only twenty minutes, but it was long enough to see that the hash would not be enough to get her through the night. The Dealer had her heavily addicted - a responsibility he'd better keep a handle on.

Braidshawk got up to go and, shortly after, the Dealer came in and prepared Carlen's fix. He wakened her and stayed only long enough to inject her, ignoring her questions as to when he'd return.

* * *

Carlen was writing away furiously when Braidshawk turned up two days later. She immediately slid the papers away as he came in and, although Braidshawk noticed the gesture, he said nothing about it. He'd come in with a box which he set on the table.

"What's this?"

"Hungry, aren't you?"

"Always."

Braidshawk took three bowls out of the box, two small, one larger. In the larger bowl was a mixture. Looked like bean stew.

Carlen got the spoons off the shelf and Braidshawk served up. The food was warm and surprisingly good.

"Where'd you get this?"

"I made it."

"Outrageous! Can I have some more?"

"As much as you like."

"Don't offer me that," Carlen cautioned.

Braidshawk chuckled.

When they'd finished, Carlen made tea and Braidshawk packed the hash pipe.

"I appreciate the food," Carlen said, exhaling a large billow of smoke. "Where'd you learn to cook like that?"

"Eldest in a large family. I learned certain skills early."

This was a revelation that posed a lot of interesting questions. One did not think of a hardman like Braidshawk as wet nurse to a lot of snotty nosed kids but, as curious as Carlen might have been about Braidshawk's history, she left the subject pointedly alone. Asking people about the fate of their families was as tactless as asking them their crime or politics anymore.

"Well," Carlen said. "Sometimes I feel like I've been hungry forever."

Braidshawk reached into his back pocket. "I brought you something else..." He tossed a couple of tattered paperbacks on the table.

Carlen touched the volumes as though afraid they would disappear if she moved too quickly. "A... thanks."

"They're just trash," Braidshawk apologized.

"They're just fine."

"Most of the books over here have been destroyed."

Carlen stroked the books. "Yeah, I'm sure."

Braidshawk relit the pipe.

"Shit," Carlen murmured. "I've got more of a relationship going with you than I have with him."

"Who?"

"The Dealer."

Braidshawk froze for an instant. "You shouldn't say things like that."

"I think it's true. The Dealer would no sooner talk to me about Shakespeare or get me a book than fly to the unseen moon."

Braidshawk didn't reply. He cleared the table and turned the Dealer's box around. Took out a fit. Carlen finished the pipe as Braidshawk prepared a combination, drew it into the syringe, shot a spout in the air.

"Get your sleeve up," he said.

"You?"

"Me."

Carlen pushed up her sleeve. "He know you're doing this?"

"Yes."

Carlen winced at the pressure of the needle.

"Sting?"

"Yeah."

Carlen rubbed her arm morosely as Braidshawk cleaned up the fit. She assumed he had hit her correctly, but she didn't know there was an addition to the solution. He'd put her on sedation. Slow sedation, so she wouldn't know.

"Braidshawk, where's the Dealer?"

No reply.

"He is coming back...?"

"I'm surprised to see you worried about him coming back."

"Why wouldn't I worry? If the Dealer didn't come back that would change my status, wouldn't it?"

"Oh yes. It certainly would."

Carlen's lips pursed ever so slightly.

Braidshawk lifted the lid of the box to store the fit away.

"Oh - give me some smokes, will you?"

Braidshawk got a pack out of the box and tossed it on the table. Carlen ripped it open and lit up with anxious hands.

"Thanks."

"It's okay," he said. He was studying her again. "Listen, Sunshine. Don't worry about the Dealer. He'll be back when he's ready."

Carlen nodded dully.

Braidshawk stood up. "I've got to go."

"Braidshawk?"

Braidshawk turned back with the air of a man who had indulged a lot of junkers. Carlen didn't look up but spoke her words down at the table.

"Nightswitch... A combination like that is impossibly addictive, isn't it?"

"Baby, everything you're into is addictive."

Carlen did not pursue the remark but it was apparent he was talking about a lot more than drugs.

* * *

Braidshawk left the room but he did not leave the Penthouse. There were some things he wanted to find out. Things he knew he could never get by questioning Carlen directly.

He returned after Carlen dropped off to sleep and pulled out the papers she'd stashed under the edge of the mattress. He looked them over briefly, then crossed the bed. He lifted the corner of the mattress and sat down there, on Carlen's spot, while he went through the rest of the pages she'd hidden from the Dealer.

* * *

She was moving through large cavernous passageways. Like the hallways of the museum. It was dark and silent. A deathly, vacuous silence. She was holding a silver-backed lady's hand mirror, clutching the face of it to her chest.

Off the main corridor were doorways that opened into immense rooms that were empty but for huge mirrors that covered the walls. They could have been the windows of the display cases but they were mirrors.

She stopped before one of these great mirrors and stared through the webbing of darkness. She could just discern a dim outline of herself reflected there. No face, just this vague shadow of her lone self standing in this huge, smothering darkness. She sensed the presence of someone behind her - someone feminine - yet she saw nothing in the reflection but herself.

She twisted the hand mirror around to face the mirror before her and there was a sudden roar through the hollow chamber like the gasp of a massive beast. The mirror on the wall was suddenly sucked shining clean, as though a black veil had been drawn back from behind it. The image before her came clearer, although it was still dark, and there she was. Not perfectly defined, but the shape of her was there, dressed in the dark blue uniform of the Intern. And the eyes. Her eyes were-

She moved immediately on, from mirror to mirror, room to room, and the result was the same every time she turned the hand mirror around. No. Not the same. Every time the roaring sound grew louder, and the image of herself was sharper. And the eyes...

She could not shake the feeling of another female presence pervading those tomb-like chambers, although she could see nothing. Heard not a whisper. And, although she knew the action of turning the hand mirror toward the wall mirrors resulted in the frightening revelations she was seeing, she knew it was actually some other force that was clearing those mirrors. Someone who really knew how to clean them up.

There was only one influence she knew of that could get those mirrors so clean. Only one. No one but Himself. But he wasn't there. Not in those mirrored rooms. There was no male influence at all. Only that essence of Woman. An overpowering force, drawing her from room to room. Mirror to mirror. Revealing that image of herself that grew stronger and stronger. And she looked into those reflected eyes. Eyes that bespoke power and conviction, death and destruction.

* * *

When Carlen wakened she knew she had not entered every room. That she had wakened deliberately to avoid going into the last room and meeting the one who awaited her there.

Oh yes. She knew someone awaited her and, whoever or whatever it was, would see. See those eyes. Those eyes that were not hers but only the reflection of something someone else had put there. Someone else...

The dream scared her. Badly. Made her afraid to sleep. She was sure the dream would reoccur and Carlen did not want to face the reflection of those eyes, or the outcome that unseen influence was leading her towards. She didn't want to face whatever it was that awaited her in the last room, although she was attracted to it. Fatally so. That's what scared her the most.

She didn't understand what it meant. Couldn't guess at it. Just a part of her overall feeling of lack of control, she supposed. Her confusion. Frustration. That was all. Yeah, that was it.

* * *

Braidshawk brought a deck of cards when he came a couple of days later. Gin was an easy game that bored him but he figured Carlen was probably good at it. He thought the diversion might ease her tensions but she seemed distracted and was playing badly.

Carlen picked up a card, filed it into her hand. Stared at it awhile. Reached for another card.

"You just picked up," Braidshawk said.

"Oh - did I? Sorry."

She put the card back on the pile but seemed as vague as before about what to do.

"You're not altogether with it today. What's the problem?"

"What do you care?" she retorted with sudden coldness.

She was staring straight at him but her eyes had a faraway look to them. A look he'd noticed accumulating over the last couple of days.

She suddenly cut away again. Self-consciously. As though afraid of something. She began collecting up the cards. "Can't play anymore," she muttered.

Braidshawk observed her nervous movements. "You just can't get him out of your head, can you?"

"The Dealer?"

"The Whipmaster."

She glanced up with quick cognizance but her eyes danced away again. She resumed with the cards. "What the hell would you know about it?"

Braidshawk paused. "I went through the papers you've been hiding from the Dealer."

Carlen froze. She swallowed back the questions, the accusations, then her offense, her anger - her terror. Swallowed hard. Made herself look at Braidshawk. Cut her tone with insolence. "So?"

Braidshawk's eyes seemed to be burning into her brain. He was so strong and so fucking smart.

"If you have any loyalties at all, I wouldn't seat them at the Zoo," he advised.

Carlen's eyes flickered, blanked, then turned very cold. "I am chained to the Dealer's wall," she articulated slowly. "I serve the Dealer. Only him."

"You're with the Dealer but your mind is on the White man."

Again Carlen paused. "It makes no difference where my mind is. I'm imprisoned here. And, to tell the truth, the Dealer is kinder to me than the Whipmaster ever was. I was only a contract to him. Currency he always planned to trade to the Dealer."

There was a silence. Their gazes were locked, each one trying to read the other.

"I suppose your feelings are only natural," he said quietly. "But I suggest you forget it. More than likely you'll never be seeing him again."

"Well, that's a bloody relief!" Carlen replied, feeling as though she'd been punched - from the inside.

Braidshawk didn't buy it. What he thought was anybody's guess, but he didn't trust her. That was clear. And that was alright. The feeling was absolutely mutual.

How he found out about those papers in the corner she did not know. When or even why he'd sought them out she did not know. What there was among them that brought about this unsettling dialogue she did not know. Whether or not he would take his story to the Dealer she did not know, but - as soon as he was gone, she scrambled across and dug them out.

She went through them, page by page. Symbols. The symbols. His symbols. Was that it? The symbols? Song lyrics. Song lyrics. Symbols. Song - no, wait. Not a song.

She came across a piece she'd forgotten about. Had hardly been conscious of writing at the time, and she knew she'd never looked at it since. Tiny scrawl. Nearly indiscernible.

And so it was turned and suspended

in a frozen void of forbidden response

as the glacial chill of that cold white light

was callously obliterated by the

shadow of molten black that layered

everything over in pitch mire...

That was what it said. That was enough. Bloody hell! What ever possessed her to put something like that down on paper?

That pinned it precisely. She was out of control. She'd never have written such a thing if she'd been in her correct senses. She might as well stand up in front of the Dealer and declare that what went on at the Zoo was acceptable and this was not. Or, was that what it said? What the hell did it say?

Well, what it said was less important than what it was. It was a broken rule. Rule One. An occupant of her station did not make judgments of her situation.

Thank God only Braidshawk had seen it. Or was that something to be thankful for? Damn him.

She lit a fire.

* * *

Two days later the Dealer came back and, with him, the resumption of regular trade.

Carlen didn't find out where he'd been but it didn't matter. Things were back to normal and the Dealer seemed glad to be with her again. He was in an up mood. Optimistic, almost happy. He even appeared to have straightened out a bit. His eyes were clearer and there was a light sheen to his skin. Carlen never saw him look better.

She was a little worn and ragged with the tension she'd undergone, but she donned a face of honest welcome when she saw him and knew he'd come back to her.

The Dealer hadn't been back but a couple of days the night Carlen abruptly broke off talk with him. She glanced over at the door, her hand going to the buttons of her shirt. The Dealer looked up at the movement.

"Thorn's coming," Carlen said.

"Yeah?"

Carlen nodded towards the door. "I recognize his step."

The Dealer glanced over at the door and then at Carlen, who had already stripped. He turned back to his table work. "Get dressed, Little Sister," he said. "No show tonight."

Carlen couldn't believe it but his tone nudged her.

"Now, jade."

She just got the shirt back over her shoulders as Thorn turned the corner.

Thorn didn't ask, the Dealer didn't show, but Carlen watched Thorn leave some time later and she knew.

He came again the following night.

Carlen moved in close to the Dealer. Touched him casually and, when he put his arm around her, she nuzzled in and kissed his neck. He responded warmly. Hugged her a moment. "Why don't you take off your shirt?" he suggested softly with a little look that would always be just theirs.

He turned back to the table, Carlen got undressed and, by the time the trading was done, the room was charged with energy.

The sex was very good that night but Carlen gave it all to the Dealer. He was gentle and cognizant and completely at ease with her.

When it was over, Carlen went to her corner, assumed a casual pose against the wall and straightened her hair back with a comb she'd confiscated from the litter on the floor. She then rejoined the Dealer at the table. Sat very close to him. Interacted very intimately with him.

Thorn didn't say a word after that. When the Dealer asked him a question he just shook his head, stood up and was gone.

Carlen helped the Dealer clear things up and made some tea. The Dealer got out the pipe.

"You seemed to be liking that alright tonight," he remarked. "You missed me-huh?"

"...I thought you weren't coming back."

The impact of her emotion stumped him momentarily. He fussed with the pipe. Dug out the burnt ash. Tamped down the remaining resin. "The sex was good. You're sweet, lady."

"Well, despite what everyone seems to think, I am not adverse to sex."

"Not what?"

"I don't hate sex. And your pleasure is important to me."

"You mean that?" he asked, searching her eyes.

"Yes, of course. Hey, it's what I'm here for."

"Yeah. Well, if you keep performing like that, you're in line, baby. The straightest line I ever saw."

Carlen took the pipe. Dragged deep. Held onto the smoke. Expelled it. "Thorn didn't like it," she murmured.

"Thorn, you say? Why wouldn't he?"

Carlen gave up the urge to just shrug and say nothing. "You didn't hurt me," she said, watching him for her effect.

His eyes went very cold for an instant, as though his spirit shivered. Then he looked away. "Can't cut Thorn loose," he said.

"I know," Carlen said, but she figured she'd made an enemy in Thorn.

* * *

They romped through the next few weeks. There were high spots and low spots but none too high or too low. Carlen put up a pretty good front but that feeling she had of impending doom prevailed throughout the month of November.

Business was running hot and heavy and Carlen had to be "on" most of the time. The music resumed and she often sang late into the night. She didn't really mind but the expectations of the men were beginning to out-pace her capabilities. Those three A.M. requests were getting harder and harder to fulfill.

When Carlen's voice started to give out, the Dealer confiscated her stash of greenweed and, not long after, he took the cigarettes, also. Carlen protested, even pleaded, but the Dealer would not soften, promising only to review the situation when her voice improved.

To say that was the moment the slide actually began would probably be an injustice but the wine, so to speak, was spilt.

The next few days were hell on wheels. It didn't seem to matter what the Dealer cranked into her, it just wasn't good enough. Nothing nothing nothing would satiate the writhing hunger for N I C O T I N E. She was used to having it now. In the habit again. Without it the most ferocious rage rose up in her. And it didn't take her any longer to realize how much she depended on the greenweed as well.

'Keeps her quiet' the Dealer had once said.

Mm-hmm.

So she dropped it down a couple of gears, applied an easy break, but it sure didn't hold for long. She was nervous and irritable and she picked up on everything. She started making people very uncomfortable.

* * *

Some of the local youths were gathered around the table one evening, hashing over the 'essential philosophical issues of the world'. A world they'd been born into and knew absolutely nothing about. Major conclusions drawn by minor minds.

The Dealer, much closer to Carlen's age than that of the young men, seemed to find it all mildly amusing. With Carlen it was another story entirely. One week dry and still riding the monster, she was nobody's dream of grace and gentility. Especially in view of the quantities of Scotch she was consuming to compensate her losses.

Carlen plain hated these people. The darkness in her wanted to well up and crush them all. The burn for nicotine was quite sufficient to generate a fury that drew no lines but embraced the entire human race. No sin was forgivable. Not even innocence.

She could have pulled out of the circle. These boys had neither the currency nor the influence to make any kind of demand on her. She could have pulled out. Gone away and gone to sleep, but their words were tangling her mind, driving her anger to the surface. The disembodied voices and the endless flow of nameless faces, in and out of the circle. A circle at the end of a chain that seemed to attach her to another dimension.

Those voices, rattling on and on. Whispers, secrets, boasts, bargains, betrayals, denials, pitches, and strokes. Their laughter pounded in her head. Their innocent gaiety eroded her self control. The foolish emptiness of their remarks -

Someone was questioning her.

"What?" she snapped.

"What would you ask for for Christmas?"

She looked around at their stupid faces. What were their names? Miles, Deats, and Splinter. That was it. Man. They all looked so young and buoyant. She just felt weary. The prospect of Christmas in Blacktown was vile.

"Give me a new world," she said.

Nobody knew how to respond to that.

"Fresh and green."

"Green?"

"Yeah. No houses. No buildings at all."

"No buildings!?"

"No. No people."

"An empty world?"

"A quiet world. A clean world."

"Shit. She don't want much!"

"Santa'd have a hard time getting a whole world in his bag!" Deats said and laughed.

"The holes in Santa's bag are so big it'd probably fall through," Carlen said.

"Ooo. Cynical."

"What about you, Splinter?" Miles asked the thin sinewy creature across the table from the Dealer.

"Me? I'd like to get a nice business going. Like you, Dealer."

The Dealer gave a soft, patronizing snort.

"Yeah. Get me a car. Some really sharp threads. Set up a nice place. Get some servants to do all the cooking and cleaning. White servants! Yeah. Good food and real furniture. Big soft bed. Get me a nice mink, like you got. Man, I'd be set for life." He laughed happily.

"You dumb bastard," Carlen muttered.

"What'd you say, bitch?" Miles snapped suddenly.

Carlen looked up sharply, thunder in her eyes. "Set for life?"

"Yeah. So?"

Carlen jumped to her feet with a very raw look. Whipped the shirt off and flung it down. She leapt onto the table, startling everyone, and loomed over Splinter, her legs astride. She grabbed her groin. "What's this?" she demanded. "What's this?"

Splinter just gaped, utterly flabbergasted.

"It's useless! That's what. Useless." Carlen grabbed her breasts. "What about these? Like these, do you? Huh? Well, they're useless!"

Miles quickly dodged out of the way as Carlen stepped a foot onto the floor and crouched down, nose to nose with Splinter. "How old are you?" she demanded.

"Twenty-one."

"Twen-ty-one... Well, where's your mama, child?"

Somebody sniggered.

"Huh? Or your sister? You GOT any sisters, boy?"

The sniggering stopped.

"Hey, man. Where's your WIFE?" Carlen moved in closer. Her tone dropped lower. "Where's your daughter, huh? Where's she?"

Before he could guess she'd do such a thing, Carlen slapped a hand into Splinter's crotch, took hold and squeezed. "So, what's THIS, huh? Useless! Right?"

Everyone was so surprised nobody moved or spoke at all and Splinter wasn't going to say Boo.

"There is no renewal," Carlen said, boring into him with hostile eyes. "Get it? I can't reproduce or bring the dead back to life. And neither can you, junior. Con-form."

Carlen released him roughly and turned away. "Set for life. You fuckers really burn me!"

Splinter quickly slapped his legs together and the boys ducked in quick succession like targets in a shooting gallery as Carlen whipped the chain clear of their heads and stalked back to the mattress.

"What about it, Dealer? You got a little something in that box to smarten us all up?"

The Dealer was already mixing, shaking his head and chuckling softly to himself. The woman sure had a death grip on the realities.

CHAPTER 53 \- FEET OF CLAY

The start of December saw a turn for the better. Carlen got her cigarettes back and things seemed to be getting easier. Only, they weren't.

Business picked up abruptly. Significantly. People were getting hyper. They came in to load up big and party hard. Everyone had a case of the desperates.

Reports came in daily of muggings, beatings, mutilations, murders, suicides, and rapes throughout the Men's Sector. Sometimes Carlen heard the war cries of the gangs. The screams of the victims. Reports of gunfire. The shattering of glass. Mostly the sounds were distant, some as much as a mile away but, compared to the silence of the Zoo, it was nearly a continuous collage of noise.

There was a lot of action down on the Line - the demarcation between Blacktown and White City. Activity had increased along the Border, too - the division between the Men's and Women's Sectors.

Despite the Dealer's careful distribution, a lot of uncontrolled trade took place on the streets. This 'prescription swapping' made for some pretty nasty scenes some nights. Especially along the Border. Although heavily patrolled, the Borderline was the site of a lot of unauthorized trade. The women wanted drugs and apparently they were prepared to pay just about any price to get them.

Trade of this kind was strictly forbidden and people who indulged in this dangerous pastime risked the displeasure of the Dealer and the Whipmaster alike. In other words, they risked everything. They were called 'Breakers'.

Carlen witnessed the 'interviews' of a couple of Breakers during this time. They were pretty hardcore scenes, but they starkly characterized the side of the Dealer that was in absolute sync with the interests of the Compound. The part of him that kept step with the responsibility of ruling the city as a whole. It was quite an illumination.

Heavy days. Heavy scenes. One thing that sure hadn't changed. Pre-Christmas freak-outs. It was the start of the mean season. Four long months of it, although Carlen remembered very little of what went on. For her, and the Dealer, time became meaningless - but gradually. Insidiously.

* * *

Slue brought in a report around this time that resulted in particular distress. A distress and confusion that disrupted things at the Penthouse for some time. Set up some changes that caused a lot of damage. Permanent damage.

"Jack Hos is on the rampage again."

"What's he doing?" the Dealer asked.

"Tore up another street in the Coral area."

"Shit," Random snapped angrily.

"That man's crazy," Lowsmith murmured.

"Killed a couple of dudes," Slue went on. "One of Fancy's jades."

Lowsmith glanced up suddenly. "Are you kidding?"

Slue shook his head solemnly.

Random raised a warning finger. "You better keep that motherfucker out of Blacktown."

The Dealer shook his head. "Can't."

"Why not?"

"Can't do that. It's the way things are."

"Be a change for the better," Lowsmith remarked. "Keep that asshole south of the Line. He's too radical."

"What are you going to do when the man has the power?" the Dealer argued reasonably.

"Yeah," Random sneered. "Well, that sure tells me something about White mentality."

There was sniggering. The Dealer leaned up against the far table. Invited Carlen to lay back between his legs.

"Yeah, well the Redneck is their macho image," he said. "Right Carlen?"

"Not my image," she huffed.

The Dealer laughed.

Random's eyes flashed. "You're making a joke of it! You let that cocksucker come in here and tear things up and act like nothing's happening! One day that motherfucker's going to march over here with an army and guns and-"

Carlen laughed unexpectedly.

"What's funny, bitch?"

Carlen shook her head with a patronizing smile.

"The Whipmaster has the guns," the Dealer said. "And he ain't selling - to anyone. Jack Hos has no guns."

"You think if push comes to shove the Bastard won't side up with his own?"

"I've known that man some years," the Dealer said. "And one thing he ain't is sectarian. You're either with him or you're the rest of the world."

Everyone was a little knocked by the Dealer's remark. Even Carlen, although she thought it was a pretty good description of what the Whipmaster's grace was like. Either it was there or it had never been there at all.

"Well," Random complained. "I think you trust that fucker too far, too."

"If you can't trust him, then there's no one," the Dealer said. "Just let me deal with Jack Hos."

* * *

The next day the Dealer sent for Berj, the dude who ran the Dealer's messages to White City.

"You find Jack Hos," he said. "And tell him: 'You do anymore killing in Blacktown and it's over. The red and white will be cut. Permanently.'"

Berj repeated the message word for word and took off.

"We'll just see how that fucker feels about having his business cut in half just before Christmas," the Dealer said to Carlen.

* * *

There was no more mention of Christmas after that, beyond a short, cryptic toast by the Dealer, made some time later. Something along the lines of: "Clean kills and new beginnings". Sounded like a line from a song or poem, but it wasn't. Maybe a lifeline.

Trading was still very heavy but things were tense and talk was slow - because the Voice returned from White City with his head half scalped.

The Dealer was just returning from a short time away and had stopped in the hall to talk to someone. Sounded like Random, although she'd sure never heard Random laugh before. That bastard was such a fucking hardon most of the time.

That was the thing that caught Carlen's attention. She'd been about to bed down when the unfamiliar sound of laughter and hand-slapping made her pause and listen.

Most of what they said was lost in undertones but Carlen caught a couple of snatches, although the context remained a mystery.

"Yeah, man. Seems to have taken."

"Well, alright!" Random exclaimed.

More hand-slapping.

"Yeah," the Dealer enthused. "I'm satisfied, you know? Sa-tis-fied!"

"I'm real glad, man. Real glad. Maybe third time lucky, eh?"

"May-be."

"Congratulations, man."

Their voices dropped again, then, "I got to go, man."

"Yeah. Okay."

Random was about to leave and the Dealer would be in with her in a moment. He and that great mood he was in. Unfortunately, their parting was interrupted by a sudden commotion down below. Voices, overlapping. The clamor of boots on the stairs.

"What's this?"

"Don't know... That sounds like Berj."

The Dealer leaned out over the railing. "Who's there?"

"Slue!" a voice called back. "We got trouble, Dealer! It's Berj. He's hurt. Bad!"

A moment later Bodeen, Slue and Berj appeared on the last flight, Berj supported by the other two. He was screaming like a banshee.

"What the hell's this?" the Dealer bellowed over the din.

"Mother fuck!" Carlen heard Random exclaim.

"Get him in here," the Dealer directed. "Quick!"

Slue, Bodeen and Berj burst through the door, followed closely by Random and the Dealer.

"Sit him on the table," the Dealer ordered. "That's it. What happened?"

"Jack Hos cut him," Slue panted. "You know, I thought there might be some trouble, so I stuck close by. Not close enough, I guess. God damn! He half scalped him! That fucking maniac!"

Everybody seemed to start talking at once. The Dealer grabbed the first thing off the floor to replace the sodden rag they'd been pressing to the wound. That boy was bleeding all over the place. Now on the floor, the table, the rolling papers \- into Carlen's coffee cup.

"Press it! Press it hard!" the Dealer directed. "We got to stop this bleeding."

"He's lost a lot," Slue said in hectic distress. "I know I shouldn't have made him walk all this way but I didn't know where else to go."

"It's alright," the Dealer said, opening the box. "You did right. He'd have died if you'd left him anywhere else."

The Dealer was working faster than Carlen had ever seen him move, making up a Freeze Pack to press to the wound. He had it up against the boy's head in seconds flat.

"There, man. It's okay. No - take this away now. This'll fix it. This'll fix it."

Poor Berj was convulsing so violently that Bodeen and the Dealer had to move with him to keep the pack in place. For a minute it looked like it was going to hold, then Carlen saw the blood getting away and the Dealer had to make up a second pack to finally get it sealed off.

"Tell me what happened, Berj," he asked then, with extraordinary cool. "Tell me."

"Jack Hos..." Berj gasped.

"Yeah, man. I know. What happened?"

"I gave him... the message... about you... cutting his supplies?"

"Yeah?"

"An' he said: 'Your boy is cut, nigger!'"

The Dealer was incensed. Much more than he was showing.

"Shit," he muttered.

"I can't deal with this, man," Berj cried. "I can't deal with this!"

"Okay, man. Okay," the Dealer soothed. "Be cool. You'll be alright. The Dealer take care of you. You believe that now, don't you? Don't you?"

"Yeah," Berj whimpered weakly. "Okay."

"Slue - help Bodeen with this," the Dealer said. "Come on, man."

Slue placed his hands tentatively on the Freeze Pack, more blood staining the cuffs of his shirt.

The Dealer was back in the box, pulling out and assembling the hypodermic. Within a few seconds he had Berj prepped and jacked and, a couple of minutes later, Berj calmed down somewhat.

"You got to do something about that motherfucker," Bodeen said ominously.

"Kill him!" Berj moaned. "Just kill him..."

"Okay, Berj. You let the Dealer worry about that. You just settle down."

Just then, Braidshawk came through the door. "What's going on?" he demanded. "I just heard - My God! What the fuck is this?"

"Jack Hos cut the Speaker," Random said darkly.

"Are you kidding?" Braidshawk enunciated with slow- dawning amazement.

"What does it look like?" Random replied, stepping aside.

"God," Braidshawk breathed again, stepping in closer to the chaotic scene. "What happened?" he asked the Dealer.

"Like Random said. Jack Hos went over the deep end." He was leaning over Berj. "How you doing, man? Here, let me take that now. Go on, get by." The Dealer took Slue's position and Slue was only too glad to let go of that Freeze Pack and step out of the way.

"Okay," the Dealer told Bodeen. "Let go. I got it."

Bodeen stepped back.

"Take Slue in so he can get cleaned up. I'll handle this. Oh - and tell Will to get the car ready."

"You going to White City?" Bodeen asked.

The Dealer cut him a look. "I ain't going nowhere," he said with an edge. "Will and Slue are going to take this boy home."

Bodeen's eyes dimmed a little. He and Slue started out.

"And Slue - you stay with Berj tonight."

"Sure, Dealer," Slue agreed.

There was a sudden silence in the room as the Dealer started to lift the Freeze Packs off. Berj whimpered.

"Hold on," the Dealer murmured. "It's okay. I got to lift this pack to check the bleeding..."

Everybody winced as the Dealer removed the bloodied packs and set them aside.

"It's alright, man," he soothed. "Alright now."

Alright wasn't the word for it. Without doubt, it was a horrific wound but, from the effect of those Freeze Packs, you'd swear it was already a week old. Poor Berj would forever be minus about one quarter a head of hair, but the bleeding was stemmed and the wound sealed. Masterful work.

"Looks good, man. It's good. Just hang on now, while I disinfect and wrap it."

Berj was pretty quiet. The injection had taken effect, making him dozy and pliable. The Dealer went on working with salve and bandages he'd taken from the bottom of the box.

Berj was ready to go by the time Bodeen and Slue reappeared in the doorway. The Dealer and Bodeen helped him to his feet and the Dealer handed Slue a bottle of tablets.

"Give him two of these every four hours," he said. "Any problems, let me know right away."

"I will."

"Bring him back in a week and I'll check on this."

Slue nodded, took the tablets and Berj's arm and they left. The Dealer stood in the door and watched them go down the stairs, absently scratching his chest.

"What brought all this on?" Braidshawk asked his back.

When the Dealer failed to reply, Random spoke. "The Dealer threatened to cut supplies to White City. Jack Hos went berserk."

"It's time we finished that fucker," Braidshawk said. "You hear me, Dealer? We've got to kill that bastard."

There was a minute pause, then the Dealer spoke but his voice sounded peculiar. "Oh yeah, kill him. Kill him. And then what?"

"This kind of shit will stop!" Random flashed.

The Dealer turned. "Kill Jack Hos and who's going to keep the lid on in Southtown?"

"You call this keeping the lid on?" Braidshawk accused.

"I kill Jack Hos and there'll be a war."

"Maybe it's time..." Braidshawk said in a deadly tone.

The Dealer cut him the blackest look Carlen ever saw him level at Braidshawk, then turned on his heel and walked out the door.

"Damn him," she heard him mutter. "Damn, damn, DAMN him!" he shouted and swung his boot, kicking right through three of the railing supports on the landing. He moved to the stairs and Carlen saw his head pass out of sight as he descended. Braidshawk and Random exchanged a glance that was laden with opinions they would never air in the presence of a slave, then Random stepped past Braidshawk and out the door. Braidshawk hesitated, then turned to Carlen before departing.

"You get this mess cleaned up," he said roughly.

Carlen brought over her basin and towel and proceeded to mop up the drying blood. Thought about anything but the prospect of war in the Men's Sector or about how very late it seemed to be getting - for a lot of things. Too many unnamed things.

* * *

It was never quite the same after the attack on Berj. The Dealer became morbid and temperamental. He'd lost his ease of spirit. He started loading up pretty heavy. Loading down, actually. Escaped into the vials. Luckily, not the red ones. He went blue. Stark raving blue. Slept one heck of a lot.

Carlen had thought his disappearance that night signified he had taken some action to alleviate the worsening situation with Jack Hos, but she soon discovered she was mistaken. The Dealer didn't say anything about it but Carlen picked it up from the attitudes of the other men. Even when nobody mentioned it outright, Carlen could feel the pressure. It was a presence that saturated the atmosphere at the Penthouse throughout December.

Like everyone else, Carlen wondered why the Dealer hesitated. What Jack Hos had done was not only cruel but dangerously unprecedented. He'd spit in the face of the rules of behavior. Broken the lines of communication. Broken the law. Every minute the Dealer delayed retaliation served to justify Jack Hos' position. Granted unspoken sanction to his actions.

Surely the Dealer could see this. Surely he knew Jack Hos would take this reticence as a sign of weakness, and it was pretty sure most of the men in the Sector would see it that way, too.

As the days slipped by Carlen sat tight, clenched against a mounting hysteria. She kept as many people out of the room as she could, made excuses for the Dealer, anything to keep the accumulating tension down to a tolerable level. Sometimes people came in angry and offended at being put off and the Dealer, made suddenly aware of these delays and the person responsible for them, turned his anger on Carlen, publicly slapping her down for her blatant impertinence.

She was hurt but she never said a thing. She was coming to understand the agony he was in and, although she knew it was entirely unacceptable in a figure of his authority, she sympathized deeply with it. She began to perceive his innate loathing for political wrangling, his abhorrence of senseless violence.

He was starting to get sick. Vomiting. Vomiting blood. The shit was finally coming down and he wanted to turn away, unwilling to arbitrate yet unable to abdicate.

Carlen tended to him with calm solicitude but she was scared. She wondered if the Whipmaster was aware of the situation in the Men's Sector. What his position was. There was no doubt in her mind as to the immediate force with which he would have met such a situation, but she suspected he would adopt an attitude of non-interference in this circumstance. At least for the time being. For as long as possible.

God, yes. She had lived in awe of his power, the precision and brutality with which he wielded it. But it was a hell of a lot scarier living with a power monger who failed to execute retribution than it was living with the knowledge that the control was there and reliable.

Yet, as it turned out, the Dealer was neither oblivious nor unresponsive to Carlen's fears. A nasty scene developed one night around the table on one of the rare occasions when the Dealer was up and operating. A dude called Big Dog, one of the high ranking gang members, picked that as his moment to stir it up.

Braidshawk was present but he stayed pointedly out of it. It was already pretty apparent how he felt. Maybe he hoped a nudge from somebody less involved would have the desired effect on the Dealer. Thing was, he hadn't counted on Carlen and, by the time the trouble started, it was too late to say or do anything.

"Talk's around that you're not going to move on Jack Hos," Big Dog said.

"Who's saying that?" the Dealer murmured.

"A lot of people."

"Well, 'a lot of people' ain't in a position to be saying shit about what I decide to do or not do."

"You can't just let this ride, man. Things are going to blow. You got to do something."

"Don't hassle the Dealer," Carlen muttered around the butt of her cigarette.

Big Dog cut her a look. "You shut your mouth, cunt," he said and turned back to the Dealer. "Listen to me, man-"

Carlen yanked the cigarette out of her mouth. "I said - DON'T HASSLE THE DEALER, PUNK! I fucking mean it."

Their eyes locked for an instant.

Big Dog shifted slightly. "You let a woman speak for you now, man?"

"You got it right, dog man. I speak for the Dealer - not against him. You just keep your face out of it."

Big Dog raised a warning finger. "Push me, bitch."

"I'll push you," Carlen retaliated. "You don't ride me, cocksucker! And you DON'T come around here, shooting your mouth on matters that don't concern you. The Dealer's the Man here. I see no other. The decision is HIS, so just shut your gob!"

Big Dog was coming to the boil. "You know," he began with slow malice. "I've been hearing around the Sector this bitch had a mouth. I didn't quite believe what folks were saying. I sure didn't figure I'd ever hear no woman around here talk back to a man like that. Certainly no Black man."

Carlen smiled coldly. "You've all come to expect rather a lot, haven't you?"

"You better quit ranking me, woman."

"Afraid you'll have to fall back, junior?"

"Fall back? I'll flatten your act!"

"What you got, hardman? A steamroller?"

Somebody actually laughed.

That was it. Detonation. Big Dog made a sudden lunge across the table. The Dealer moved just as fast. With a surprising show of strength, he seized Big Dog by the lapels, propelled him out the door and hurled him down the stairs. Big Dog rolled ass over tea kettle all the way down to the next landing and hit with a thud they could hear back in the Dealer's room. There was a momentary silence, then the sound of muffled moaning. The Dealer came back in and sat down. After a minute a couple of the others got up and went down to see to Big Dog.

"Shit. His arm's broke," Carlen heard one of them say.

There was a long pause. A very long pause. The Dealer went right on with his fixing, like nothing had happened. Carlen lit another cigarette, ignoring Braidshawk's acidic stare.

"You let the jade get by with too much," Braidshawk said at last, his tone carefully subdued.

Random's reaction was stronger. "If she was mine, I'd whip her for that. Any man in the Sector would. Forward, mouthy, Lindy cunt."

"The jade was right," the Dealer said softly.

"Right or wrong," Braidshawk rejoined. "She's got more brass than brains."

"More brains than Big Dog," the Dealer countered.

"Sure," Random mocked. "That's why she's here, right?"

"We are ALL here, remember?" the Dealer retorted coldly. "And let's get something else straight. The jade AIN'T here because she slaughtered Black babies. You can't handle that? Vanish!"

"Whoa, man," Braidshawk murmured.

"No!" the Dealer flashed suddenly. "No, man. She told me she never killed no Blacks. And even if she did! Even if she did. So what? So what, man? You never iced somebody you didn't mean to? You just had to?"

He took a moment to regain his composure but with equal intent he said, "She told me she ain't no Lindy and I believe her."

Random scoffed but only softly.

"Things got to settle down sometime," the Dealer said. "There ain't no more Black women, at least not for men like us."

Random's head came up quickly and he pinned an odd look on the Dealer. The Dealer didn't notice but Carlen did.

"You want mink? You better like it White," the Dealer said. "That's the way it is."

Random's brow was creased slightly. He passed a look at Braidshawk but Braidshawk was focused on the Dealer.

The Dealer's outburst was a surprise to them all, especially Carlen, who knew as well as the men what a serious breach she was guilty of.

"I'm tired of all this hassle," the Dealer said finally. "Let me worry about the jade."

"And Jack Hos?" Braidshawk wanted to know.

"Let me take care of that, too."

Braidshawk eyed him doubtfully. "Sure," he said finally but, a moment later, he got up and left.

Not long after, the other men cleared out, leaving Carlen and the Dealer alone. Carlen didn't retreat to the wall but stayed where she was and hung tough, puffing another cigarette, awaiting the lecture or the beating that was so apparently overdue. The Dealer was running a little short on politically appropriate targets these days.

The Dealer was quietly clearing up the table. Sorting things in the box. Behaving normally, Carlen was relieved to observe.

"That was quite a demonstration tonight," he said softly.

"All in the line of duty," Carlen quipped dryly.

"Can't have you instigating fights around here, you know."

"Assholes like that have no business coming round here questioning your decisions. Besides... if you're looking for the instigator, look to Southtown," Carlen said, sure any second he was going to smack her.

His hand did reach toward her a moment later, but it wasn't swift or violent. In fact, there was something in it. A generous stash of greenweed he'd just wrapped up for her. Carlen stared in doubt at the offering.

"You still like that stuff?"

"Yes, sir," Carlen murmured.

"Then take it."

Carlen accepted the package. Turned it over thoughtfully in her hands.

"I've been pretty hard on you lately," he said.

Carlen glanced up. "You've been harder on yourself."

The Dealer grunted softly. He got up then and drifted over to the window. He stopped there a while, his arm leaned against the frame.

"What do you think?" he said after a time.

"You're asking me?"

"You're the brains of the outfit, aren't you?"

The corner of Carlen's mouth pulled back slightly but the man was not playing at humor.

"Well..." she ventured. "I think I can see why you don't want to hit Jack Hos."

"You can-huh?"

"So long as he's alive, you and Braidshawk don't have to contend with White City. And I assume there's no one with enough juice to take his place - at least, not right away."

"Well, you've figured out that much. Pinned the problem..."

There was a pause. Carlen fingered the stash bag again. "What I'd do is list someone along the line-"

The Dealer's head twisted around. "List?"

Carlen met his eyes. "Terminate," she stipulated. "You're the Chief Man, Dealer. You've got to hit a fucker like that hard. Harder that he hit you. And lower. You've got to hurt him."

Of course the Dealer knew all this but he was surprised to hear Carlen say it. Surprised to hear it put into words. The actual hits, the real power hits so rarely were. It was one of the secrets of real power. Its silence. There was never any point in telegraphing the bond sealing moves. The terror lay in the unexpected.

* * *

The Dealer had asked. He knew it was good advice. Carlen knew he knew it was good advice. But did he take it? It sure didn't seem like it.

More and more he seemed to be caring less and less. About her, about himself, about business, about security. The loads he was jacking into his system were getting heavier and his system was reacting accordingly. It got to a point where sometimes he just passed out cold - right in the middle of talk with his visitors. Sometimes this meant Carlen was left alone with outsiders. Completely alone.

The invisible border that divided her safe existence from the forbidden zone suddenly loomed up close enough for her to step a foot across. There was no past for her to fade back into, so she ventured forward, toward a dangerous and uncertain future.

* * *

Carlen made one reasonably close contact during this black period. A connection she forced out of sheer desperation. Of course, for her, forming any kind of alliance was dangerous - and a little crazy. Just talking to people was dangerous, but she had lost favor with Braidshawk and the Dealer's increasing neglect incited her rebellious nature.

Lowsmith was a man who never really hassled Carlen.

Lowsmith, with that beautiful, open, chocolate brown face. Handsome, despite the bright pink birthmark that ate up the whole left side of his face and half his neck. At times that mark made him look kind of 'other worldly'.

Lowsmith was cool jazz. Took things easy. He had no ax to grind and he wasn't a bigot. He had a healthy business. Warehouser, like Shay, like Random, although exactly what Random traded was anybody's guess. He 'specialized'. It seemed Lowsmith kept a more mellow tone on it. Stuck to specifics. Kept a clean inventory. At least, for the Men's Sector.

Carlen didn't have to feel she was going to be taken for something around Lowsmith. One of the few men in the Sector who didn't carry a load of attitude around. Probably built his business on trust. And, because he was trusted around the Penthouse, it came about that Carlen caught a few minutes alone with him one night when the Dealer did one of his fade-out numbers.

Lowsmith had been right in the middle of a sentence when the Dealer spontaneously flopped over on the table. Lowsmith broke off and craned his head forward slightly, a look of puzzlement on his face. "Dealer...? Hey, man, you awake?"

The Dealer didn't move. Carlen sat cool, puffing away. She was getting used to this. At least, she thought she was.

"He asleep?"

"Yep."

"Just like that?"

"Yep."

Carlen touched the Dealer. Rolled his head over to make sure he hadn't injured himself. He seemed okay.

"I've never seen him do that before."

"Too many all nighters. It's a relief to see him finally catch some sleep."

"Mmm," Lowsmith murmured. "Well, guess I'll come back tomorrow." He got up to go.

"Lowsmith," Carlen murmured.

He turned around before he quite realized he'd been called. "Yeah?"

Carlen casually rolled the end of her cigarette in the ashtray. "You handle any soft trade?"

"Like what?"

"Oh, soap. Stuff like that."

He smiled slightly. "Soap?"

"You know. Bar soap, etcetera."

"Etcetera. What are we talking about?"

"A toothbrush."

"A toothbrush." His eyebrow arched slightly. "And what else?"

She wasn't sure if he was just stringing her along but she was determined to go for it. "Paste, if you can get it."

"And paste."

"Come on..."

There was a pause. His eyes narrowed. "Trade don't make deals," he said a little tightly. "And besides, Trade don't have nothing to trade."

"I've got that Scotch over there..."

His eyes slid over to the crate. "I thought that belonged to the Dealer."

"No. It's mine."

Lowsmith eyed her again. "God. You got some brass, jade."

Carlen shrugged, casually, she hoped. "The sky's going to fall in, I suppose, because I want to brush my teeth?"

Lowsmith succumbed to another smile. Shook his head a little. "I'll see what I can do," he said and left.

Carlen glanced over at the Dealer. Dead out. She went to the wall and sat, staring at him. Stared and stared, and the anger grew. Shit. For all the stupid bastard knew, she and Lowsmith could have - Well, anything. Just about fucking anything and he would never know. The Lord of Blacktown was out of commission. Holy hell.

* * *

Lowsmith made good on his promise. He brought around a toothbrush and a large tube of toothpaste just a few days later, and he delivered these goods with a subtlety that guaranteed the Dealer's continued ignorance of the forbidden transaction. He accepted the Scotch with an air that suggested he was well pleased with the acquisition, and Carlen was treated to the first oral hygiene she'd experienced since the morning of her presentation to the Dealer.

The next day, Carlen woke up feeling much more together. Maybe it was the flush of success after her secret little adventure. She didn't know, but she felt energized. Stronger and surer of herself than she'd felt in a long time.

The Dealer had got up earlier and gone out. Carlen went to the shelf to make some coffee and, as she squatted there waiting for the water to boil, the germ of an idea was formulating in her head. She took the coffee to the table and got out the pencil and paper.

She spent the entire afternoon writing, in her very best penmanship. She worked on one piece only, and if she made an error, she began again, because this particular piece had to be perfect.

As she worked, she released the fear, released the doubt, released all inhibition and, when the Dealer returned, there was a single sheet of paper sitting on his spot on the table, waiting for him.

"What's this?" he asked, taking his seat.

"It's the refrain of a lyric recorded by Cloudburst during the Conflict."

"Yeah?"

"It's called 'Mother Earth'. It's my favorite song."

The Dealer's eyebrows rose. "Well, that's saying something. Why'd you give it to me?"

"It's a gift. Call it an early Christmas present. Read it."

The Dealer hesitated, then looked down at the page Carlen had left for him.

"So now we come to the Age of Collision

The common vision is the cause of division.

Get out on the streets and made your decision -

Clear and claim it, or die.

The Lords of Command the prisons they cram

With the wardens and champions - the prison door slams.

We're only the blood of the power they wield

And the whole bloody earth is a battlefield...

The one that outruns you is the one that survives -

Not many losers left alive.

The one that out-waits you is the one who will be -

But only the streets are free...

Questions and lies

Questions and lies

Questions and lies

That's what the world is made of.

Questions and lies

Questions and lies

Questions and lies

But only the street survives..."

He didn't bother to tell Carlen Christmas was already a week and a half gone but he read the lyric - more than once. He never commented on it or her reasons for giving it to him. His only reaction was a low, sour chuckle. The sound of it sent an icy chill up Carlen's spine. It was quite inexplicable, but that one small expression told her, more surely than any written guarantee, that the Dealer had not long to live.

* * *

That night, as the Dealer slept, Carlen stole over to the window and stared out into the darkness, towards the Park, unconsciously turning the ring on her finger.

She mulled over the possibilities of her disposition should something happen to the Dealer. She supposed her fate would rest heavily on the circumstances of the Dealer's removal from power. But Carlen could only weigh her future prospects as they were defined by the past, and the past was something that never left her consciousness completely.

Braidshawk had made her aware she might one day be held accountable for the sins of her present life, and she realized the Whipmaster might well be displeased with her conduct lately - if he knew. All that mattered presently was what the Dealer thought, but Carlen thought about the Whipmaster a great deal at this time.

She recalled every detail about him. The way he looked, the way he moved, the sound of his voice, the expression in his eyes when he looked at her in that speculative way of his. She recalled the feel of his hands, the feel of his body against her, the smell of him, the taste of his kisses. Months had passed and she remembered everything.

Everything. When she closed her eyes she thought of him. When she opened her eyes she thought of him. All that transpired between them - and all that had not transpired between them. What might have been if... he had trusted her. If she'd been able to trust him. If... he had kept her.

She knew it was insane to think of these things. The man was a tyrant, a monster, and she now saw what a monster he had made of her. What a cruel and bitter beast he'd transformed her into. But she also realized the cruelty and bitterness had to have been there before he touched her. Had to have been there for him to touch. He had merely accentuated them. Molded her into the creature who now needed these attributes to survive in the world he had delivered her into. Designed her for.

Yes, it was insanity to think of him as much as she did, in the ways she did, but even insanity was an armor of sorts. It was a warm cozy blanket to wrap herself up in. Protection from the black well of horror that was her soul. There was a certain dark comfort in the knowledge that she had never been closer to any other living being. Yes. Comfort in that. She was grateful to him, for he had ripped her open and rendered her free - impervious to any possibility of love or care. At least - she thought he had.

CHAPTER 54 \- ETIENE

Carlen thought she'd met just about every head in town worth knowing but one night, about a week after she gave the Dealer the song, a stranger came around. A White man.

He walked in without a greeting and, as soon as he was in the door, Bodeen and Will quietly left the room. The Dealer received him with uncharacteristic reserve.

"Strecker. Glad you could make it."

"I hear you have business- Okay in front of the lady?"

"Yeah," the Dealer said. He was working up some chemical reaction at the table. It appeared Strecker was into the fume jar.

"Jack Hos," the Dealer said softly. "Indirect. Someone close, but not Vincent."

Two or three minutes elapsed with no sound at all, then Strecker said, "Apollo."

Carlen suddenly chilled. The Dealer glanced up.

"The lover."

When Strecker suggested this, something in the Dealer's eyes - extinguished.

He turned back to his preparations. "Okay," he said finally, interrupting his work to reach into the box. He tossed something on the table before Strecker. "Leave this," he said, and Carlen saw it was a card bearing the symbol of the Hook and the Hypo.

Strecker picked up the card and filed it in his pocket.

"Settle with me how you like."

"No problem," Strecker replied.

That was the extent of their conversation. They shared the jar, the Dealer offering Strecker the first gulp. Carlen wondered what it was.

She was wondering a couple of things, like: Why hadn't she seen this guy before? And: Why was it she couldn't seem to get a decent look at him now?

The Dealer was concentrating on another set-up. Strecker seemed to be engrossed with the toe of his boot or some aspect of the threadbare rug. Things were very quiet. Solemn.

The peace was a welcome relief, as was the fact that the contract was drawn at last. But Carlen's relief was tainted by guilt and fear and grief. She had played her small role in the initiation of this ghastly assassination plot and now poor Apollo would pay the price. A mere pawn in this game of kings. A mere pawn... like herself.

"Make some of that music you do," the Dealer said, cutting through Carlen's morbid contemplations.

She shut down her speculations and rolled out a song.

"She's pretty good with songs," the Dealer boasted.

Carlen spoke some comment under her breath. In French. Something roughly equivalent to 'The Singing Clown'. She didn't imagine either man would take the least bit of notice. The Dealer had no interest in French and Strecker, it seemed, had no interest in her.

Unlike the other men, he didn't watch her. In fact, he displayed, what Carlen took to be, a decided lack of interest. He wasn't like any of the others who came around. He wore no battle dress. No armor. It was black trousers, black lightweight jacket, black ankle boots, white shirt. Carlen wondered at that white shirt.

Very conservative line. Very clean. Indefinable.

"Do you know any French songs?" Strecker asked unexpectedly.

"One," Carlen said guardedly.

"Why don't you sing it for us?"

He kept his head averted even when he spoke these few words to her. He was the cool one. The coolest she'd seen since the Whipmaster. He even reminded her of him in some indefinable way. She supposed it was his self-containment. His reserve. A deadly calm shrouded the man.

Carlen sang. A Jacques Brell song. 'Amsterdam'. Half of it in French.

He never looked at her once. Made no comment when she'd finished. He merely took another hit with the Dealer, immediately after which the Dealer passed out. Carlen watched him heel over onto the mattress, no more than relieved to finally be off duty for the night.

When her eyes traveled back to Strecker, she saw that his head had come up at last, and she had a clear view of his face. A very handsome face. His eyes were pinned on her and Carlen saw a hunger there. The hunger of the hunter.

He spoke to her right away and he spoke to her in French.

"Does he do this often?"

With hardly a thought about it, Carlen replied in French.

"More often lately."

"What do you do when he does this?"

His directness jarred Carlen. She'd been looking forward to his leaving so she could get down to sleep. Now this question. She didn't answer it.

"You've been to Paris?" he assumed.

"Oui."

"When were you last there?"

"Two or three years ago, I guess."

"You've been there more recently than I have."

Yeah? And so? Carlen was thinking. Right now you should be passed out, my friend - on the carpet or out that door.

A moment later he did stand, but he didn't go to the door. He moved down to Carlen's end of the table, seated himself on the edge of it, his elbows rested on his open knees. His head tilted slightly and he focused very closely on her.

"Do you always sing songs like that?"

"I sing when he asks me."

"That isn't what I meant."

"Pardon me. My French."

He smiled a little. "Do you sing in French so he won't know what you're saying?"

"The request was yours, if you recall."

"And the choice of song was yours," he parried.

"It's the only French song I know."

"I wonder..." he said and paused a moment. "You didn't expect anyone here to understand."

No, actually. She didn't.

"You're a very radical woman. I wonder if he knows it."

"He knows what he knows."

This was really eerie. The man was changing before her eyes. She didn't know who this 'new' man was but it wasn't Strecker.

He slid off the table into a meticulously balanced crouch at the edge of the mattress. "You didn't answer my question."

"You're full of questions."

"When something interests me I find out about it."

"There is nothing here for you, Strecker," Carlen said, abruptly breaking into English. "Nothing to interest you."

Strecker pivoted on his toes. Took a seat on the mattress. Carlen felt like he was stalking her.

"You," he said, reverting back to French.

"No. You don't know me. You've never seen me. Never looked at me once tonight. No."

No. No man came near the mattress. No man touched it. Or sat on it. Or, as Strecker was doing now, moved onto it. Not under any circumstance as this.

"I've seen you," he said. "Looked at you - through the eyes of the men who talk about you."

Carlen could hardly conceal her offence. "Then you know I'm nothing."

He smiled indulgently. "You're disturbed that the men who visit here talk about you? You're a great source of interest. You must know that."

Carlen's eyes cut away.

"Not many men in the Sector can afford one woman to themselves. Presently, you're the only one there is."

Carlen was trying to work out what the station of this man could be. He was obviously a man of rank. He'd be flush with currency, food, anything he wanted. She was wondering if he believed she was something to be included in that.

"You must have a woman," she said.

He smiled. A little sadly. "No. My lifestyle does not permit it."

He moved again. He was now directly in front of her. His legs were crooked, one over, one up to his chest. The way the Whipmaster used to sit. His forearm was balanced across his upraised knee, his forefinger poised below the line of his lips. He was nearly close enough to touch her.

"Je suis Etiene," he said softly. "You have heard of me?"

"Non."

"Le Couteau."

"Oui," Carlen said. Oh, she'd heard, alright. Le Couteau. The Knife. Reputedly the coldest contractor in town.

He was watching her closely. "You are not afraid?"

"No," Carlen lied.

She now understood why the Dealer treated this man with such deference but, for Carlen, the revelation of his true identity came as a rude shock. What was the motive behind the disclosure? Was this the genesis of another dangerous alliance or was it a snare?

"What is your name?"

"Carlen."

"And what are you reaching back to, Carlen?"

"...I don't understand."

"Oh, I think you understand. Everyone is reaching back nowadays."

"I'm in no position to reach back for anything."

"How does a woman like you come to such a position?"

"It wasn't as easy as you might think."

His eyes snapped up. He'd been looking at the front of her shirt. "I meant no offense."

"None taken," Carlen said gruffly and looked away.

"Hostile."

"Look - it's late. I want to sleep."

"I want to talk."

Carlen winced mentally. "We've talked. You should go."

"You don't mind that I stay."

"Yes. I do."

"You're afraid to talk to me?"

"No. Yes."

"No," he said. "I don't think so."

Oh shit, she was thinking as he took off his jacket. Laid it aside. He was rolling his sleeves. Those white sleeves.

"I haven't met a woman like you in here," he said.

Carlen was looking at the fine, straight hairs on his forearms.

"The women in the Men's Sector they are, well, let us say, not altogether here, if you understand. They don't last long."

Carlen was looking at his eyes, which were gray. Beautiful eyes. Direct. Penetrating. An illusive spark of dancing satire in them.

"How long have you been here?"

"Where?"

"With the Dealer."

"It's December now-"

"January."

Carlen's brow creased. "January... Twelve months... I think. I don't know, exactly."

The feel of the ring under her kneading fingers caused her to look down. The ring. That had been Christmas. Christmas with the Master. The Master-

She glanced up suddenly, starkly aware of the danger of the situation and doubly frightened by the feel of Etiene's hand which was subtly unbuttoning the front of her shirt.

"You mustn't touch me."

"I'm not touching you. Am I?"

The alarms started going off in Carlen's head.

He went smoothly on with the buttons, dexterously keeping the material and his fingers a distance away from her body. The subtle shifting of the material was playing symphonies on her skin.

"You can have the shirt off," he was saying. "I want to see you. You don't object, do you?"

The shirt was undone. He had taken a delicate grip of the material and leaned forward as he lifted it off her shoulders. His sleeve brushed her face.

Carlen's eyes closed. She thought of the knife, which had just come plainly visible at the back of his belt. She thought of her Contract. Undressing for the Dealer's guests was part of that contract. No. She wouldn't object. She let him take the shirt.

When he rested again in front of her Carlen's eyes were open, but she wasn't looking at Etiene. She was feeling shy and a little anxious. She was wondering how she would appear to him and wondering why she should wonder.

'Why should you care what he thinks?' she thought, recalling the question in the Whipmaster's voice. Why indeed.

"Why did he cut up your back that way?" Etiene asked, jarring her again.

"To sooth his ego."

"It's a pity."

"Look who he's telling."

"Cynical."

"It keeps me alive."

"Do you wish to stay alive?"

"That's none of your business."

"Do you speak to your Master in that tone of voice?"

"...I've answered enough of your questions."

He chuckled softly. "You think I'm questioning you?"

I THINK YOU'RE SEDUCING ME!

"I've had enough of interrogations!"

Etiene drew back in mock fright. "Ah! Even in chains, the lady is armed!"

"What do you mean?"

"The cut of your tongue is also the subject of talk."

"Then beware I don't use it to slit the threads of the Dealer's sleep!" Carlen raised a hand and twisted away to shake the Dealer.

Etiene caught her wrist, strongly. "You won't do that," he said, and she knew there was a warning in it. A warning that something forbidden was going to occur.

Carlen allowed him to place her hand back in her lap but, the instant he broke contact with her wrist, she spoke. "You mustn't touch me," she said again.

"Why?"

"It's not permitted."

"There is no one to stop me."

"Him."

"Him?" Etiene pushed the Dealer with his foot. "He is unconscious."

He turned back to Carlen. "You?" he said more softly. He touched her breast. "You will not prevent me."

Carlen did not want to press the issue, but the man had just overstepped the bounds of protocol. Way overstepped them. The uninvited advances of an outsider on a Bond Slave would be a capital crime in Blacktown.

To try and stop him might only arouse another character of the man much better left dormant, but Carlen had to consider one other term of her Contract. That of strict fidelity. If she allowed Etiene to approach and did nothing to raise the alarm, that could be tantamount to an act of treason.

"What does a woman like you want?" he asked softly.

"...I want you to leave," she whispered.

He kissed her shoulder. The point of her jaw. "That was true twenty minutes ago... It isn't true now."

Carlen relinquished a sigh. Etiene's touch was enlivening responses so far regressed, sensitivities so deeply buried, she was shocked and shy of their sudden re-emergence.

She wondered how a man such as this could desire her, gray and wasted as she felt. Was it because of her high position? A power play of some kind? Or was it merely an advantage seen and taken? The idea stung her but she discovered she didn't want to question it. Or fight it. Or do one single thing to cruel it. The man was going to lay her down. Nothing surer than that.

"He'll kill me for this," she said.

Etiene kissed her mouth. Looked into her eyes.

"He'll never know."

CHAPTER 55 \- RUTHLESS

Carlen sat up at the table alone the rest of that night. Smoking. Thinking of Etiene. His voice. That black hair. Those dancing eyes. His silken touch. He'd stayed with her only an hour but in that hour he put an ache in her that lasted a very long time.

In the days to come, she replayed his visit over and over in her mind. Relived every moment. And, every time she did this, she was reminded of the one thought in her mind the whole time he was with her. The screaming, renting agony of just how much she'd wished he would simply pick her up and carry her out of there. Away from the Penthouse, from Blacktown. Away. To live with him.

She held the secret memory of Etiene inside her for months and, the longer she held it, the more she suffered. This obsession overshadowed everything. It obliterated her worries about the Whipmaster, ensnaring her in a dark entanglement of bitterness and longing.

The last sign Carlen ever saw of Etiene at the Penthouse came in the form of a card that arrived two nights later. There was no name or inscription but only a mark, sort of like an initial...

...and a dark smear of blood on the back, presumably Apollo's.

Although things remained tense, the hit on Apollo did ease the pressure accumulating in the Men's Sector. Unfortunately, it did little to cure what ailed the Dealer. His condition didn't help matters for Carlen - unless it was by way of his absolute oblivion to her state of disorientation. He noticed no change in her, perhaps because there was no diminishing in her attention to him. If anything, she appeared more fervently dedicated than ever to his service. She lapped up every morsel of attention, positive or negative, and promptly fulfilled every demand, no matter how demeaning or unreasonable, with a feverish energy, often exhausting herself in the process.

The situation at the Penthouse continued to deteriorate. Carlen could see the Dealer was losing his stick and she sensed, as in so many cases these days, it was partly an intentional departure. A sort of slow, deliberated suicide. People just got tired of the struggle. Tired beyond caring to keep it up another day. Carlen recognized it, understood it, because she was suffering from the same syndrome.

Yeah, the Dealer had deflated the ball and tossed it back in Jack Hos' yard. That's where it should have ended, but Carlen suspected the Dealer didn't believe it. Didn't trust it. And it was pretty clear he was not prepared to go another round if Jack Hos decided to push it.

"There comes a point where you have to say Stop," he told her.

YES! she wanted to scream. YOU must stop! Stop NOW! Stop what you're DOING to yourself! You're placing yourself in JEOPARDY! You're placing your POSITION in jeopardy! You're placing ME in jeopardy!

She kept mum and nothing stopped. Not the drugs. Not the sliding. Not the madness. The only thing that appeared to be coming to a stop was the Dealer. His increasing lack of self-care was infectious. They started partying hard. Really hard. Carlen tried to take a better grip of things, for a while, but she was not immune to the atmosphere of irresponsibility pervading the Penthouse during the next three months.

She did get a lot closer to the Dealer. She got a little tougher. Got a lot nastier. Got it all up to a pretty good run. Yeah, she was running. Running hot, running cold. Running her mouth, running riot, running down down down. Took the Dealer's direction. Ran with him.

About this time she started hitting a deadly combination called 'Finale'. The Dealer laid it on her one night and she'd come to demand it. She was mixing it with Scotch. And the greenweed. And any lines she could cadge from the Dealer or anyone else, or scrape up off the table once the men had done with it. She became more of an addict to addiction and excess than to the addiction itself.

It was a free falling excursion into an increasing exclusion both Carlen and the Dealer rode with irresponsible abandon. A party of two. Deadly partners in the Game of Evens. It was a wonder they lasted so long.

* * *

One of the unfortunate side-effects of this over indulgence was the deterioration of Carlen's life perceptions into a sporadic smattering of episodes she could recall - not necessarily connected.

She did recall the Dealer running short of cash around that time. He was missing a lot of meetings and fumbling others. He ran an awful lot of what transpired in that room through Carlen, but she couldn't control everything, especially the money. She took a lot of the flack, but the Dealer kept her supported and very little trouble ensued.

They were getting tighter all the time and they were a pretty merciless team when they really got rolling. Flattened a few of the acts around Blacktown with their radical behavior. In all kinds of ways.

Oh yeah, if the Whipmaster's compound was the zoo, then this most certainly was the circus. They created a pretty hot atmosphere around them, but their enjoyment and satisfaction had become exclusive. Private. It included their sex life. Public performances had fallen off and people began to complain.

"Shit, man. You don't make her WORK no more," one of the regulars protested one night. "The bitch ain't cried or nothin' in months."

"She don't even break a sweat," someone else concurred.

Thorn was there, silent and broody as ever, but this conversation sparked a cruel light in his eyes. He reached into his pocket.

"I'll tell you what," he said, slapping a wad of currency down. "I'll pay you three hundred from my own pocket if you'll fuck her tonight. But I get to see the bitch's face."

The change lay right there under the Dealer's nose. His eyes were stuck on it.

"And I'll give you another hundred if you bust her ass..."

The Dealer sold down that night. Ruptured Carlen's composure by tossing her over the table and forcing her rear - the scattered change depressing shapes into her flesh.

She didn't recall being outraged. Didn't recall a struggle or being hurt. Didn't recall at all the next day. She had simply succumbed to a mindless act of brutality and never remembered the bitter tears and thoughts of Etiene as she quietly collected the money up from the table for the Dealer afterwards.

* * *

Yeah, this was it. She'd made the Top. A perfectly conformed being in a perfectly conformed environment.

Scuff Scuff Scuff.

A long term resident, now comfortably entrenched in this cozy world where they all lived the half lives they lived to forget. And she was one.

Scuff Scuff Scuff. Her hands busy quick with the edge of the cardboard scrap she'd dredged from the accumulating mass of garbage on the floor. Oh, she was far too busy to clean up anymore.

Scuff Scuff Scuff across the surface of the table. Her mind flicked back an image of the four women at the table that night at the Checkerboard. Snorting up that pathetic heap of brown shit. She paused to think of them a second - then went right on. Scuff Scuff Scuff. She had more in this pile of refuse now than they had between them then. Better shit, too. Good shit. Good good shit.

Scuff Scuff Scuffing up the precious dust. The dust of silver hoofed horses whose feet threw sparks as they galloped, full pelt, into hot white light. Oh yeah. The light was on again. Blinding.

Scuff. Yeah. The Checkerboard... and some other weird ideas that were beginning to haunt her psyche these days. Things she hadn't thought of in years and things she'd never imagined in her wildest dreams. A whirlpool of words and images. Random play.

Scuff Scuff Scuff. Yeah. Table duster.

* * *

About the most friendly faces to appear around the Penthouse for a while were those of Flowers, Angel, Nillen and Fox. These boys seemed to have no stake and little interest in the situation between Jack Hos and the Dealer. They never talked politics, which was a relief to both the Dealer and Carlen. They liked things cool and easy and, because of this, they were always welcome at the Penthouse.

During the course of their last few visits, Carlen had interested them in a game she and the other couriers used to amuse themselves with during the long hours of cafe sitting between consignments. It was a silly game but perfectly suited to the lifestyle at the Penthouse. Angel had become somewhat fanatical about it. He had steady hands and a good eye, but Carlen was just about unbeatable at "The Stacking Game".

It was a warm spring evening. The men were stripped to their waists and they had the women stripped completely. They were all smoking and snorting and sharing swigs from Carlen's Scotch bottle. Fox was reciting dumb little poems, some of which were quite funny.

"I want to try the game," Angel cut in.

Carlen was nodding. She knew he'd been anxious to get started since he came in. "Okay, fucker," she said. "Try me, but I'll beat your arse, just like I always do!" Carlen took a final swig from the bottle and banged it down in the middle of the table. "Start with that!" she said with a crafty smile.

"Ooo," Nillen murmured.

"How can I start with that, you bitch?"

"It's okay," Flowers cut in. "I'll start."

He picked up the ashtray, which was really only a saucer, and centered it on the neck of the bottle.

"Now there's a man who knows how to play the game!" Carlen commended with a broad smile.

Fox was next. Played it safe. Placed one of the butts Flowers had tipped onto the table back in the ashtray. Nillen laid the pencil across the plate. Angel, one of the spoons.

"You playing, Dealer?" Carlen asked.

"Naw."

Over the course of the next half hour additions to the stack included one of the Dealer's wrapping papers, a broken vial, a single burnt match as well as the rest of the match book, the cork from the whiskey bottle, and a small origami swan Carlen folded from one of the Dealer's wrappers. They all found something small to tuck into the folds of the paper swan and, by Carlen's turn, there was no space left for anything that remained on the table.

"We've got her now," Flowers said with a smile.

Carlen picked up the pack of rolling papers.

"That's too big!" Angel declared with delight.

Carlen pulled out a single paper. Started folding again.

"Oh fuck," Flowers sighed.

When she'd done and poked it open a bit with her finger, they saw it was a tiny hat which she raised above the swan's paper head.

"You'll never do it," Flowers said.

"Just get back, fucker," Carlen warned. "Don't you even BREATHE..." She delicately guided her hand down, perched the hat on the swan's head and drew back, slow and steady. "There! Top that!"

"Whoa!" Flowers laughed. "This bitch is RUTHLESS!"

Fox was reaching curiously for the little hat. Carlen lashed out and smacked her hand. Fox drew back with a yip and Flowers laughed again.

"Competitive!"

"Don't fuck with this, Fox," Carlen snapped. "Okay. Who's next?"

Flowers' hands went up in capitulation. "I concede!"

Fox had withdrawn in sulky silence.

"Nillen?"

Nillen looked somewhat sulky himself. "Aw. This game is stupid."

"What about you? You give up, too?"

Angel was eyeing the stack, shaking his head slowly. "You sure do play a mean game, lady. Got it down to a fine art..."

"You going to try it or are you going to wimp out, too?"

"...Naw. Won't be me that tips it."

Carlen shook her head with a snort. "Coward." She snatched the bottle from the bottom of the heap and swigged from it, ignoring the clatter of the toppling stack.

"Fuck it, Carlen!" the Dealer complained. "Look at this!"

"Loser's privilege to clean it up," she said.

"Not me!" Angel declared.

"Go on, Nil," Flowers nudged. "You do it."

"Naw - not my fault."

Angel raised a plastic spray bottle he'd been cooling himself with all evening and squirted Nillen in the face. "Yeah! You do it!" he teased, squirting like mad.

There was an outburst of raucous giggling and horseplay. Fox brightened with a squeal and Flowers ducked to get out of range of the water. Pulled Fox down with him. The next thing he was on top of her. Angel and Nillen went on struggling with the spray bottle. Carlen and the Dealer were laughing. The Dealer was mixing.

"What time you reckon it is?" she asked him over the noise.

"Don't know. About two, I guess."

Carlen suddenly reached for the upturned ashtray, set it straight and put out the cigarette she'd just lit. She left the table and when she came back, she was wearing the shirt and the water was on to boil. She straightened up the table, made tea, then sat, quietly folding those funny little animals.

Strange. A minute before she'd been as high and fractious as any of them. The Dealer was the only one who noticed the switch.

Nillen had finally wrested the water bottle away from Angel but lost his playmate when Angel left the table to take a turn with Fox on the floor. Nillen turned the spray on Carlen with a wild, horsy laugh.

"Hey!" Carlen snapped.

"Hey!" he mimicked, zapping away.

"Don't, you asshole! Don't wet the shirt!"

Nillen's face crumbled.

"Okay, man. That's enough," the Dealer said mildly. "It's late."

Nillen lowered the bottle, frowning like a sulky kid. "No need to get nasty..."

"She didn't mean nothing, man. It's okay," the Dealer soothed.

"This tea?" Flowers asked, coming back to the table.

"Yeah," Carlen murmured.

Fox was still groaning under Angel when Freddie turned up a few minutes later. He was vague and harried as ever. Smoked a little. Joked around with the others. Tried to get a price on Fox for the night. Fox didn't care but the men wouldn't go for it. Carlen made animals.

About half an hour later he left. The others left soon after. Carlen cleared up the tea things. The Dealer packed the pipe and the two of them settled down for the most pleasant part of their day.

"You seem to like those people," the Dealer remarked.

"Yeah. They're cool. Fox is funny."

"And she's a woman."

"Yeah."

"And White."

"...Yeah."

"Does it bother you, being around Black people all the time?"

"...Sometimes."

"Does it scare you?"

"I was scared a long time before I came here, Dealer."

"Yeah... We all were." There was a pause. "I suppose it's healthy for you to see other White people," he said.

"I guess."

"Although, I notice you're always real careful around Freddie."

"Freddie?"

"Yeah. How you talk. How you act. Always dressed..."

Carlen didn't comment.

"You've figured out who he is," he deduced.

"...Yeah. I think so."

"That's what you're really scared of."

Their eyes met.

"Being sent back to the Zoo."

"Believe me, I'm supposed to be," Carlen said.

"Well, you don't want to worry too much about Freddie. I pay him, too."

Carlen was askance. The Dealer gave her one those "between us" nods.

The Dealer's revelation was somewhat reassuring but, despite what he'd said, there were a number of things Carlen didn't want Freddie to find out about. The scars from the wire incident, for one. Something like that could easily be misconstrued as punishment for a very serious offence. That wouldn't do at all. Especially in view of her behavior lately. One would not like to be called on such instances in any kind of 'accounting' to a man like the Whipmaster. No sir.

Carlen didn't really know what chance there was of Freddie finding out about her encounter with Etiene, but that was the biggest, realest fear of all. God only knew how the Whipmaster would react to information like that. So, she did all these other things, took all these special measures, as if they could somehow conceal the guilt she was so sure was showing.

Yeah, she was real careful around Freddie, but Freddie only came around every two weeks and, in between? Well, in between there were experiences she could recall with stunning clarity, and there were experiences she could not recall at all.

The slide continued. She woke up mornings tired and depressed. Her joints ached. Her stomach was sour. The years of hard living were catching up fast.

But it was more than that. This was an overall shakedown. A permanent and inevitable life change. A new meaning to the word 'mature'.

It wasn't all bad. Of course her health was poor, her energy erratic, and the chemical imbalances were playing havoc with her system and outlook. But, mentally, she came to a new awareness. A view of things, through the cloud cover, that was very clear and distinct. A perception that went a long way beyond the walls of the Dealer's room.

Unfortunately, this sudden enlightenment was merely a glimmer of real light that was lost in the landslide of devastation wrought by her relationship with the Dealer. She buried the knowledge. Buried it because she didn't understand it. She could not interpret the messages that were trying to break through. She started having serious delusions. At least, that's what she took them to be, when she stopped to think at all.

The Lady came

the Lady came

Passed the door

seen unseen

She wasn't red

she wasn't white

she wasn't blue

and she wasn't green

She was no more than

Mysterious

The words disturbed her. Bothered her all the time. Night or day they came, jangling their nonsense in her aching head, like the remnants of a dream chant. She wanted only to think of Etiene but all these other things kept interfering with her dream of him. Her sweet longing. Her precious suffering. All these stupid, useless thoughts and imaginings, pushing into her head from God knew where.

This particular problem with Carlen was so pronounced at times that even the Dealer noticed it.

"The House of Cards is falling

the Black Knight's circle walking

The Prince sits in wait

but the Dormouse sits alone.

Alice is dispatching

and the cards, the house is falling

without calling...

Can't you run a little faster?

Can you dance on broken glass?

Does the Queen don silver armor

or fold her hand and pass?

'Twas a dark and chilly spring

in the jungle where they wed

Not long to go in

w-o-n-d-e-r-l-a-n-d

just keep your head... keep your head..."

"Carlen? Carlen!"

"Huh?"

"You there, girl?"

"I'm here..."

"My God, I wonder. Where the hell do you get to?"

She was drunk. As usual. "I don't know..." she sighed despondently.

"Well, you just stay alert. And quit all that yammering."

The Dealer turned back to the table and talk with the other men, but a minute later Carlen raised her head.

"Dealer-"

"Yeah, what?"

"Hit me."

The Dealer looked at her a moment then cooked her a set-up.

Carlen sat there a while, rubbing her arm. Her mind started expanding. Filling the room. Then it was suddenly trapped by the room.

"I wanna hear the record," she said, interrupting the men again.

The Dealer cut her another peculiar look, then got up and put the record on.

"Well, woman," he was saying as he came back to the mattress. "I hope this perks you up some. You been moping around here like somebody died..."

Carlen didn't hear what the Dealer was saying. Her mind had already latched onto the rhythmic opening of the song.

DUM DUM DUM DA-DA

DUM DUM DUM DA-DA

The lyric began and Carlen started to sing, perfectly mimicking the harsh, eerie intonation of the female lead singer.

The voices of the men faded to nothing. It was the song. Only the song. Stronger and louder than it had ever been. Broadening and rising like some supernatural ode to the divinity of drug psychosis.

Carlen started to rise with the music. Her white light was everywhere. It blacked out everything in the room. The men sat in slack-jawed paralysis, enthralled.

She began to move. Dancing, some might have called it, if they'd recognized it. Writhing, some might have described it later.

It was a strange dance. The cruelest thing any of them had ever seen. Abandoned, savage, berserk. She moved with a slow fluid control, working tension against tension. A movement that spoke of contained frenzy. Suggested possession.

The curl of her toes. The extension of her fingers. The sway of her hips. Drops, swings, kicks, pivots. Her hands. Her legs. Her eyes - they burned.

She worked the floor, the chain, the wall, the table. Worked every man in the room and none of them in the least bit conscious of trying to get a look under the shirt. Or trying to touch her. But only of what she was DOING to them all.

Nobody knew Carlen could dance that way. No one had ever seen a woman dance that way. At least, not in the flesh. Not in their faces. Not in their wildest dreams.

Those who saw it never forgot it. They were awed. Frightened. It made them squirm. Reached into their dark corners.

The lady was the meaning of Rock 'n' Roll. Forbidden Material on the hoof. A sacred vessel of soul and sedition.

God only knew what else she knew about. Nobody was game to ask.

Nobody expected a slave to express feeling. Slaves were expected to maintain the positions defined for them and to do no more than survive - as long as they could. But Carlen seemed to define her own position and there had certainly never been anyone like her on the Dealer's mattress before.

Some may have criticized his management of her but everyone found her compelling. With Carlen at the Penthouse there was never any telling what might break loose on any given night. One thing they could not dispute. Carlen was good for business.

The dance lasted only a few short minutes but, by the time she was finished, not one of the men in the room felt comfortable inside his pants. The Dealer found the whole thing entirely irresistible. He tackled her as she came back onto the mattress and took her right then - to her rasping chants of "A-lice! A-lice! A-lice!"

There was six thousand dollars left on the table that night, in small appreciation of the Dealer's Dancer.

* * *

Carlen came down about a week later. A devastating dose of flu. The Dealer wasn't so much negligent in the circumstances as he was oblivious to it.

She woke up one morning with what seemed to be a simple head cold. She sniffled and spluttered into wads of toilet paper for two days but, by the third day, she was shivering and there were pains in her chest. Her temperature rose, the sweats set in and by the fourth day she thought she was going to die.

"Dealer..."

She had called only the short distance from the wall to the table but her voice failed to reach him. "Dealer!"

The Dealer glanced around.

"I need a blanket."

"What for?"

"I'm sick."

"What do you mean, sick?"

"I've got flu," she said and was temporarily stopped by a fit of coughing. "I need a blanket."

He looked at her a moment then called to Will who brought her a musty blanket. Carlen sat up weakly and wrapped it around her as best she could. The Dealer was watching her closely, although he had not moved from the table.

"You're not going to die on me, are you?"

"I certainly hope not," Carlen croaked, trying to suppress another coughing jag.

Those were the last coherent words she said for days. She dumped into a really rotten time of it with fevers and delirium. She saw things that weren't there. Heard things. Saw and heard people moving around the Penthouse. People who couldn't possibly exist. She lost complete touch with conscious life as she rolled over in a swampy sea of torment and hallucination.

For the most part the Dealer ignored her. Perhaps he had already given up on her, but Braidshawk was gravely concerned when he found out.

"What's going on with Carlen?"

"Oh, she's got flu or some damned thing. She's asleep."

"She's tossing around a lot."

"Nightmares, I guess. She's got a crazy head, that jade. Crazy."

"You mind if I look at her?"

"Huh? No. Go ahead."

Braidshawk stepped onto the mattress and knelt beside Carlen. Felt her head. Turned her face up, checked her pupils. "Do you know she's running a fever?"

"Fever, you say?"

"She's burning up."

"Well, I guess she's on her way out," the Dealer said with dead resignation. "She lasted pretty good. Longer than the others."

Braidshawk wiped Carlen's brow with his hand.

"I'll see if I can get some lemon juice," he said.

"You think that'll help?"

"Yeah, I think it'll help - if it isn't too late. She needed help days ago. You been feeding her?"

"She ain't been able to sit up."

"God, man. You got any vitamins?"

"Yeah, some."

"You better start dosing her up. Vitamin C, especially. Every hour. No need to let her slide away like this. Where are the antibiotics?"

"I think I got some here."

"Have you given her any?"

"No."

Braidshawk crossed to the table and searched under the top tray of the Dealer's box. He checked the labels on three vials, chose one, pulled out a hypodermic and prepared the injection himself. He crossed back to Carlen and pulled the blanket loose. He rolled her over, yanked up the tail of her shirt and stuck her in the behind. She groaned slightly.

"This should help," he said. "But I can't understand why you didn't do this sooner."

"It didn't seem so serious."

"How long's she been like this?"

"I don't know. A week or two."

"The jade's been down two weeks?"

"Has she? I don't know. Maybe."

Carlen was reaching weakly for the blanket to cover her exposed rump. Braidshawk handed the Dealer the hypo, pulled Carlen's shirt down, pulled the blanket up and tucked it in around her.

"She needs more blankets, man. Blankets. Plural."

"Yeah, alright."

"You want her to live, don't you?"

"Yeah. I want her."

"Then you better get off the dime and do something. You've got to build her up or she won't make it."

* * *

Braidshawk did whatever he could when he was around, but in the main it was left up to the Dealer who was less than consistent in his attentions.

The days passed and Carlen hung on, but Braidshawk was discouraged to see her still prostrate by the wall when he came in about a week later. The Dealer was leaning over her, shaking her.

"Carlen? Carlen! Wake up, bitch!"

"...shit ...leave me..."

"Wake UP!"

"Leave me alone..."

"Damn it! Damn it, woman, I'll fix you," he muttered and returned to the table.

"She still down?" Braidshawk asked.

"Yeah. Lazy bitch. I'll fix her." He was in a raw mood. He lifted the lid of the box.

"What are you going to do?"

"Get her UP!"

"Maybe you should leave her," Braidshawk said. "She still looks pretty whacked-"

"No, damn it. This has been going on and on. I'm tired of it." He pulled out a hypodermic. "I'll get her started. Do what I should have done in the first place..."

The Dealer's irritability was uncharacteristic and, in a way, Braidshawk was relieved to see it. At least it was a sure signal the Dealer wanted to see Carlen revived. He was not in agreement with the Dealer's choice of remedy but he didn't interfere. He sat down and waited to see what would happen.

Carlen came to almost immediately.

Ceiling. Penthouse ceiling. Yep. Normal.

She rolled over.

The Dealer's knee. Yep. Beyond that the table. Yep yep. That was real. Normal. Hey! Normal!

"You there, Carlen?"

Yep yep.

She pushed herself up. Fell. Pushed up again.

"You alright now?"

Yep. "Yep."

"Good," he said with obvious relief and turned back to the table.

Yep. All was normal, except... it didn't look normal. Not really. The Dealer wasn't moving right. And his arms ... were too long. His head, too big. Way too big.

Carlen started to laugh. "You think this is funny, huh? You think I won't catch on..."

"What?" the Dealer asked, twisting around.

"Hey, man. What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on."

"Look at you, man! What are you doing?"

"Doing?"

"Why are you doing that? Don't do that, man. Don't play with me. Don't tell me there's nothing going on!"

"Carlen?"

The room turned blue. Then red.

"Hey... HEY! Who's fucking with the lights in here?"

"What's wrong with you, jade? No one's fucking with anything."

Carlen's eyes widened and Braidshawk was a little alarmed by the rage reflected in them. Yeah, her eyes were wide - but the room had gone black.

"DON'T TELL ME THERE'S NO ONE FUCKING AROUND HERE. TURN ON THOSE FUCKING LIGHTS!"

"What-"

"I SAID GET THEM ON!"

The Dealer reached out to touch her but she jerked away violently.

"DON'T FUCK WITH ME, MAN. DON'T DO IT!" She started laboring for breath. "I TOOK THEM ALL DOWN... AND... I'LL TAKE YOU, TOO! I SWEAR I WILL!"

"What the hell is she talking about?"

"Dealer-" Braidshawk interjected.

"What?"

"She's too high."

"What?"

"Look at her eyes, man. You shot her too high."

"I T O L D Y O U... Don't - fuck - with – me-"

"Bring her down, man. She's overdosing."

The Dealer couldn't seem to catch on. He just stared at Carlen in dull confusion.

"Bring her down, Dealer!"

Braidshawk shot to his feet, swiftly moving onto the mattress. He grabbed Carlen who was flailing with the onset of convulsions. "You want her to die, man? MOVE!"

The Dealer finally snapped to, turned to the box and started fumbling together an antidote.

"Let me GO! You can't hold me!" Carlen shouted.

"Come on, man! COME ON!" Braidshawk urged.

"Yeah, yeah," the Dealer muttered. His hands were shaking.

"I WARN YOU!"

"You got it?"

"Yeah... yeah..."

The Dealer turned with the hypo. Braidshawk roughly unbent Carlen's arm and braced it back over his knee. "Give it to her!"

The Dealer leaned in over Carlen's outstretched arm, attempted to hit the vein, but he was bungling it badly.

"Get it INTO HER!"

"I got it... I GOT it..."

Carlen was fighting like a maniac.

"You fuckers! FUCKERS! I'll take you! TAKE YOU ALL!"

"You got it, man?"

"Yeah... got it!"

"FUCKERS! You'll PAY for this! You'll pa-y... for... this... fuc-kers..."

She made an unpleasant sound in her throat and abruptly fell limp in Braidshawk's arms. He grabbed her pulse and held on to it for several long minutes.

"Je-sus Christ..." he muttered.

The Dealer only stared in disbelief.

CHAPTER 56 \- MAENA

"Take this... Here, take this."

Carlen came to semi-consciousness and raised a limp arm as though to shield herself. "Leave me, you crazed bastard. Leave me alone! I don't need any more tonight..."

"It's morning and it's water. Drink it."

The voice caused percussions in Carlen's head and she was about to fade out again when the touch of the cool liquid in her mouth revived her. She took one hungry gulp and fell back, squinting up confusedly. "Who is it?" she asked, desperately trying to focus. The veils lifted away and her eyes suddenly widened in astonishment. "Mysterious?!"

"That's right."

"But I thought you were-"

"An illusion. I know."

"You know?"

"Here..."

Hands were encouraging her to sit up. Holding the cup to her lips again. Carlen sipped the water, her eyes riveted on the girl knelt beside her on the mattress. The Black girl. The girl of her delusions.

"I'm dreaming, right?"

"No. Not this time."

"What the hell are you doing in here?"

"You need reviving," the Black girl said.

"I feel like I'm dying."

"You are."

Carlen thought about this a for a moment. "Maybe it's time."

"No. It isn't."

"Why don't you just let me go?"

"We cannot disappoint him," the girl said, indicating the Dealer who lay sprawled on the mattress.

Carlen's eyes blanked momentarily, then she blinked, trying to maintain focus on the girl. She gestured weakly with her arms and the girl helped her sit up a little better.

"Maybe he's dead," Carlen said dispassionately.

"He's not," the Black girl replied. "I already checked." She reached around behind her. "I've brought something. Do you think you can eat?"

"If you can feed me," Carlen said with the hint of a smile.

Overall, she didn't feel too bad. There was no pain, in fact, no feeling of any kind in particular. She sat there passively, watching the Black girl who was coolly spooning a substance very much the consistency of baby food into her mouth. The sensation of eating was not unenjoyable but the food had no flavor at all.

The Black girl's eyes flicked up, catching Carlen's gaze and Carlen had the feeling of being sucked into a warm, swirling whirlpool from which she could not escape. She felt no desire to escape it.

"My name is Maena."

Momentarily mesmerized, Carlen did not fight the surge which carried an unwise response to her lips, but the girl cut her off.

"Don't expose yourself. I know who you are."

Carlen unexpectedly broke out laughing. The cereal sprayed and she began to choke.

"Be careful!" Maena chided, her tone carefully subdued.

Carlen lolled back on the pillow, gasping weakly, a weary smile on her face. "Ah, it's all a dream! Time to say good night folks..."

She closed her eyes with a sigh, luxuriating in the floating sensation in her head. She tried to disregard the girl's voice which seemed to be hammering at her, but it persisted and, ultimately, some of the words broke through.

"Don't you dare think about dying!"

Carlen's eyes snapped open. "And don't you interfere with my THOUGHTS!" she croaked.

She could never have explained what she'd said, although she questioned it a thousand times over as she lay watching the girl with distrust and a tingling of fear. Maena's eyes were downcast, as though in shame.

"It's not a thing I necessarily do by choice," she said softly.

"Oh shit," Carlen muttered.

Maena pinned her with those eyes again. "Listen to me. You're going to pull through. You'll get out of here. Beyond this."

"Oh yeah. Right," Carlen huffed. "And then I conquer the world! You're quite a fortune teller, girl."

Maena ignored the sarcasm and went on serenely. "You'll survive - because you still burn. You want to escape because you want to destroy something... Or someone."

Carlen was waking up fast now. "Everyone wants that," she said.

"Not everyone follows through."

Carlen's eyes turned wary. "Nobody's saying I do."

"Nobody here knows it," Maena said evenly. "No one here knows your name or your crimes, do they? Nobody knows the real reason you're here."

"None of that is so unusual," Carlen said cautiously.

"It is for someone in your position," Maena countered.

Carlen's jaw tightened.

"You're not the first to come here," Maena told her. "The others are on Moreau Street. Or they were given away as favors. Or they're dead..."

"Oh, give me the horrors."

"You're much stronger than the others. I believe your being here is not entirely an accident."

"Oh. Myths and legends?"

"Maybe a power play... Only the Whipmaster didn't know exactly what he was doing."

Carlen wanted to back out of this conversation. Run, actually.

"Well, you're a walking legend yourself," she said. "Why don't you tell me where you fit into all of this?"

"I'm a leftover," Maena explained. "During the trouble my mother and I went into hiding and we stayed there during the evacuation. She couldn't see the sense of running someplace strange to start the struggle all over. So we stayed here. Kept hidden. Made out okay. The best we could.

"Then she took ill. Died. I knew pretty well what to do by then and I managed by myself - until one of the Dealer's Runners spotted me. Of course he had to have me.

"I've been here two years. This is the third pregnancy-"

"Pregnancy!" Carlen now noticed Maena's swollen stomach. "My God..."

"I would like the child to have a future. There's no future here."

"Kid me not," Carlen said, but she was honestly touched. Awed, in fact. "Well, why are you bothering with me? My God, you must hate me."

"Hate you? Why would I?"

"Well, you being the Dealer's lady-"

"I'm not his lady," Maena said. "You are."

"Me? I'm just his whore."

"You're a lot more than that. You've been good for him, good for the Penthouse. You're the only real sign of life around here."

"Except for you," Carlen argued.

"But I'm not part of it."

"You're part of the Dealer. More than me."

"No. Less than you. He doesn't love me."

"He doesn't love me, either," Carlen scoffed.

"But he needs you," Maena said.

"He needs you more."

"No."

"I can't give him any baby."

"The child is all he wants from me."

Carlen was looking intently at Maena. She was young and extraordinarily beautiful.

"...How could he not love you?"

"There's no love left in him," Maena said. "And he's tired of the power."

Carlen didn't comment. She knew the girl was probably right. She'd seen that tiredness before, even in the Whipmaster once or twice.

"I think he's even lost interest in the child," Maena said.

Carlen's mouth tightened. That was not the kind of thing she needed to hear. "Why are you telling me this?"

Maena smiled for the first time. A most disarming smile. "If I don't tell you, how will you know?"

"I'm not so sure I want to know," Carlen said, trying to dissuade the girl from saying more.

Maena became solemn again. "It's only fair exchange," she said, holding Carlen's gaze.

Carlen's brow furrowed, but she realized she could not have taken her attention from the girl if her life had depended on it.

"I have experienced some of the images in your mind..." Maena confessed.

Their eyes were still locked and Carlen fought down an urge to take the proverbial cartoon character gulp. "You're really serious, aren't you?"

"Believe it."

Carlen had heard of such people. Telepathics. She'd heard of such things but she found it all very hard to believe. How could one believe in such things - without proof?

"You think the Dealer stands between you and your freedom. He doesn't."

"It's more complicated than that," Carlen said.

"I realize that."

"Oh you do, huh?"

"I understand a great deal about the situation," Maena assured her. "Even more than you."

"Sure you do."

"The Dealer is not the barrier between you and your freedom. He's the key. You must look after him."

"I'm too tired to look after anyone. Besides, he's burned out. It's over. He'll die, and-"

"No," Maena insisted.

Carlen paused. This girl was - what? Twenty? Twenty-one? She sounded like a sage. It was unnerving.

"What the hell do you want from me?" Carlen asked bitterly.

"There's nothing you can do for me right now."

"At least you got that straight."

There was the tiniest spark in the girl's eyes. Good. Maybe she was getting the point. And, maybe she wasn't.

"You think you know what's going to happen but you don't have a clue," she said with an edge. "There's still much for you to do."

"About what?"

"The situation here."

Carlen scoffed unpleasantly. "I can't do shit about it, lady!"

Maena shook her head.

"Oh really? What can I do?"

"You must do what you can," Maena said simply.

"Which is what?"

"Anything necessary."

Carlen sighed uncomfortably. There was a weight of import to the girl's words that was just about impossible to ignore. "And just how would you define 'necessary'?"

"You'll know when the time comes," Maena said.

"That's helpful."

"You're a survivor, Carlen. Your destiny is still before you. I have seen it."

Carlen truly hoped Maena didn't see her shiver just then. She refrained from further comment because somehow she knew, when someone said something like that, the way Maena said it to her, there was just no way to come back at it without appearing to spit in the eye of Chance.

CHAPTER 57 \- MAY DANCE

That May was the longest, loneliest month Carlen spent with the Dealer. She had no idea it was May. Had no idea what month it was. Both calendars she'd started had gone to shit. Those pathetic pencil scratchings on the wall were a pretty raw testament to just how bad things had become. How bloody impossible it was to keep track of time, or anything, when one was so subject to blackouts. The way she'd wake up some mornings, go to mark off another day and wonder - Had it really been a day? Or was it more like three or four? Who gave a fuck, anyway? Each mark was a sour reminder of how much time she'd already lost in this purgatory.

She did know the current crisis had passed and she came back to the deadly knowledge that she would, indeed, outlast the Dealer. She couldn't explain how she knew this. As Maena had so stridently put it, she hadn't a clue what would happen, but that was okay. She was pretty darn sure she didn't want to know.

She started making some serious changes in her lifestyle. A sort of cutting back from the extremities she had indulged for so long. It was not a contrived or deliberate exercise in restraint, but something that occurred with a kind of inevitability.

She quit the practice of snorting the refuse off the table every night. The Scotch ran out and she refrained from asking the Dealer to get more. She gave up demanding the heaviest set-ups the Dealer would provide, although she continued to accept regular jolts at regular intervals, to keep the habit controlled and satiated.

Where she found the self-possession to accomplish these tremendous feats she couldn't fathom. She just felt as though she'd suddenly come to after a long dream sleep. She saw sense, distinguished right from wrong and made the best effort to choose the correct path in all matters.

She did this and it didn't seem difficult, but it was not a cure for depression. Depression that had become a way of life. Another habit that just went with the territory.

There was no point anymore in trying. Or in surviving. No hope of escape, or reprieve from this miserable condition. No point in abstention from any of the evils in which she'd become so deeply entrenched. To which she was now so addicted. Carlen saw no point in anything - but she was not driven off track by this borderline mentality. She steered clear of the quagmire and sailed on, seizing control over routines at the Penthouse.

She knew it was unrealistic to seek complete restoration to their former condition, so Carlen strove for a steadying up that would at least accord a rough maintenance of the status quo, bad as it was. In a distillation of priorities, she cut back to the basic disciplines. Cleanliness. Sustenance. Focus.

She controlled her behavior around the Dealer's guests. Controlled the guests. What the men saw was the representation of the perfectly conformed turn. Resignation. Reserve. Compliance. She treated the Dealer with utmost respect. Met all the requirements of her post. She did exactly what was expected of her - and she did what became necessary.

As to the Dealer, he required closer attention every day. Attention not demanded by him but required by the situation. His continued deterioration was painful to Carlen, not because of the abuses wrought by his erratic behavior, but because the man seemed to be suffering so much.

He'd become a sort of patient - and that's what she had to be. Patient and silent, courageous and deadly. She had to balance the wielding of these unseen strengths against the visible restoration to her proper place and demeanor. How well she was succeeding was difficult to tell at times, but there was no room left to stop, analyze, and draw up every game tactic. There was only room for action and assurance.

The Dealer bumbled along, lost in his own little reality much of the time. Carlen wasn't bothered too much. It flowed in harmony with her own emptiness.

The thing it enhanced was the level of responsibility Carlen had to take for things. Things like performance, over which Carlen assumed most of the control and towards which she became the prime instigator. It brought in good money and it was one way she could push the Dealer without appearing to overstep the bounds of protocol.

It required some skill. The Dealer was not easy to stimulate these days, distracted and half-hearted as he was about everything. Yet, once she got him started, he fucked her harder than ever before. Sex was like a catharsis to him. He grappled with each act like it was a war - but not with her. With something in himself.

For her it had become a cold, passionless duty. Performance. Merely that. A demonstration of acting skills. She wasn't sure what it was she used to feel with him but, whatever it was, it was gone. She didn't care. Told herself she didn't.

She was squinting tiredly against the smoke of her cigarette one evening as a few of the regulars settled in around the table. Will and Bodeen had come in with them. The Dealer was sitting there, flicking at his arm in search of one vein still adequate enough to pin. He hardly noticed everyone come in.

Carlen watched the hands coming and going as they unloaded their precious change onto the table.

"Hey, Brad," she murmured. "I'd like to see a bit more from you."

"That's enough, ain't it?"

"Well, I work my ass off for you, man. I don't think it's enough."

It was a push, alright, but Carlen had developed a style that pushed these boys without their ever feeling they'd been anything but stroked. Brad put more money on the table. More than enough. Emptied his pocket for her and glad to do it.

Carlen surveyed the group with cool appraisal. Yeah, they were ready. Will and Bodeen were ready, too. Carlen was sure those two boys were good for any Trade they had an eye for in Blacktown. Maybe White City, too. Anything they wanted - so long as it wasn't Carlen.

Yet, something in her performances with the Dealer stirred them. They were nearly always present. Of course they never expressed any sentiment while they were in the room, but they were quick to withdraw afterwards to some darkened corner to play their passions into their hands. She'd heard Will moan out in the hall. She'd heard him. Tough-assed old Will.

"You just about got that shit in you?" she asked the Dealer, who used to be the quickest, sharpest shot in the city.

He'd finally located a vein that wasn't collapsed and unloaded enough shit into his system to guarantee another moment or two of existence.

Carlen stubbed out her smoke. "Let's go."

Intercourse took longer these days because the Dealer seemed to forget the finale was his responsibility and, when he came, he struggled as though he were in torment. Carlen sometimes wondered if the sex might be the thing that ultimately killed him off. When she hit the mattress at the finish, panting, Carlen had to wonder how many more of these Olympian efforts were left in her.

"Well, that's it," Brad murmured.

The men were preparing to leave as Carlen sat up. She glanced in dull embarrassment at the Dealer who still lay there, limp and sticky, his clothes awry, out cold. The contrast of his inertness against the almost solemn departure of the men blew a chilly sensation of desertion through Carlen. That thing which was so acute when anyone walked out that door since Etiene had done it.

Carlen gathered up the money, some of it rolls, some of it paper, and placed it beside the Dealer's box. She went to the corner and damped a portion of her towel to wipe down with. She sat by the wall enjoying the cloth. Around the back of her neck. Her face. Around her ribs. Between her legs. The water felt good. Her eyes fell on the Dealer.

She rolled onto her knees and, as she bent over to wipe him down, she realized again that dull ache. She hesitated, then stripped off the Dealer's pants and shirt and bathed him completely. He never stirred.

She pulled him over on his side and carefully arranged his limbs. The night was warm but she pulled the blanket over him anyway and crawled underneath it, curling closely into the nest she'd made of him.

She lay there, staring at the wall she was chained to, but her mind was on a solution to that wall. A solution that lay not four feet away. In the Dealer's box. That box of poisons. One solution to it all.

If she was courageous enough. Or if she found she was, after all, too much of a coward... If she decided she couldn't go on living with the question of How much longer? How many more nights? And, the scariest of all: Who? If not the Dealer, who then?

Another tear coasted over the bridge of her nose and plopped to the mattress.

* * *

"How come I woke up naked this morning?" were his first words to her the next day.

"I gave you a bath last night."

"Bath! I don't remember about no bath."

"Well pity you, sir. You really enjoyed yourself."

"I did?"

"You loved it."

* * *

And so began the deceits. The little white lies, into lies of omission right on up to blatant untruths. The adhesive Carlen used to keep her relationship with the Dealer glued together.

She hadn't planned it, she never liked it but, once it started, one lie led into another, compounding one atop the next, all aligning themselves behind this gigantic motive she labeled "Necessity".

The seasons lurched drunkenly out of the cold spells of winter into the suffocating humidity of summer. There was virtually no ventilation in the Dealer's room and Carlen spent many a long hour stuck to the mattress, throbbing with heat prostration, strangled by the furies of her psyche.

Time dragged. It was terrible. The waiting. The uncertainty. All these new fears, mounting hour by hour, and Carlen didn't know what to do with them. All these new questions and no answers. As usual. No answers.

When she was alone these things preyed on her. Made it difficult to stay attuned to the psyche of Blacktown, the psyche of the Dealer. Yet, in the end, his paranoia was the only weapon Carlen had against her own. When he was awake he demanded so much, both mentally and physically. He constantly forgot things, mislaid things. He couldn't bear to be alone but he wasn't really with his guests anymore. If he was with anyone, he was with Carlen. He couldn't get on without her. She was afraid when he was asleep but, if he was awake, she had to be there. And if she wasn't?

"Carlen?"

He was speaking quite softly but in his undertone was a definite determination to waken her.

"Carlen?"

Carlen groaned. "Huh?"

"You awake?"

She tossed over. "What? Yeah..." she said, hoarse and reluctant. She opened her eyes to the sight of the Dealer's face hung over her and there was something in his eyes that brought her dull mind sharply conscious. She blinked. "Yes. I'm awake."

Relief washed over the Dealer's face. He sat back slightly but seemed unsure what else to say. Carlen sat up slowly, combing her hair back from her eyes with her fingers. The Dealer didn't look too good this morning. Kind of sick and broken.

"I'll make tea," she said.

The water bucket was empty. Damn this place.

"Will!" she called, and called again, more sharply. "Will!"

Will came on the run. "Something wrong?"

"Yes. There's no water here."

"I got water yesterday-"

"Drinking water. Can you get us some drinking water? Can you do that?"

Will scowled. "Is everything alright?" he asked - the Dealer, not Carlen. Carlen replied.

"We want a cup of tea."

There was a pause but Will got no response from the Dealer. Finally he fetched the water and Carlen made tea.

"Here," she said, placing the cup in the Dealer's unsteady hands. "Drink up. Do you good." She touched the bottom of the cup but did not push.

The Dealer's eyes flicked up. Worry. Uncertainty. Finally he downed the tea in a gulp. Lowered the cup to his knee with a sigh.

"Lonely this morning, mm?" Carlen reached out and touched his face. "No need for that. I'm here. Right here." She leaned forward and kissed him. "I'm always here, mm?"

He seemed comforted by the gesture but there was a real ache in his idea chamber this morning.

"You took a little too much last night. Look at you. You need to look after yourself better." Carlen set the cup aside and began unbuttoning the Dealer's shirt. "I think we should get you sorted out."

She gave him a cool sponge bath. Handled him like a hospital infirm. He responded like one.

"What you need is sleep," she was saying as she got him toweled off. "Rest is-"

"I'm afraid of dying," he said suddenly.

Carlen's gentle strokes slowed to a standstill. She looked into his worried eyes and she realized they were actually brown, not black as she had always thought. Her voice choked a little.

"My, but we are in a mood this morning," she tried, but it was no good. "Hey," she said in a different tone. "We're all afraid of that, you know? But, from what I understand, it's really not so bad."

The Dealer's eyes shifted away.

"You're still a young man, lots of years ahead," she told him, knowing it was a lie. "More than me, I'm sure."

He looked at her like hearing it from her might make it true. Carlen felt utterly inadequate.

"Listen, darlin'," she said, adopting the pragmatic nursery tone again. "You've got a touch of the blues, is all. Some rest will do you good. Come on. Lie down. Okay? There you are. No. Forget the box. Forget that. Sleep. That's it..."

Carlen pulled the blanket over him. Sat and stroked his woolly head until he closed his eyes and began breathing steadily.

She'd just got the Dealer comfortably off and was in the process of tidying the table when two of his steady customers walked in. She glanced quickly over at the Dealer then back at the two men. Neither Will nor Bodeen had accompanied them in, probably assuming the Dealer was awake and in control.

Any measure necessary.

"Well," Carlen said crisply. "What can we do for you gentlemen?"

Levrow's eyes narrowed. "We need to talk to the Dealer."

"The Dealer isn't seeing people right now," Carlen informed him.

His chin rose slightly.

"Of course you can come back later..."

"Come back, huh?"

"Unless there's something I can help you with?"

His suspicion deepened. "You?"

"Well," Carlen said. "If I'm not too much mistaken - you're due for a gram of Peril at half a C, and your friend here spends about seventy-five once a week for six yellow caps." Carlen's eyes darted from one to the other. "That right?"

"Yeah..." Levrow said slowly. "That's right."

"Well, why don't you show me the color of your money and I'll see what I can do to oblige you."

They both hesitated. Exchanged glances.

Carlen snatched up the chain. Shook it. "Hey \- I'm going to cheat you and leave town, right?"

That broke up the moment. Levrow finally reached into his pocket, crouched down and laid his change on the table. Carlen counted it.

"Looks fine. You?"

Levrow's partner followed suit. Carlen checked the money, collected it up and - turned to the Dealer's box.

If she'd been in any doubt about what these men wanted, she would never have attempted the transaction. But the deal was ridiculously simple and Carlen knew exactly where to look for their goods. She did, however, take a quick tense breath before she touched the lid of the Dealer's box.

She put the money away, got out the required substances, shut the lid and completed the trade. The men were still uneasy but they seemed satisfied.

"Obliged," Levrow murmured, echoed by his companion.

"No problem," Carlen assured them. "The Dealer doesn't like his regulars to wait."

The men left and Carlen expelled her breath.

"That was a pret-ty cra-zy move, lady!" she told herself, but she was extraordinarily elated. Higher than she'd been in months.

The Dealer had been skipping too many appointments lately. If word was to circulate around the sector that he was losing stick it could mean - Well, it could mean a whole lot of things. A hell of a lot of ego hassles Carlen would just as soon not be caught up in.

* * *

And so it ran on the surface of things that May. What went on under the surface remained silent.

Carlen found out nothing more about Maena and the Dealer's feelings about her never came into it. Not openly. He was not acting like a would-be father. Of course, fatherhood had become a disproportionately weighty responsibility for such an unlikely prospect. The miscarriages must have frustrated him but the birth seemed to scare him. It was like he was trying to run on out before it came in.

The thought of that birth was a load on Carlen, but she kept her thoughts on that to sidetrack thoughts about Maena - and the notions that girl had stuck in her head. Notions like escape and freedom and destiny.

The baby was the secret Carlen and the Dealer kept from

each other, and they weren't able to help each other, not really, and she wasn't able to get him focused enough to talk about the box.

So Carlen ran Trade in Blacktown. Nothing major. No set-ups, of course, and nothing at all with anyone who came in with Will and Bodeen behind them. It was a smooth, quiet operation, until Braidshawk heard about it and came to take account.

"What's this I hear about you running Trade for the Dealer?"

Direct hit.

"Where'd you hear that?"

"Don't dog me, woman! Answer me straight, before I knock you to Kingdom Come! Is it true?"

"Yes," Carlen answered, trying to sound cool.

Braidshawk was astounded. "I can't believe you've got the brass to admit it!"

"You said you wanted a straight answer."

"Does he know you're doing that?"

"...yes."

"He does, huh?"

Carlen's gaze was unwavering but she didn't reconfirm the lie.

There was a pause, then Braidshawk's voice dropped right down. It almost shook. "Have you lost your mind?"

Carlen drew in her breath. She didn't want to discuss this. With anyone. Thing was, Braidshawk really meant business and, well, if she couldn't trust Braidshawk, who the hell was there?

"Have you seen the Dealer lately?" she asked softly.

Braidshawk's expression changed but he didn't speak.

Carlen lowered her eyes. "Braidshawk, I haven't really done anything wrong. I haven't cheated anybody and I haven't taken anything from the Dealer's box I shouldn't have."

"Not your cigarettes?"

"No. Not even that. I ask the Dealer." Then more softly she said, "All I have tried to do is keep the flow going. I haven't told the Dealer yet..." Her eyes flicked up. "...and he hasn't noticed."

Braidshawk's features flexed ever so slightly but the fury seemed to be gone.

"I believe the Dealer trusts me," Carlen said. "All I have in mind are his interests. If I'm to be condemned for that, then so be it."

Braidshawk was quiet a minute.

"You should have told me about this," he said finally.

"I told you before, Braidshawk. I serve the Dealer. Only him."

When Braidshawk failed to respond she said, "Take whatever action you see fit."

* * *

Carlen never touched the Dealer's box again while she resided on that mattress. Not even with her mind. She'd expected trouble. A shitload worth. Nothing happened, except less trade filtered upstairs.

Carlen and the Dealer were alone more and, with the responsibility of his guests gone, Carlen was left in a void of obsolescence. The Dealer lived in his dream world. Slept like a stone every night, too over-medicated to be disturbed by the nightmares Carlen knew were ruling his psyche these days.

As for Carlen, she slept very little, virtually stoned straight as she was by the sudden drop in her intake. She missed the luxury of crash sleep. No memory, no worry, no conscience. Pleasant friend. Her only escape.

Now sleep was another enemy and Carlen's gears were stripped by the lack of it. She'd been waking with the sweats, the corner of the pillow gripped in her teeth to keep from screaming. The dream of the mirrors haunted her and she side-stepped sleep to avoid the recurrence of it.

* * *

The beginning of June brought a piece of news that was not only shocking, but news that had direct bearing on Carlen's weakening condition. Carlen had become too dull and distracted with worry and boredom to realize the impact of the occurrence until afterwards.

"Cold news, Dealer," the messenger reported.

"Yeah?" The Dealer almost flinched.

"Freddie, man. He's dead."

"...Dead, you say?"

"Yeah. Somebody stuck him, over on Moreau Street. Some property dispute. They think it was Kody done it but nobody's sure. Real nasty. Cut his throat."

"My God..." the Dealer muttered, a very cold alarm thrumming inside him. "My God..."

Carlen was peering with avid interest at the messenger but it wasn't the words that caught her attention. She was puzzling over some drops of moisture collected on the shoulders of his jacket.

"Well, you can bet somebody's going to find out who it was. The Man's going to want to know-"

"Is it raining?" Carlen interjected suddenly.

"What?"

"Your coat is wet."

"Raining, you say? No. Heavy fog..."

He didn't understand the question or the interruption or the look of disappointment on Carlen's face.

"Oh," she murmured.

That sort of broke up the moment, diminishing the impact of the news about Freddie. When Carlen thought about it later she got a little nervous.

"You going to send the Voice to the Zoo?" she asked the Dealer.

"No," he said. "Let the smart bastard figure it out for himself."

CHAPTER 58 \- UNSEATED

The more Carlen thought about Freddie, the more the situation worried her. She didn't know what the ramifications would be, but she was uncomfortable with the Dealer's decision not to send official word to the Whipmaster. Freddie had been Carlen's only link to the Zoo and, although it had been virtually irrelevant before, that connection seemed more important than ever, especially in view of the way things were shaping up in Blacktown.

Carlen wondered if the Dealer was thinking of this or if he had any ideas about how things would be turning out.

"What do you think of Braidshawk?" he asked her in one of his more lucid moments.

Carlen had been enjoying the sight of him cleaning up the table. Syringes, broken vials, dead matches. Just serenely picking and cleaning with slow easy method and no help from her. She felt a sudden warmth for him. The question confounded her.

"What - do I think?"

"Yeah. You got an opinion, don't you?"

"On what in particular?"

"You think he's good?"

"Good for what?"

"Good for Blacktown."

"Oh. Yes. Yes."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"Why? I don't know."

"You said you thought he was good. You must have a reason."

"Well, he's strong. Smart. Decisive," Carlen said. "Although..."

"Although what?"

"A little impulsive, I think."

The Dealer smiled. "Yeah."

"But he is involved," she added.

The Dealer was nodding. "You seem to have him pegged pretty good."

"He's not a difficult man to read," Carlen said. "He's very direct."

"Direct. That's a good word for him..." the Dealer agreed.

Carlen broke for the shelf in her first flush of angst at the mention of Braidshawk. By now the water was boiled, tea bags were in the mugs, sugar too. She poured the water.

"You seem to be a good judge of character," the Dealer remarked.

"Actually, I'm a lousy judge of character."

"Well, I wouldn't say that..."

What the hell are you saying, Carlen wondered, turning from the shelf with two steaming cups.

"You ever thought you'd like to be with him?"

The hot tea slopped over, burning Carlen's hands.

"Him? Braidshawk? No! Why would I want to be with him? You're the only man I want to be with."

"You don't have to lie about it. I only asked."

Carlen got the cups safely to the table.

"We get along fine, Dealer, don't we? Don't we?"

"Yeah. We get along alright."

"Well, what would I want Braidshawk for?"

The Dealer sat up a little. Reached for the hash. Thank God it was the hash. "He's a fine man," he said.

"Sure. Fine," Carlen said, wiping her hands nervously on her shirt. "But I belong to you. What would I want to get used to somebody else for?"

The matchbox he picked up was empty. Carlen placed a full box in his hand and disposed of the empty.

"Well, you're loyal. I'll give you that," he said, lighting the pipe.

"Dealer?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are we talking about Braidshawk?"

"No reason," he said and, not a second later, he reached for something and both cups went down with a clunk. Tea washed over the table.

"Damn!" the Dealer cursed. "Damnation! Where'd that come from?"

"It was tea! I made it for you."

"What for?"

"What for? To drink!"

"I never asked for no tea."

The Dealer was madly shifting stuff out of the path of the spreading liquid while Carlen quickly dabbed with a towel.

"Well, I know you didn't ask. I just made it. That's all. For Christ's sake, I only try to please you."

"Well, you try too damn hard!" the Dealer snapped and suddenly shoved her. "Get back!" And pushed her again.

Carlen retreated to the corner. Dropped the sodden towel in her basin and left it.

Carlen was hurt but the Dealer didn't stay mad. His mood switched almost immediately, as it usually did these days. He just sat there and smoked the hash pipe in a silence so private it looked like he'd forgotten about Carlen.

"You use your own towel to mop this up?" he asked.

"Yes."

"That was stupid. Ruin it."

"I know. I just grabbed the first thing."

There was another silence.

"I'm sorry about the tea, Dealer."

"Ain't no hanging offence."

"I'm sorry anyway."

"Forget it. It's bullshit." He cleaned out the bowl and repacked the pipe. "Want some hash?"

"Yeah, sure."

Carlen crawled over and he gave her the pipe. The whole bowl, unlit.

"We all got to calm down some..." he said.

Carlen lit and smoked the hash herself. The Dealer was sorting the remaining odds and ends off the table into their compartments in the box. The table was neat as a pin when he'd done. She'd never seen him clean it up that way. Everything was in the box but her cigarettes, the matches and the hash pipe.

The Dealer was watching her intently as she sucked in the last hit off the pipe and set it on the table. Such a funny look in his eyes.

He touched the pipe thoughtfully, almost lovingly, then abruptly grabbed it and stuck it in his vest pocket.

"Come on, Carlen. We're going out."

He pulled out the key and unlocked the chains. Carlen noisily expelled the pent smoke.

"Out? Now?"

It was pitch black outside.

"Yeah. I'm going crazy in here."

"You want me to come with you?"

"Yeah. I want you to come."

The Dealer picked up the chain. Carlen got to her feet. Her legs felt watery. The Dealer was putting on his belt as he passed out the door. Carlen hesitated in the doorway, grabbing the Dealer's arm.

"Don't you think I ought to be wearing more?"

"What? Yeah, okay. Grab something off the floor."

He wasn't waiting. She just took the first thing. One of the Dealer's jackets. The sleeves were ungodly long but so was the tail. She rolled back the sleeves as they descended the stairs. They came out the back of the building. The Dealer fastened the chain onto his belt and struck off - south.

"What about Will and Bodeen?" Carlen was virtually running to keep pace with the Dealer's loping stride. "Aren't they coming with us?"

"I need to breathe," was all he said.

Carlen wasn't crazy about the Deadly Duo herself but they were protection. She didn't know exactly what went on down here at night but she'd sure heard enough about it. Hell. A sane person didn't walk the night streets of the Women's Sector and this - Well, this was Blacktown. And the Dealer was walking towards White City. Towards the Line.

A lone man on the street with a female piece on the chain. That was temptation. She didn't know how many people in the Sector knew the Dealer on sight. She wasn't sure how much it mattered. Someone might go for it anyway. There were enough frags around.

Carlen was thinking of Nillen's severed ear, and about places like Fancy's, and this place they called Moreau Street. Frankly, she didn't think the Dealer could protect her. She didn't even know if he was armed. Bloody hell. Well, she'd just have to look out for him. Protect him, if she could. Luck be a lady tonight.

"Hey Dealer, what were you busted for?"

The Dealer gave a cynical snort. "Well, it wasn't drugs."

"What, then?"

"I killed a dude. White dude. Didn't want to... just had to."

"You weren't involved in the trouble, then?"

"Oh, I was involved. Supplied pharmaceuticals to the Brothers."

"God. Dangerous."

"Dangerous times for everyone," he said simply.

"Well, you sure do know your shit."

"Learned from an expert," the Dealer said. "I was legit before the trouble. Got some of the best connections in the state. Even still."

Quite a boast these days. He said it like it was nothing.

"You've built one hell of an empire."

"This?" He shook his head. "If I was to pick, this wouldn't be it."

They'd come quite a distance. Carlen wasn't sure where they were. Wasn't even sure if the Dealer knew. She wanted to go back, yet she was quite relieved when the Dealer stopped and took a seat at the base of a rubble pile to rest.

The dust and bricks took a minute to settle before the night sounds wove in around them. It was unusually peaceful. The Dealer was chewing on a piece of cake he'd brought with him.

"What about you?" he asked.

"Me?"

"I never heard nothing about your crime. For all your mouth noise, you sure are quiet about that."

"Well, if you want to know the truth, I was a Runner on the outside. Courier First Class, in fact."

The Dealer grinned at her. "That so?" He was impressed. "What'd you carry? Couldn't have been drugs."

"Why do you say that?"

"Baby, you're a beginner. Least, you were when you came to me."

"Well, you're right. Not drugs. Music, mostly. Discs, you know. Rock 'n Roll."

"Yeah. I figured it was something like that. That's heavy. How come they didn't take none of your fingers?"

"Oh - I don't really know. It was pretty chaotic the night I checked into the Control Center. Full moon. A lot of busts. They didn't hold me all that long. I was busted, tried, processed, and transferred in about four days. Guess I just skated."

"Lucky."

"Yeah."

"So, you were a Runner..."

"A good one, too."

"I bet you were."

He was quiet a time. Taking in the sights and sounds of the night.

"It's been a real pleasure having you around, lady. Something special."

Carlen was knocked. "You don't have to say things like that to me."

"Well, I mean it."

"Doesn't mean you have to say it."

The Dealer cast her a look. "Man. Why you always so hard on yourself?"

"Wouldn't do for a slave to get too arrogant, would it?"

The Dealer chuckled and shook his head. "You're such a rage, Carlen. Really surprises me how he could let you go."

"Maybe he didn't find me as entertaining as you do."

"Well, I find that hard to believe. Seems to me he'd go for a smart lady like you."

"Well," Carlen said despondently. "I guess he needed what you traded him more."

"Guess so..." the Dealer sighed, biting off another piece of cake. "Such a strange dude. So cold..."

Carlen lifted her head. Glanced out at the street, blinking. She suddenly felt really blue. "Dealer?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you tell me your name? If I asked?"

"If you asked?"

"Would you mind?"

"Would I mind?" There was a funny smile on his face.

"I'd like to know. Just one of them."

The Dealer looked away unselfconsciously. "I only ran under one, in the end. Fortune. That was my name. Fortune." He looked around with a grin. "You like that?"

Carlen smiled. "I like it a lot. It's the sort of name I always wished I had."

The Dealer's eyebrows rose and fell. He turned away again. "Yeah... Wouldn't it be different if we knew each other for who we really are?"

Carlen thought about this for a minute.

"I think we are who we've become," she said.

"You think so?"

"Yeah, I do."

"What about you?" he asked. "Are you what you've become?"

"...I guess not."

"You see? None of us are, really. There is so much more going on. Shame to miss so much of life..."

"You're very philosophical tonight," Carlen remarked.

He grinned. "Yeah?" The grin turned to a grimace. He picked up a chip of brick and tossed it. "Things have been driving me crazy lately."

"I'm glad to hear you finally say it."

The Dealer gave her a funny look. "Yeah, well..."

He dug a little more through the chips at his feet.

Carlen shifted slightly. "Ask you something?"

"Yeah? What?"

"If you were to say something to the Whipmaster about me-"

"Which I haven't."

"But, if you were to, what would you say?"

The question surprised him. "You really want to know?"

"I'm asking."

The Dealer dropped the dust and brushed his hand on the knee of his pants. "I'd tell him he was a fool to have given you to me."

The Contract was fulfilled.

A big sigh gusted out of him as he stretched up to full height. "You feel like climbing, Carlen?"

"Climb-"

"I feel like climbing. Come on," he said. "Let's climb this mountain here."

"Ah, Dealer - I don't think-"

But it was too late. He'd already started up the side of the rubble pile in yard long strides. The chain played out rapidly and Carlen was yanked off her position with no option but to follow. She scrambled, hand and foot, up the dangerous, unstable slope of loose bricks and sliding, splintered boards, urged on by intermittent tugs at the collar as the Dealer lurched ahead. Although quite short, the climb was arduous for Carlen who was made more aware with every step of how much strength and dexterity had been ebbed out of her by the long months on the Dealer's mattress.

At last he was at the summit where he paused. Carlen stumbled up behind and paused too, bowed over, gripping her knees, gasping. Low laughter sounded in the Dealer's throat as he tugged another piece from the tough cake. Carlen glanced up at his tall, lean frame, silhouetted like the shadow of a stringless marionette by a street light suspended in the air behind him like a huge, electric moon.

And there they stood, locked in a moment of kinship, smiles exchanged in unspoken appreciation of the unforeseen intimacy of the relationship they'd shared.

There was a small settling in the bricks beneath their feet, barely discernible, but Carlen's sense of precognition was overwhelming. Her hand was already wrapped around the chain before the Dealer even realized he was losing balance. There was one instant when she glanced over and saw the canal, drawn like a wide black gash along the far side of the rubble pile.

"Don't you pull me down there, you bastard," Carlen called, too far away to extend a hand to steady him.

"Oh! Looks like I'm going over!" he exclaimed and that's when he went.

Carlen took one mighty leap from the top to head start the Dealer and ran, full pelt, down the slope in an effort to keep abreast. If she allowed him to get ahead, she'd lose footing and they would pull each other down, over the edge into the canal. So she ran, as hard as she could. Her feet would take a beating but she might stay alive. Man. She never thought she'd bless the day the Whipmaster burned her feet. Day arrived.

When she was about six yards from the base of the slope, she slammed her ass down, dug in with her heels and skidded to a halt. She gripped the chain in both hands and, as the Dealer sailed past, she braced herself and prayed.

He hit the ground once more and, as the last few inches of chain played out, Carlen gave one mighty wrench on the line. She was pulled another yard and a half down the slope but she had succeeded in breaking the roll of the Dealer. A few bits of loose debris rattled softly down the slope then all was still.

Carlen dropped the chain and hung her head with a sigh. Her hands throbbed, swollen with blood blisters, and her feet - well. The less said.

"Bloody moon gazer," she gasped. "Could have got us both killed!"

A few blocks away a shot rang out.

Carlen glanced down at the Dealer. He was right on the edge, stretched out on his stomach, one arm folded under him. He was lying on his face.

Carlen gave a low chuckle. Laughed again at her two attempts to stand.

"Knocked yourself right out, didn't you? Crazy bastard."

She started down the slope. She felt a little giddy.

"How does it feeeel?"

Her feet were agony. Even in the dark she could see there was blood. She cursed under her breath. The stench of the canal blew up under her nose and she cursed again.

When she reached the base of the slope, she bent and dealt the Dealer a hearty slap on the shoulder. The instant she touched him she knew. Maybe it was the twisted neck or the gash on his head, or the way he felt to the touch, but one thing was sure. The Dealer was dead. Stone dead.

The Contract was fulfilled.

The first emotion Carlen realized was panic. Dead. Her owner. Her protector. Her provider - such provision as she'd got. Without him she had no position. His passing would mean a change of power and could possibly raise a general claim on her. For the first time she was on her own.

She crouched beside him, trembling with unreasoning terror. Her mind shot out in a hundred directions. Pictures of unspeakable torments blazoned up before her eyes in the dark. She might have fainted then if not for the alarm of voices and footsteps nearby.

She hunkered down lower, frozen like a small nocturnal creature, her eyes piercing the night. The noises emanated from the other side of the rubble pile. She knew they weren't likely to cross it but she knew who they were. She knew what they'd be after and, instantly, she knew what she must do.

As the voices faded off, Carlen went to work on the chain. She had to get free of the Dealer before someone discovered them. Attached to a dead body she was a sitting duck. A dead duck.

Desperately, she pulled at the ring connected to the Dealer's belt emitting small frightened peeps like an animal caught in a trap. The blood blisters on her hands burst making the chain slick but she continued to tug.

The panic had nearly overtaken her when she suddenly released the chain and fell back on her butt. She was perfectly still for a moment, then she wept.

A few minutes later she sat forward, hesitated, then rolled the Dealer on his back. All she had to do was unfasten the belt. If she'd stopped to think she would have realized it immediately. She could take the whole belt, if she wanted to.

Her hands, mangled though they were, now worked with quick assurance. The only key to the collar and chain was in the Whipmaster's possession. Nothing to be done about that, so she wrapped the chain around and around her waist and buckled the belt around her hips beneath it. It was heavy and somewhat cumbersome, but she liked the feel of it around her. She took a few steps to settle the belt then gazed back at the Dealer, sucking in the first taste of freedom.

So. This was it.

She was about a third of the way up the slope when she remembered the cake in the Dealer's hand. She stumbled back down to see if it was still there. It was, although she had to pry it from his fingers.

Again she started up the slope and again she stopped. She paused, looking down at the Dealer, then went back one last time.

She stripped off the Dealer's vest, then decided to take the pants as well. The shirt she left. It was the satin one. Flame red. Everyone in the Sector knew that shirt. The boots were overlarge. She tossed them in the canal. There were no weapons. Not even a pocket knife.

The rapid activity winded her. She paused a moment by the body and a vague whisper blew through her mind.

Stripped to the bone...

She leaned over and heaved the corpse into the canal.

CHAPTER 59 \- RUNAWAY

At the top of the rubble pile Carlen hesitated, trying to capture the details of the night. Her head was badly muddled. She knew she had to run – somewhere, and hide - someplace, but this part of town was a mystery to her and danger was everywhere. She had to get off this open cross-street. Off the lot and out of sight. Find shelter for the night.

She ran around for half an hour over a radius of several blocks before making a decision. There was hardly a soul on the street but she was terrified of stumbling into someone else's sleep spot.

Finally she settled on a transom that opened directly onto the sidewalk. She was pretty sure the space within was vacant, but that was the only recommendation for it, besides the opening itself. It was small. Too small for a man to consider.

She stripped off the bulky belt, leaving the chain attached, in case she had to retrieve it, and pushed it through first. It hit the floor with a quick, reassuring thud, indicating a drop of only four feet or so. Nothing inside stirred and Carlen expressed a sigh of relief. She was in no condition for more running tonight.

She pushed the bundle of clothes through and tried squeezing herself in head first, but the shoulders of the jacket were too bulky for the opening. With a great effort she pulled out and plopped back on her behind, panting. The logical thing to do would be to remove the jacket and push it through separately, but she was afraid of being caught without it. The only other alternative was to go feet first, so, with one final exertion, she poked her feet through the hatchway and began inching herself forward.

It was a slow process but at last she lay, half in, half out, painfully arched over the sill, arms thrown up, her feet resisting thin air. With a groan, she flexed her spine and eked another inch along.

It was just enough. She slid through with gathering momentum and hit the floor in a deep squat. She was in and nothing was broken. She straightened up feeling a surge of exhilaration and accomplishment. An instant after that, she keeled over, hitting the floor like a sack of wet 501's.

* * *

Dawn was breaking opaquely through the meshed glass of the transom when Carlen stirred to consciousness. She sat up abruptly, suddenly afraid she'd bedded down in a nest of rats. She squinted into the shadows of the grim little space and saw no rats. In fact, there was nothing except the dim outline of a door in the wall opposite the transom, about five feet away. Might as well check that out.

The next thing she discovered was she couldn't stand. At all. Try as she might, she could not get up off the floor. Her legs were silly putty and her feet? Her feet were absolutely useless. She didn't panic. The target was the door. It was close enough. She dragged herself across and reached up to grasp the handle.

The door was locked - from the other side. She couldn't believe it. This tiny, empty, useless room, locked! Who the hell would do such a thing?

The great adventure was barely underway but already Carlen felt defeated. That door seemed to symbolize all of her options. Everything she was. Locked in. Locked out. The tears began.

At first she cried because the Dealer was dead. She felt burdened by remorse, sure there was something more she could have done to save him. She cried because she was alone, afraid, hurting, and the Dealer was supposed to stand between her and these things.

She cried in confusion. What should she do? Braidshawk had told her. Said what? Said: If the Dealer should die she would... revert back to the Power. She should return to the Zoo. She'd be in-hand. Safe. Protected from the streets, the dangers of the Men's Sector.

Yes. That was it. And, if she went back, voluntarily, turned herself in, that would certainly impress the Whipmaster.

You're His. You'd have position. You need position.

And then he'd have her there, available for re-sale, possibly to Braidshawk...

She bawled harder. No. That was crazy thinking. The Zoo was everything she burned to get away from. She could no sooner go back there than she could - run.

Another fit of hopeless sobbing.

She remembered the night the wine spilled and the image the Whipmaster had conjured of Shay, holed up in some dark, damp cellar, just wondering... She thought she'd cry herself inside out over that.

Finally, overcome by exhaustion, she lolled over into a deep dreamless sleep.

* * *

It was mid-morning by the time Carlen returned to the conscious world. Hungry. She was about to break down in another crying jag when she remembered the cake.

She sat up gingerly and reached into the jacket pocket. The cake was still there, although somewhat squashed because she'd been lying on it.

The cake was hard. Quite hard. And chewy. Sort of the consistency of pumpernickel and about as sweet. Every bite was a challenge but she didn't mind. She gnawed pitiful hunks off the corner and sat, staring blankly, concentratively chewing.

She feasted on that piece of cake for about the time it would take to dine upon a three course dinner. As she feasted, the morning broke into a symphonic nightmare of sounds to identify. In Carlen's rattled brain every sound was magnified and distorted. When she was positive she heard hammering in the distance, it turned out to be footsteps just across the street. The sound of a board falling at a dump site nearby she took for a gun shot. Other sounds she imagined entirely. Yet, she never moved, except to wrest another small chunk off the tough cake. Between bites she spoke to herself in a low, gravelly tone.

"Wits in gear here. Wits in gear here."

Carlen ate only half the cake. She pulled the belt across the floor by the chain and placed the remaining piece carefully into the red pouch near the belt buckle. In the blue pouch, next to the red, she found a bottle of Wet Drops. She twisted the cap off with mental praises to heaven and touched a drop to her tongue then returned the precious little bottle to the pouch. Taking the belt had obviously been an excellent decision.

"Wits in gear," she muttered again and heeled over into another deep slumber.

* * *

When she wakened it was full daylight, but Carlen had no idea of the time or even if it was the same day. Her hands and feet throbbed. She was cold and hot and itchy and trembly. The snakes within were wakening and the nausea was rising.

Sitting up was about the strangest experience of her life so far. What a fucking junker she must have become. Things were just NOT REAL. She gave her head a shake, as if that would help. She'd been about the realest person she'd ever known. Once.

Don't vomit.

Her ribs and stomach ached from all the sobbing. A breakdown to top them all. Yet, she did not think of death. Did not stop to think of the convenience of her location in time and space. She was alone, for the first time since the day she walked into the Park. Even then, there had been people who knew where she was. No one knew where she was now. Absolutely no one. They had snuck by the guard and it was damn sure they'd be looking for the Dealer before they bothered themselves about her.

Late.

And there would be no report from Freddie that she was missing. Freddie was dead. Like the Dealer. The Dealer... The tears welled again. She was free. Finally free. Free to lay down in that hole until she rotted, if it suited her. It didn't occur to her. Another imperative was stealthily seizing precedence over all else.

Late.

The panic was just beginning to rise as Carlen discovered her fist was pressed tightly to her mouth against the threatening nausea. She knew what was wrong, although she wished she could deny it. This was trouble she could not run from. This illness would turn her into a screaming, jittering, helpless defect with no hope in the world of rational thought or action.

Late.

Damn the Dealer! Damn him! He had done this to her. Why wasn't he here now to fix it? Why?

LATE.

He's dead and he won't be around to fix it again. Ever. You're on your own now.

What on earth could she do? She had less than a serving of food left and the Wet Drops, of course, but Wet Drops were not a permanent substitute for water, which she did not have. And what of this other... need?

LATE!

Nothing. She had nothing.

LATE!

Damn the Dealer! Damn him! Damn-

She suddenly remembered the belt. Remembered whose belt it had been. The belt. Where the hell was it? Where-

Right beside her. Right there.

Carlen's hands felt cruddy and her fingers cramped as she tugged at the drawstrings on the small pouches. She carefully lined up everything she found on the floor before her.

The small bottle of concentrated Wet Drops, the cake, pills, pills, capsules and... What was this? A key? A small key, with teeth. Carlen studied it closely. No good for linklocks. No good for handcuffs. A padlock key? She thought and thought about it, but could not imagine what use it could be to her. She nearly tossed it.

'Keep it,' her mind intoned. 'It's important.'

She set the key aside and turned her attention to the pills. She studied the imprint on each tablet and capsule in the weak light. Arranged them in categories with mounting excitement.

There was some Speed. Yes! Some Percodan and some Codeine. Excellent! Those were the ones she recognized. As to the rest, well, she'd have to experiment, if it became necessary.

She was relieved to see there was also a small emergency supply of Glucose, Lactose, B complex and C.

Bless the Dealer. Bless him!

Carlen figured she had about enough to keep her going three or four days, if she could just work out the best combinations. Of course she realized it would mean feeding the appetite of the monster she needed so desperately to fling off her back but, at this juncture, it was possibly the only way she was going to stay alive. The addiction had been slowly dissolving her for months. No use denying that. On the other hand, the narcotics were also probably as responsible as anything for keeping her going this long. So. Between a rock and a hard place, one might just as well give thanks for a handful of these little red, white, and blue buddies. At least she could kill some of the pain. Some of it. And that Glucose was nothing short of a Godsend. She took some of that right away.

Food. Food was the real problem. And water. She had to get some. Soon. She dry swallowed two of the tablets, one blue capsule, and stored everything else carefully away. Even the key. It wasn't easy in those intricate, drawstring pouches with her unsteady, flyaway hands, but she managed.

The worst part was the wait. All she wanted to do was lie down and go back to sleep. She looked up at the transom. Tried to picture herself passing through it. Out.

Holy shit. Out. Into the Men's Sector...

Come on pills. Come on!

Had to get across to it. Get up to it. Squeeze through.

But to climb or even walk one had to have feet. Carlen was too scared to even look at her feet. She just kept looking at the transom, picturing herself climbing up and out. Up and out.

The next thing she knew, she was standing, getting into the Dealer's trousers. Roll the cuffs. Now the vest - and all moved into a smooth, preset execution. Over to the transom. Push the jacket through. Hop up. Poke head through, shoulders. Wriggle. Wriggle. Wriggle...

And she was on the street.

CHAPTER 60 \- PRIORITIES

Carlen pulled the Dealer's belt out. She arranged it and the chain over the Dealer's trousers to help keep them up, donned the jacket over the top and she was ready to go.

She picked a direction and set off, keeping a careful eye out. She was feeling pretty okay. Reasonably sensible. Knew where she was. What she was doing. Had her priorities set. Get water. Water and food. Water, food, and then weapons.

The problem was, she didn't really know where she was, or in which direction she was headed, or that she had set her priorities in the wrong order.

She had traveled no more than three blocks when she was spotted. A gang of four men. White men. They wasted no time. They came straight after her and, in that moment, Carlen came to the first realization. She couldn't run. At all. The men had crossed the rubble lot and the street before she could even make the corner from mid-block. Carlen backed fearfully into the wall as they circled in around her.

"That's it, man," one of them said. "You just pin it there while we check you out."

Carlen cowered as he stepped closer and hooked the lapel of the jacket open with the back of his fingers.

"Well-oh-well!" His hand curled around the chain. "Look at this. Trade! Who's little piece of ass are you, boy?" he asked, his hand now on the buttons of the vest. Carlen tried to roll away. "Shy!"

They all laughed and Carlen jerked back quickly as the leader tried to catch her wrist.

"Hey! Hey!" he warned and one of the others crowded in behind and confined her wrists in the air alongside her shoulders. The jacket vee'd open and the leader caught sight of the cleft of Carlen's breasts straining against the opened vest buttons. "God Almighty," he breathed. "It's a woman!"

"Kid me not!"

The leader popped two shirt buttons. "Look for yourself."

"Party time!"

A slow leering grin cracked the leader's face.

The second man caught her under the arms, another hooked up her legs and they carried her, squirming and kicking, through the nearest doorway into an empty warehouse. They pushed Carlen directly to the floor and were in a near frenzy, two of them pulling at the jacket and vest, a third trying to strip the trousers off.

"Hey, this is nice," one voice echoed, pulling away the Dealer's belt.

"We'll take that," she heard the leader say.

"Oh man, am I ever going to take a piece of this!" one of them panted, still struggling to get Carlen's vest off. "I've gone nine months without!"

"Shit! My zipper's stuck-"

Carlen had managed to squirm over onto her stomach in an effort to crawl away, but one of them quickly pinned her shoulders to the floor. Someone else had the pants by the waistband and yanked them down. Old, old fears kindled like bright flames inside Carlen, and as much as she would have liked to turn on these low lives like a rabid dog, she found she couldn't even catch her breath.

"Hurry up, before I lose it down my leg-"

"Wait!" the leader shouted, arresting everything.

"Are you kidding, man?"

"Look."

"Look at what?"

"Her ass."

"Never mind the ass! Roll it over-"

"Look at the mark, fuckhead!"

"Yeah? So? They're all marked like that."

"Not like that, they're not. Can't you read? That's the Hook and the Hypo. This is property of the Dealer."

"Bullshit!"

"If it's the Dealer's, what's it doing on the streets alone-huh?"

"Running, maybe. Whatever, I'm not touching it," the leader said, closing the front of his pants.

"If this belongs to the Dealer, what the hell's it doing in Southtown?"

"I don't know and I don't care. Let's go."

"And leave this prime piece of tail?"

"That piece of tail is trouble looking for a place to happen," the leader said. "You stay, asshole. Stay as long as you like, but I'm not letting my prick direct me to the gates of the afterlife." He started out.

"Oh, man," the third man whined, standing up. "Well, what about this belt?"

"Leave it! Leave everything."

"Wait-" the second called, still unwilling to relinquish this irresistible find. "She's got to be a runner. If she's the Dealer's, there might be a hefty reward for her return. That nigger's rolling in dough-"

The leader wheeled around. "You listen to me, dumbass," he hissed. "It makes no difference. I'm not involving myself in it for anything! I don't go over to Blacktown for shit and I don't touch anything that comes from there. Last word."

There was a terrible silence but, a minute later, they had all shuffled out.

Carlen stuck to the floor, too shocked to move, the Dealer's pants tangled around her ankles, her cheek pressed to the gritty cement. She was remembering what the Dealer had said about that mark he'd given her.

'It won't hurt your position none.'

Well, he'd sure been right about that - although this wasn't exactly the 'position' he'd been talking about, was it? Made no difference. Those bastards would have fucked her dead, she was sure. That mark had saved her life. Some revelation.

The adrenalin rushes had not quite subsided by the time she sat up and dressed herself without getting up from the floor. She felt drained. Her one burning desire was to run back to the transom and bury herself in that hole for good. This was all much too much. She could never survive here. She was too small, too slow, and far too weak. Another group of sweethearts like that might not be so conscientious about how she was marked.

Blacktown - White City. It made no difference to Trade like her. Men were men and, as Dalroy had so eloquently put it, a cunt was a cunt. She could not protect herself.

As these thoughts played through her mind, Carlen's gaze drifted aimlessly around the warehouse. Her eyes unconsciously traced the path of an exposed pipe along one wall to the far end of the warehouse where it abruptly bent at right angles and dropped down to meet the tap of - a sink! Suddenly energized, Carlen scrambled to her feet and hobbled across the vast space, picking up speed as she went.

It was, indeed, an industrial sink. She grasped the tap handle with a silent prayer and twisted it. The spout coughed and spluttered unpleasantly, ultimately spewing forth a black, sediment polluted fluid. She twisted the valve open wider and two more minutes of teeth clenching patience paid off when the dark putrid liquid metamorphosed into clear, sweet, palatable water. She ducked her head and gorged herself on the outpouring. She rinsed the congealed blood from her hands and feet as well as possible then ducked again to gulp more water.

She rose up with a gasp as the second realization hit. She'd gone about this all wrong. Back to front. She should have gone for weapons first. She should have known that.

She twisted the tap shut and stood, leaning against the sink, resisting the urge to vomit. What to do. Wait here until dark and try again under cover of night? No. Light would be required to find what she needed and she would have to rest before she went looking for food - and she must have food before the passing of another day or she'd be too weak to go in search of it. She couldn't afford to let this incident delay her course of action.

Through a crack in the warehouse door, she watched the dead street a long time before venturing out again. She proceeded cautiously, taking immediate cover at the slightest indication of people or activity nearby.

During one of these brief stops she took another couple of tablets. The pain in her feet was really intense now and, when she dared look down at them, she realized the precious drugs in the pouches would not last as long as she'd first thought. Those feet were mangled beyond healing - at least without weeks of hospitalization. It would take a lot more to keep those feet walking than it would have taken to keep her habit halfway satiated.

Carlen clung grimly in the doorway, her jaw clenched against mounting hysteria. The situation seemed hopeless. She needed too much. Too much.

As the minutes passed, the pain gradually subsided and Carlen was able to get a rein on her self control.

Wits in gear. You're out here now. Get what you came for. Worry about the rest later. She forced herself to leave the shelter of the doorway and pressed on.

It took nearly all afternoon but finally she found the remains of a hardware store. She ignored the broken glass on the floor as she entered and set about searching for anything that could be used as a weapon.

The tool cribs were empty, as were most of the drawers but, under the edge of the smashed counter, she did find a single nail. A long one. In another part of the store she found a six inch spike. A particularly good find. She picked up a couple of small blocks of broken wood, the smoothest and closest matching she could find, and a handful of dirty, unraveled string. Satisfied, she took off in search of shelter for the night.

She had already given up the idea of returning to the transom. She wasn't sure she could find it again and, even providing she could, she figured she would not have the impetus to get out of there again. She needed a new location. Someplace with better air, better light, and easier access.

Carlen's luck held long enough for her to find an unoccupied warehouse nearby. It was a good spot. Virtually ruined inside, fallen girders were strewn at all angles throughout the space, rendering it unattractive as a permanent residence. Another good thing about it. Like the transom, there was only one access, a fairly narrow crack in the wall. Carlen was able to monitor the street outside and maintain reasonable invisibility within by moving a couple of boards across it.

By the time she'd accomplished all this, she was utterly exhausted, but she didn't allow herself to rest until she had fashioned a handle for the four inch nail from the blocks of wood and twine she'd found. After this, she ate half the remaining cake, downed two more tablets, a capsule, took three precious drops from the bottle of Wet Drops and settled down to sleep.

CHAPTER 61 \- MOREAU STREET

Carlen rested throughout the following day. Waited for nightfall when she felt it would be safer for her to travel. Shadows needed shadows to hide in and she thought, if she got any thinner, weaker or crazier, she might just disappear altogether.

She slept as much as she could. Kept out of the pill pouches, to reserve supplies for the night trek ahead. Tried to keep her mind in order and make a logical plan.

It wasn't easy. For some reason there was a wild, psychotic laughter making good effort to punch its way out of her. Shafts of light cutting through the damaged roof sliced the space into broken shapes that played nasty tricks with Carlen's faulty vision. When the laughter threatened to bust out and blow her security, she stuffed the tail of the jacket in her mouth, firmly assuring herself that there were no such things as ghosts, or dancing timbers, or physical shafts of light. That the plainest of reality existed someplace she'd be soon.

When sunset came, Carlen moved over to the entrance where she settled down until dark. From here she inventoried the lay-out of the warehouse. How the beams lay. The positioning of the support columns, etcetera. She wanted to avoid as much noise and stumbling around as possible upon her return. If she returned.

Then she turned her attention to the streets outside. Took in and memorized as many landmarks as she could see. When darkness sponged up the last vestiges of good visibility, she dropped four pills, the last two capsules and waited for the throbbing in her feet to stop.

As soon as the scene outside snapped into a reasonable semblance of reality, Carlen quietly moved the boards aside and ventured out onto the night streets.

For some peculiar reason she was feeling better than she'd felt in months. She had heard someplace that fasting could have a clearing effect on the senses and maybe this was happening. And maybe it was just the effect of the drugs on her emptied system. She'd bolstered up good and she felt about ready for anything. The shank was concealed in her coat pocket and the spike was in her hand, and if any mother fucker tried her, she was ready to let some blood. It's how she felt and it felt kind of good.

She headed west. Deeper into the Men's Sector. She already knew the area she was in was no good for food. Too many of the shops had been bombed, burned and looted. The overall rape of these sections of the city had commenced long before the first convicts had been transferred in and by now there was nothing left. The pity of it was, this had not been a bad neighborhood before the trouble.

Carlen saw it clearly enough for what it had become, but she chose to view it as some alien astral city into which her capsule had dropped without warning. She herself was an alien here. Unannounced, unconnected, uninvolved. Hence, no relationship, no conscience, no mercy.

She was headed for the Men's Barracks - if she could find them. As with most everything in the city, Carlen wasn't sure where the Men's Barracks would be found. She couldn't be certain if there was just one barrack in Southtown or if there might be a second in Blacktown. The men had never really talked about the Barracks. But if, like the women, the men transferred in from the south, the barracks were probably in Southtown within striking distance of the tunnel. So she struck out, watching for tell-tale halos of light, listening for the cacophony of voices.

She didn't try to delude herself as to the insanity of her course. The thing was, the Men's Barracks were undoubtedly closer than the Women's Sector. Between here and there were Border Patrols and the Park. She'd have to elude the first and widely skirt the second to reach the eastern side of town - which was Dalroy's territory. No. She wasn't in the least bit ready for that. If Dalroy should manage to pick her up again - well, that would be about the best for her and the worst for Carlen. Yeah, real bad.

Altogether, it seemed safer to stay in the Men's Sector. More specifically, Southtown. Very few people here knew her on sight and, although there were plenty of potential rapists, this was not a place Spikers would be coming to look for Zoo fodder.

So west it was. Find what food she could along the way. If there was none, she'd press on to the Barracks. If she could find nothing around the Barracks she'd have to reassess her options. Provided, of course, she made it away from the Barracks.

The streets of the Men's Sector reeked. A stench more noticeable than it had been off-side. Carlen assumed it was because of the ease with which men could urinate in public places, but the deeper her penetration into the Sector, the more pronounced the stench seemed to be. Certain corners in particular. She thought it may have been her own peculiar sensitivity - this on again off again game she was forced to play with the pill pouches but, once she spotted the graffiti smattering some of the walls in the area, she concluded that the heightened aroma was probably a result of territorial demarcation.

Extraordinarily crude and animalistic behavior, but then she was certainly in no position to stand in judgment over such things after her stint at the Penthouse. The memory of it revolted her. And why had it come to mind just now? The smell of urine had stimulated it.

It can always get worse. Jesus. Dalroy had been so fucking right.

No. Looking back, she realized she didn't have a lot to be proud about. Toward the end, she and the Dealer had committed some despicable acts. It was the kind of thing a person would wake up and remember and it was plain enough to make one puke.

She sure wasn't straight enough to be considered human, yet. Besides, why should she regard herself as any more noble or righteous than any other motherfucker who walked these ruined, tainted streets?

Fuck it. She was hungry. That was all. And that hunger sure went a long way beyond any desire for food. So what?

So she'd go over to the Barracks, possibly get herself captured or killed, or she could starve to death in some hole. That was it, except... No. That was all. And who would care? Maena seemed to think she was someone worth saving. Fool Maena.

It was a bloody long trek. She had to stop for frequent rests and she was actually about ready to give up when she heard the sound of - music! She thought she'd finally reached the Barracks. But it wasn't the Barracks.

She'd come upon a split level street with stairs leading up to elevated sidewalks with railings that fronted two story terraced houses. There were street lights, house lights. Lights in every single house.

The noise was ungodly. Music, voices, laughter, breaking glass. The street was littered end to end with trash. The voices were those of men and women, and the laughter was unholy. The bitter, mirthless laughter of desperation and depravity. The music was equally depraved. Songs off the Underground Hit Parade. Really wonderful stuff like "Play for Me", "Off The Hook Tonight", "Take It Out" and "Baby, You're Only Dreaming", recorded by choice groups like Shock Treatment, Scalers, Vein Truth, and Wet Dream. All of it blasting out at once like some psychotic nightmare opera.

Carlen took cover immediately. She didn't need to be told where she was. She recognized it at once. This was The Alley or, as it was so charmingly referred to throughout the Men's Sector, Moreau Street. It was even plainly labeled by this name by some sick fucker who had taken the trouble to design and hang a sign to that effect.

This was obviously the last stop - the only shot at sex for any man who couldn't get up the scratch to buy a woman or even swing a visit to Fancy's or one of the other warrens set up around the Sector. Although, one was left speculating as to how many visits a man could make to The Alley before he picked up something that was plain terminal. To compare it, the Zoo was a very healthy environment.

Places worse, the Dealer had said. Was there the remotest possibility of any place that could be worse than this?

Carlen crouched in the shadows and stared in awe, realizing that this was the very tail end of the torments of the Whipmaster's compound. The secret dread of every woman in the city. The hell that lurked behind even the merest idea of crossing the Master of the city - or any other man who had a female under his control. Jesus. Shay had been lucky and that was a fact.

Carlen was dead certain none of the women at Fancy's ever saw the street once they entered her house, or any of the women in any of the slave houses, come to that. Yet, here, Carlen saw several girls walking about at will. In and out of the houses, up and down the alley. Although 'at will' was probably an inaccurate term for it. The women here were quite apparently chained to the confines of Moreau Street by the liberal administration of narcotics. They moved like blind-eyed zombies, much too fazed to find their way more than a few feet in any direction.

All of them bore brands issued by the Zoo but one girl Carlen saw bore a mark she'd never seen before. An ugly, jagged thing that looked as though it had been carved right into her-

Oh yes. Kody had done that. The mark was a "K" and, interestingly enough, he'd cut it right through the brand she'd been issued at the Zoo. The ego of the man.

The poor creature walked with a noticeable limp and Carlen figured Kody had sliced too deep, mutilating the muscle tissue. That fucking maniac.

Yeah. It seemed plenty of people owed Kody, although it was evident he made sure none of them were in any position to make to the payback.

There was food on Moreau Street. Carlen found the remains of all manner of goodies rotting in overstuffed garbage cans in the narrow lanes behind the fuck houses of Moreau Street. There was more than enough to satiate her appetite - if she didn't flat out poison herself behind the putrid crap she dug out of those cans and shoved in her face.

She snuck around there for a couple of hours, eating and observing goings on.

When she'd eaten as much as she could, she stuffed her pockets with extra to take with her and she got out of there as fast as her legs would carry her. If there wasn't one other mother fucking restaurant in Southtown then she'd die rather than go back to that place again. That much she promised herself.

CHAPTER 62 \- HIT

Carlen managed to make it back to the warehouse without mishap. Daybreak was but a couple of hours off and she was exhausted. She sealed herself in and settled straight down to sleep.

The next day a new wave of realizations struck and Carlen had to come to grips with some hard truths. There were more than a few complications attached to this new found freedom of hers - the first being that it was a false freedom. Life in hiding could in no way be considered freedom, but life in hiding was the situation she was setting herself up for.

There was no place she could go. No one she could trust. She was a runner and nobody wearing that label in this city would be safe anywhere for long. She'd soon be caught between two extremely dangerous factions: those who would gladly turn her over for the reward the Whipmaster was bound to post, once he learned of her disappearance; and those who would not turn her over - because they had motives of their own for wanting her. Either way it amounted to the same thing. A continued state of slavery - or death.

It was possible the Master might have her picked up and returned to him for nothing more than sentencing. Shay had been no more than a common runner in the end and he had put her up for an example. A slave who ran would certainly have no chance of pardon or acquittal. It would never do for it to become known that any jade had slipped through the grasp of the system. Especially the Number One bitch in the city.

She was going to be picked up sooner or later. It was only a matter of time, especially once word hit the streets. So, what could she do?

What if she tried to find Etiene? Would he hide her and keep her? Would he want her enough to risk it? Might he try to strike a bargain with the Zoo for ownership, or might he just sell her back? Or even to someone else? How would he react?

And, even providing he was the intelligent choice, how would she go about finding him? How did one "enquire" after a man like that? Would it be worth the risk?

No. It would probably be the quickest way to get herself royally fucked up. She had met him once. Months ago. She knew absolutely nothing about the man or his sense of priorities. She was hopelessly infatuated with him, even still, but the man was a total stranger. It was crazy to even think of trusting him.

She wasn't thinking too clearly - and that brought her to the most immediate and impossible stumbling block of this predicament. The Need. This monstrous hunger the Dealer had introduced her to and with which she was now saddled. No matter how big or insurmountable all other problems seemed, it always came back to the need. It fucked up her thinking and her sense of priorities.

She would have to come down, eventually, very soon, in fact - unless she could score something. Somewhere. That was the biggest "How?" of all. Of course she had no currency. No connection. In fact, she was in no damned position at all to score. Certainly not in the Men's Sector. And, as far as she knew, the shit in the Women's Sector wasn't worth having.

Oh yeah. How she had once looked down on snorts and needle freaks. What a high and mighty bitch she had been. So fucking proud. So above it all.

Now all she knew was 'the need' and, God, how well she understood! And how very little she cared for anyone or anything but herself - which was the need. How effectively it took one over until nothing else had any relevance at all. Nothing but nothing.

A cigarette. One cigarette. She'd kill for that. Yes, she might even do that. Kill for the sake of one lousy cigarette. Something - anything to stick into that gaping, insatiable hole.

But that was just more crazy thinking. Cigarettes would not keep her alive. Not even junk would do that. She'd be coming down but the one thing she would need - really need - was food. Food and more food. Every day or two she would need that. How would she get it? If she knew where to go, she could probably buy it, but how could she buy with nothing to pay? Where could she get something to trade for it?

The answer to that was the only easy one that came to her that day. She could steal it. There were lots of things that would pay for food, if there was someplace to buy it, and there were people all over the city she could rob for currency or anything else they might be carrying.

Man. That was the only solution there was. Yeah, she'd have to come down soon. Better to have something to strive for. Some plan of action. Something to keep her mind off coming down. If she could get enough, she could even pay for junk. Yeah. But - she couldn't take anything with just one spike and a nail. That just wasn't enough. She needed something better. Might even have to work her way up to something better. Much better. Something to keep, plus something to trade. Yeah. That was it...

All these thoughts were still jamming her disordered brain circuits as she hobbled along the street past yet another rubble lot the next day, searching for one likely outlet, or one small fragment of luck that would place something in her hands she could use. One thing she could do something with. Do... Something...

She knew he was behind her and that he was alone. He was too vain or stupid to try and conceal his approach. Made over confident, perhaps, by her size or her gait. God knew what he thought he would get from her but it was of no consequence to Carlen.

The instant he touched his hand to her shoulder she swung on him, spike in hand. It was a good, direct hit. Straight in. It would have been perfect but he twisted slightly as he began to go down, catching Carlen in the way. She was neither strong enough to push him back nor quick enough to step aside. There was only time enough to yank the spike clear before they both collapsed onto the rubble, the full weight of him landing on top of her.

As soon as she hit the ground Carlen knew she was hurt. She howled as the point of an exposed nail pierced her, driving through the outside flesh of her thigh. The fall winded her momentarily and her head throbbed suddenly from the impact of a broken board against the back of her skull.

It took every ounce of strength in her to push the body off. She sat up and looked down at the bloodied point of the rusted nail which now protruded through the hole it had punctured in her trouser leg. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the leg with both hands and yanked it free with a gasp of pain and revulsion.

She sat there a moment in morbid disgust, fighting down the urge to vomit. This was too high a price to pay for one outdated, banged up crossbow, which was the only thing he'd been carrying worth having. He must have just found the thing himself because he wasn't even carrying any ammunition for it. Bloody, fucking useless, but she took it anyway.

She dragged back to the warehouse and slumped to the floor, the crossbow on her lap, and that was where she stayed. She had no water to clean the wound, no bolts to load the crossbow. She knew it was over.

CHAPTER 63 \- OLD TIME MAN

He was in the death dream. He came in quietly. Took his time. Settled down, as if to stay.

The wound had gone septic. What little food Carlen had she ignored. When she was conscious, she concentrated only on the crossbow. She cocked it, aimed at an imaginary target and fired an imaginary bolt. Cocked it. Aimed. Fired. She was just sitting out the last few days of existence.

The dreams came and went, along with consciousness. There was a camp fire burning, although Carlen could not feel the warmth of it. Behind the fire was the Old Man, patiently waiting. The white, brillo hair and beard surrounding his cracked, black face. He looked to be the father of time.

"Waiting for me, are you?" she croaked.

"The Black girl is waiting for you."

Carlen gazed into the ancient yellowing eyes, as though she failed to understand. A sudden, harsh chuckle broke out of her.

"What? She dead, too?"

She slept on.

* * *

He was still there when next she surfaced, but it was not an illusion in a death dream. The Old Man was real. So was the fire.

The leg was Carlen's. It throbbed. Her pants were gone. A blanket was laid over her good leg. On the bare leg was a pasty salve, fermenting around the wound which was swollen the size of an orange.

It was sunset. There was food. The Old Man was feeding her, much the same way Maena had fed her.

"You will go back for the Black girl," the Old Man said.

"Why don't you go?"

"I'm too slow."

"You think I'm fit for it?"

The old eyes peered out of the dry creviced face.

"What's it to you, anyway? You're too old to appreciate her."

"You need her."

"I need my grave dug, Old Man."

* * *

Next awakening he was still there - and everything was prepared. He'd oiled and loaded the crossbow and packed extra bolts into a make-shift leg quiver.

Carlen had snapped out of the dream. She sat straight up and took the coffee the Old Man offered.

"You must go today."

Carlen blew into the hot coffee. "Go where?"

"Blacktown."

"You're crazy. I'm not going there."

"The girl must be rescued."

Carlen made a sound in her throat. Drank more coffee. "Get somebody else," she said.

"There is no one else."

"Then there's no one."

The Old Man went right on with his preparations. He'd brought a surprising array of stuff into the warehouse.

"You'll have to be careful-"

"Look, Old Man, I told you-"

"There'll be no problem. Things are unsettled but pretty much undisturbed. No one is sure what has happened yet."

"You're mad! That place stands out like a One Year candle on a fucking birthday cake! There's no approach." She sat back with a huff and sipped her coffee.

"You might choose to walk straight up," the Old Man suggested.

"Walk straight up? Do you know what that would entail? That's bloody miles from here! I'm not fit for it."

The Old Man never tweaked. He just came over to check the poultice. All the swelling had gone.

"It's not as far as you think," he said. "Everything is prepared. And, in another minute or two, you will be, too..."

Carlen's features suddenly went taut. She grabbed his coat. "What's in the coffee, Old Man?"

"Amphetamine," he said softly.

"Christ!"

She tossed him back in disgust and twisted away, her finger halfway down her throat.

"It's too late. I dissolved it in the coffee. It's in you now."

Carlen's hand dropped to the dirt. She was just so... She sat back with a sigh. "You've seen my feet, I suppose."

"I brought something for them."

"Casts?"

The Old Man took out a tube of ointment. "This," he said, unscrewing the cap.

The ointment was cool to the touch but getting it rubbed in was bloody painful. He covered both feet thoroughly and soon there was no feeling at all in either one.

"How long's that supposed to last?"

"Long enough. They'll be wrapped, also."

Walking on dead feet wasn't going to be easy but Carlen welcomed the relief. When he had finished carefully binding them he said, "Stand up, now. I brought some clothes."

Blue denim pants. Blue denim shirt. Spanking new. The shirt was four sizes too large. The pants, only two or three.

"Hey. These are really great."

"It was the best I could get."

"I could wear my own shirt."

"No, I'll keep that for you," he said like he knew something.

"Well, how the hell do I keep these pants up?"

He gave her a safety pin, of all bloody things.

"Where'd you nick this stuff? God. I'm going to stick out like a virgin at an orgy."

The Old Man was tying a black scarf around her neck to conceal the collar. He had all her weapons ready. The spike, the shank. He'd dug up six bolts for the crossbow.

"This is some war you've got planned."

"It's enough," he said.

He crouched by the fire, teased the red embers off the end of one of the logs. Brushed his hand with the sooty end of it. He beckoned Carlen over and smeared her cheek with the soiled hand.

"Darken your face. Your aspect," he explained, carefully working over the planes of Carlen's features. "We've hidden the chain but the Dealer's belt will give you an uneasy identity."

"I won't take it."

"You have to take it. It's the best weapon you have."

"Next to the bow."

"And there's the vest..."

"The vest will-"

"Help to build you out some," he continued, as though it had been his sentence all along. "And disguise the breasts. A little added protection from knives and... the identity-"

"Are you kidding?" Carlen gaped.

"-that of the Dealer's Last Man."

"Oh wonderful!"

"They won't be too quick to square up if they truly believe you're the man the Dealer met for his last appointment."

"Man?" Carlen queried.

"Well, we did the best we could. You'll pass alright. Light weight dudes with heavy reputations pull alright in Blacktown. Especially if folks assume the dude is White, underneath..."

"Certainly. Everyone will want to try me..."

The Old Man took pause. "Word is already out there's a jade running solo in Southtown. A gang ran down a mink wearing some very heavy marks. People are speculating."

"Shit," Carlen muttered.

"Word hasn't crossed off-side yet but one thing's clear. You need sanctuary."

"Why involve yourself?"

"The Black girl needs it, too."

"What's that to you?"

"She's pregnant, isn't she?"

Carlen sighed. "Yeah."

The Old Man helped her on with the vest, the Dealer's belt, the crude leg quiver he had rigged up for the extra bolts, and he topped the whole thing off with a long overcoat of nondescript color which, when draped over her shoulders, covered everything, including the crossbow.

"Nobody sees anything you don't want them to."

Carlen nodded. The coat made a big difference.

Finally, he tied a length of pale blue cotton sash around her head and crouched by the fire again. Carlen sat down and began stuffing her wrapped feet into a pair of canvas shoes. Also overlarge. Luckily.

"Walk \- don't run," the Old Man instructed. "The first man who tries you, strike. Immediately. Do it in front of witnesses, if you can. Leave the bolt in. If no one sees you do it, the bolt remains and your name is halfway across the Sector in minutes."

"My name?"

"A new name. The new identity you need."

The Old Man was heating a knife blade over the flames. Carlen watched the blade turn with that slow capability with which old people do things.

He lifted the blade out of the flame and depressed it to the pad of this thumb as though to test the edge. A sudden shock of blood sullied the line of the depression.

The Old Man put the knife down, forced more blood from the gash, raised his hand and depressed the bloody thumbprint to the center of the blue headband.

"First blood today."

"Hey man-"

"Take a smear from every kill," the Old Man said with strange intensity. "It will get you out of Blacktown."

Something in the Old Man's eyes reminded Carlen of Maena. It was really eerie. Those unbidden suggestions.

His eyes finally released her and Carlen dropped her head with a sigh.

"I can hardly believe I'm asking you this, but where's this sanctuary I'm supposed to deliver her to?"

The Old Man drew a line on the floor with the point of a charred stick. Marked an N at the top. Retraced the line from the bottom.

"From here, you'll go North on Bailey." A bit over halfway up, he intersected the first line with another. "Turn West on Stokes to the Penthouse."

Carlen watched the stick retrace its path.

"You can come back to Bailey and continue North to the corner of Overton."

"Looks like a long way."

"All told, about two miles."

"Two miles..."

"Maybe less."

"When?"

"As soon as you can make it."

"If we make it."

Carlen got to her feet and the Old Man followed.

"We will help you," he said.

"Who's this 'we'?"

"The Old Time Man meet you just where he said, and things will be... changed."

"You promise?"

"Yes."

Carlen's forced smile twisted away. "I don't know whether to thank you or curse you."

"Good luck."

"Mmm," Carlen intoned pessimistically as she edged through the crack and out.

CHAPTER 64 \- RETURN TO BLACKTOWN

The walk back to the Penthouse was not as long or arduous as Carlen had anticipated. What surprised her was how very close she'd been staying to the Park. Her warehouse couldn't have been more than eight blocks from the southwest corner \- if that. It was scary to think of it, but she figured it was the reason there was so little activity in the area. The reason she'd been relatively safe there.

She didn't know what the Old Time Man may have been feeding her or shooting her before she came to, but he must have had something mighty potent to yank her out of that blood poisoning. Things were certainly clearer and she did feel stronger. Much stronger. She didn't have to stop for rest once along the way.

She encountered no trouble on her way to the Line. Few people were out and the few who saw her basically ignored her. She deflected most of the potential curiosity with a combination of sliding invisibility and the steel stressed challenge to all comers to expend their last precious moments of existence dangling from the end of this stranger's arbitrary decision.

Of course, the Line was another story. Here there was a great collection of people. Dealing, shaking, posing, and thieving. The Line, where those crossing were assumed to be carrying currency they planned to hand off for goods or services rendered from the coffers of wealth in the streets of Blacktown.

The people here were a society unto themselves. An extraordinarily well integrated collective, inhabiting this narrow strip in an aggressive sort of harmony. It appeared these guys just stayed camped on the Line. Most probably everything they could want or need came by eventually. It had to be the most commonly crossed street in the city.

At this particular spot it looked like a gypsy town, although everything here was permanent. There were tents set up of wood, piping, tarps, and bed linens. There was bedding laid about, chairs, tables, chests of drawers, even some rugs. A small living room set up right there on the street.

An entire miniature community engaged in the ongoing game of putting the rip on anyone in earshot. If war broke out these people would be virtually homeless, and it was strange to think they'd taken such trouble to set it up that way.

As she approached she had to wonder. If this was an indication of the level of activity along the Line, where the hell could she and the Dealer have crossed without ever noticing it? There must be gaps, she thought to herself. What a pity she didn't know where they were.

Nobody hassled her until the moment she was surely aimed to cross, then this slovenly group shifted into her path. Carlen was forced to stop.

They were a sad lot. Dull, dirty. Not a wanna-be among them. Not like some of the hyper egos she saw operating up and down. These guys were burn outs.

"I'm not holding any cash," she said.

Nobody said anything for a minute, then biggest of them said, "You must be holding something under that coat."

"It's nothing you want."

"You could be wrong," he said.

"We all make mistakes," Carlen conceded.

She waited and, sure enough, he made a move. Carlen locked his eyes, pivoted slowly, as of a piece. He broke from her gaze just in time to see the crossbow emerge from the flap of the coat like some blind ugly bug. A second later the bolt was in him.

None of the others moved, even as Carlen dropped to one knee beside the body, depressed her thumb against the wound to collect the blood she smeared on the headband next to that of the Old Time Man. She stood up, stepped over the body and crossed into Blacktown.

The better part of Carlen's journey still lay ahead but now there was only one thing on her mind. Several days had passed. She didn't know how many but one thing was sure. Somebody had to be handling the Dealer's business. What if Braidshawk was there? Taking out plague ridden lowlifes was one thing but Carlen didn't feel ready to take on Braidshawk. By the time she reached the lot she'd got herself pretty scared.

As the Old Man suggested, Carlen decided to walk straight up. She could see Will and Bodeen as she struck out across the lot. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, stationed by the front door, bathing in that rare glow the lot took on before sunset. So relaxed and secure in Blacktown.

She set an easy pace - directly towards them. Smooth. Unhurried.

Those boys didn't even notice her until she'd half crossed and, when they did, they weren't alarmed or suspicious. They didn't ask themselves who it was. They didn't recognize her as Carlen and they obviously didn't take her for a woman.

She did wonder if it might have been smarter to have gone around the back, but it seemed to be working out okay just to approach like an ordinary buyer. Besides, a weapon was the best currency in town.

There was no problem with Will and Bodeen at all. Carlen just ambled up to the base of the steps. Those two boys went right on talking. Carlen couldn't figure it. It was eerie. Where was the tension? The suspicion? Didn't these idiots know what was going on in Blacktown? It was too easy.

"Afternoon, gentleman."

Bodeen's eyes traveled over, his mouth still moving, his attention split three ways between his conversation, Carlen's interruption and the sight of the crossbow which was rising from under the coat. He might even have made the Dealer's vest and belt in that second because his face opened in dawning realization as the words died away on his lips. Carlen mimicked the deterioration of his smile and released the bolt.

Will hadn't even been looking and only now glanced over as Bodeen slid down the door frame and plopped to his butt on the step, gaping.

Will looked at Carlen then, but he didn't comprehend. By the time he realized Bodeen was dead and that Carlen had done it, she had reloaded and fired - staring right into his amazed eyes. She took a smear from each, reloaded, and stepped inside.

Carlen crept up the stairs with steady intent, already aware of a small twinge of pain in her right foot. The effect of the ointment was starting to wear off. Fine and wonderful. She blocked it out. This wasn't the time to lose concentration. There was still Behemoth to deal with and maybe not only him.

As she reached the top floor, there was a room to the right just off the stairs. At one glance she saw what it was. The Dealer's laboratory was down on the third floor and this was the storage. Chemicals. Equipment. Worth millions.

She rounded the stair banister and moved down the hall toward the Dealer's room. She froze momentarily, flattened against the wall outside the door, the crossbow gripped between both hands, then she swung into the doorway like some post-holo commando, jazzed out of her fucking mind.

Nobody there. The room was empty. More than empty. It was tomb-like.

Carlen stepped back with a sigh, unconsciously lowering the crossbow. A mistake. There was a sound down the hall and Carlen's head creaked around in time to see Behemoth emerge from one of the doorways.

She'd lost a second. Moving in the strained warp of her lapsed reflexes, Carlen turned and fired. The bolt struck but failed to penetrate. It just sort of wedged between two ribs and dangled there. Never dented him. He was still coming.

"Bloody hell," she muttered, reaching a frantic hand for another bolt.

There wasn't time. Not enough to reload and shoot. He'd have her down before the bolt was out of the quiver.

She did the only thing she could. She dropped the bow, drew the spike and rammed him. He staggered back a few feet. Carlen encouraged him. He was already holding her. Squeezing fit to snap her arms. She was beginning to buckle.

Then a miracle happened. Maena's voice called from down the hall. There was a doorway further along the wall Carlen and Behemoth were struggling against. Carlen pulled back, to dance Behemoth forward, then shoved him quickly back another foot. He rolled around the door frame, tipped back into emptiness and, when he was close enough, Maena hooked him around the neck with a length of chain, jerking hard enough to unbalance him. He went down with a boom.

Carlen jumped and kicked him in the head. Nearly broke every bone in her foot but he went out. She ran to retrieve the bow, quickly reloaded and gut shot him. Soft enough there, he was.

Carlen's stomach rolled over in revulsion as she bent and extended a shaking, bloodied hand to take the smear from Behemoth. The man wasn't moving but gut shots were not the cleanest kills in the world. If the poor man wasn't dead yet it was a pity because Carlen just didn't have the impetus to attack again.

"Jesus! This is insane!" she said, hearing the panic in her own voice.

"It's good to see you," Maena said. "I wasn't sure if you'd make it back."

"I don't want to be, believe me! Christ. I have one bolt left! This is not the ideal day for my paladin shtick."

"Well, you got this far."

"Yeah? Yeah? And what are we going to do now?" Carlen cried, glaring down at the chain locked around Maena's ankle.

"We're going, of course."

"How the hell do we do that? You're chained to the bloody wall! We'll be caught in a minute!"

"Give me the key."

"Key! What key? Where?"

"You're wearing it."

"Wearing it?"

"It's in the belt."

The key was in the blue pouch, under the Wet Drops. The key Carlen nearly tossed. Maena knew precisely where it was, just as Carlen knew where the key to her collar was, and she was out of that anklet in a second. Carlen secretly envied her. Their eyes locked and, for a brief moment, it looked as though Carlen might reach out and embrace the girl.

"Well. You call this Destiny?"

Maena smiled. "I'm ready."

Ready to pop, Carlen was thinking. Maena's pregnancy was a good deal more advanced than when she'd last seen her.

"I just hope you're fast on your feet, fatlady. We're really running, now."

Carlen led the way and Maena bent to retrieve the slack bolt from Behemoth before following her out into the hall. Carlen was already past the Dealer's door.

"Wait!" Maena called.

Carlen pulled up short. "Wait? Wait for what, girl?"

"You have to take the Dealer's box," Maena said.

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Something to offer the Whipmaster."

Carlen was stumped by the suggestion. "I'm not taking you to the Whipmaster."

Maena's brow furrowed.

"See? You don't know everything," Carlen said, hoping to hell she was right.

"Well, we must take it anyway," Maena said gripping Carlen's arm and pulling her back. "It's important."

Walking back into the Dealer's room, Carlen was hit by a wave of old associations. Her eyes landed on the calendars, the blood spots, the word HELL smeared there. All things that had occurred at her level of the universe. The mattress, the tea things. Her towel, still in the basin soaked in the tea she'd mopped up with it. The symbols would be under the corner of the mattress -

"Carlen! Pick it up!"

Carlen's eyes dropped to the Dealer's box. The box he'd so carefully packed their last evening in that room. Just the sight of it gave her a thrill of terror.

"How the hell do you expect us to run with that hulking thing?"

"It's alright, Carlen. Take it."

Carlen shook her head and handed Maena the crossbow. She thrust her arms into the sleeves of the coat, grabbed up the box strap, hoisted it over her shoulder and took the bow from Maena. They headed for the stairs.

The run to the northeast corner of Blacktown was the most strenuous part of the journey. Walking in was one matter but walking out was a whole other ball game. Especially with Maena, so slow and swollen and standing out like the queen of the prom in that flowing purple dress. How they never got stopped was a mystery to Carlen. Their timing just seemed to be perfect, moving out and in, and now stepping again into the open, Carlen's judgment always accurate, as if the whole thing had been pre-planned. There was only one close encounter.

Carlen and Maena were just emerging from a cover spot when they walked directly into the path of a man coming in the opposite direction. Maena pulled back instantly. Raised the bolt with her hand as though to defend herself. Carlen did a double take.

"What are you doing with that?" she hissed through her teeth. "Put it down!"

Maena lowered the bolt in amongst the folds of her skirt.

"I'll handle it," Carlen said, lowering the box to the ground as the man approached.

He stepped right up to her. Well, not right up. This dude could read five smears on the headband already.

"What's happening, man?" he asked casually.

He was tall. A lot taller than Carlen. Heavier, too. He was also Black. A Black man in Blacktown.

"Very little," she said.

He eased around to catch a look at Maena which brought him closer to Carlen. Carlen shifted her weight and he stepped back cautiously, his attention reverting back to her.

Carlen kept her eyes pinned on the middle distance. She had one thumb hooked into the Dealer's belt which kept the coat flap open slightly. She just said the first thing that came into her head.

"Don't interest yourself in it. It's a Contract for the Zoo."

Whatever it was - the Dealer's box, the belt, the vest, the Black girl, the bow, the headband or those few magic words... Whatever, but this dude just backed right off like he'd never been there.

Carlen hissed.

"Good," Maena whispered.

Carlen's head snapped around. "Where's that bolt? Give me that."

Maena handed it over.

"Pregnant ladies don't kill people!"

"You're a strange woman, Carlen."

Carlen chuckled gruffly. "You just need a classier social circle, girl."

It was lucky there were no other hassles. In truth, Carlen just didn't feel ready for it. She was tired and scared and angry, and her feet were beginning to pack up. Worst of all was her paranoia about the Old Man. Would he really be there? And where did he plan to take them? Where was there to go?

She was really hyped on the speed and adrenalin rushes, and she was beginning to lose her belief in the miraculous synchronization that had brought them this far. She had been sure at the out-set, if not of herself, then of her action. Sure she would pass, unmolested, because Maena was important. Maybe she wasn't but Maena was. Now her confidence was flagging and she felt angry with herself for bringing Maena out in the open and exposing her to such danger. Who was to say she wouldn't have been better off where she was? Braidshawk would have claimed her and who was to say that wouldn't be for the best?

Yeah, there could be plenty of regrets attached to this hare brained scheme. Carlen only hoped the Old Man wouldn't let them down or, worse, betray them, because it was too damned late now.

"What's wrong with your feet?" Maena asked.

Carlen was really hobbling now. "Nothing," she snapped. "Just too many miles traveled today." She was beginning to wonder if she would even make the rendezvous. "This is really fucked. We should face it. Bad idea. I'm really sorry. Oh, this damned box..."

"How much further?"

"I don't know," Carlen said. She glanced up and realized she did know. "Two blocks."

"We'll make it," Maena said serenely.

"Mmm," Carlen murmured.

As promised, the Old Time Man was waiting for them at Bailey and Overton. Carlen was too pooped by now to even curse. Nothing was said. The Old Man led, Maena and Carlen followed.

They travelled another couple of blocks east before the Old Man led them into a building and they never came out on the streets again, although it seemed they traveled another three or four blocks through buildings, corridors and basements. Carlen's irritability mounted.

"This is really a rage, old dear, but if I have to carry this box one more bloody block I'm going to-"

"Silence would be best from here on," the Old Man said, so Carlen battened it down.

They traversed one more musty basement and came into a small lighted area where the Old Man stopped.

"You can put that down now," he said and Carlen lowered the box with a sigh of relief.

"Set the crossbow down, too."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. And the quiver."

Carlen set the bow and quiver on the box.

"Give me the coat."

She gave him the coat.

"Wipe your face off some," he said, offering her the black rag from around her throat.

Carlen rubbed the soot off her face.

The Old Man took the rag and offered her a wet Sani-Wipe. Carlen's brow creased in question.

"Your hands..."

Carlen looked in dull amazement at her blood encrusted hands and wiped them as clean as possible.

The Old Man nodded and took the stained napkin. He then urged the women forward through a doorway into a small, empty annex. They stood there a moment in silence. Carlen was about to speak.

"Shh!" the Old Man urged and suddenly snatched the bloody headband off Carlen's head and stuffed it quickly into the pocket of his coat as the wall in front of them began to rise.

Carlen and Maena looked at each other in doubt. When the wall disappeared into the ceiling, the Old Man urged them forward again.

"What about the box?" Carlen asked.

"I'll bring it later," the Old Man said.

"My weapon!"

"Never mind."

As he inched them up to another wall, the one behind them began to lower again and, when it rested, the wall in front of them began to rise. Those rising walls put Carlen in mind of her detainment in the cage.

"Don't be nervous," the Old Man murmured as he conducted the women into the next annex and the second wall lowered behind them.

PART FOUR ~ HARDCHANGE

CHAPTER 65 \- SHELTA

They found themselves standing in a white, tiled tunnel. Sparse. Stark. Brilliantly lit. Standing before them were three men. Two of them very heavily armed and one who would evidently be the one to speak.

His name was Belamy Lynne. He was White. A thin, sinewy creature with flinty eyes. He was dressed entirely in black. Trousers denim, tight drainpipe legs. Sleeveless cotton shirt which he wore open and pulled out over his pants, loose, although he wore his belt fastened over the shirttail. His shoes were black canvas.

He was a mere five-seven and he was young. Twenty-two, tops. On first sight he was hard to warm up to but, as surely as the Whipmaster was Lord of the Zoo, so was this boy Lord in this place. Curiouser and curiouser.

He greeted the trio with a drawn bayonet and the first thing he did was have the other two men search and relieve Carlen of her remaining make-shift weaponry: the spike and the nail with its crude wood and twine handle. Carlen glanced over at the Old Time Man with mounting irritation but his eyes were turned away. He seemed perfectly calm.

"Introduction," Belamy Lynne demanded.

"Refugees. From Blacktown," the Old Time Man said.

"Let me guess," Belamy Lynne said, pointing the bayonet at Maena. "This is left-over. And this," his eyes traveled over to Carlen, "is Trade."

Carlen didn't care a bit for his tone.

"Hey!" she interjected. "We're tired. We'd like to sit down."

He glared at her. "You shut up."

Carlen glared back but held her peace.

"You should have told me about this, old man."

"There wasn't time."

"You must have planned it."

"I wasn't sure. It all depended on this one."

"To save the Black one?"

"I couldn't do it myself."

"Why do it at all?"

"She's my daughter."

Carlen cut a quick glance at the Old Time Man. There was an awkward silence.

"She's been in the city all along," the Old Man said. "She deserves to be here. As you can see, she's with child."

"Yes. I see," Belamy said with unexpected coldness.

"They'll be comfortable here," the Old Time Man said, serenely as you please.

He wasn't going to take any shit from this youngster. Carlen wondered what his power was.

Belamy Lynne made no comment. He stepped in front of Maena. "What's your name?"

"Maena."

"When are you due?"

"A week. Maybe two."

He glanced down at her swollen stomach. "That the Dealer's?"

"Yes," Maena replied, veiling her anger from Belamy but not from Carlen.

"You look pretty clean," he said. "Are you healthy?"

"Yes."

Belamy Lynne nodded slowly. Moved over to Carlen. "And who are you?"

Carlen didn't want to answer. She didn't trust this young punk. She considered lying.

"You need sanctuary here, slave?" he asked sharply.

Carlen's jaw tightened.

"Tell me your name."

"Carlen."

"Carlen." He looked her up and down. "I haven't heard about you."

"Nothing to hear," Carlen said.

He looked her over again. "I very much doubt that."

He stepped back. Waved the bayonet at Maena.

"Take her down to the women's quarters, but keep her isolated."

The other two men began to lead Maena away. Carlen tried to follow. "Wait a minute!"

Belamy Lynne's hand met her chest, stopping her in her tracks. "Not you," he said. "You're coming with me."

There seemed to be no option. He was armed and she wasn't anymore.

"Wait here, old man," he said over his shoulder and indicated for Carlen to turn around and start moving.

He directed her into a small, narrow room lined on both sides with metal scaffold shelving. A store room of some sort. Carlen stopped about halfway in and turned on Belamy Lynne, an aggressive glint in her eyes. The door closed behind them.

"Get undressed," he said.

"What?"

He raised the bayonet. "The belt first."

Carlen could not quite believe this but there was no arguing with that bayonet - and no getting passed it in the narrow passage. She unbuckled the belt slowly and let it drop to the floor. She paused.

"And the rest," he insisted. "All of it."

Carlen slowly unbuttoned the vest and dropped it on the floor. She removed the shoes and the wrapping on her feet. Lastly she took off the trousers and shirt, which left her standing nude before this abrasive stranger, only the collar on her neck and the chain still coiled around her hips.

"Get your hands up," he said.

Carlen raised her arms.

"Grab the scaffolding," he stipulated.

Carlen gripped a strut on each side of the narrow aisle.

He looked her up and down very carefully, very coldly. He steadied the charm of her earring on the blade of his bayonet to read the insignia. He stepped back. "Turn around."

Carlen turned cautiously.

"Hands up! Grab the scaffolds."

Carlen grabbed the scaffold again and waited. After a brief pause, the point of the bayonet caught under the chain on her hip and lifted it a couple of inches to better reveal the markings underneath.

"Show me the soles of your feet."

Carlen lifted her right foot.

"The other."

Carlen lifted the left.

There was a pause. The blade touched her thigh.

"What happened to your leg?"

"I was attacked by a rusty nail."

"It doesn't look too bad."

"The Old Man fixed it."

"Alright. Turn around."

Carlen turned to face him. He gave her a hard, scrutinizing look.

"It seems you've been had by every Lord in the city," he said in a distinctly nasty tone. "Whose property are you now?"

"No one's."

"You mean you're a runaway."

"No."

"Yes," he insisted.

Carlen said nothing.

"That's the Dealer's belt," he said.

Clever little man, Carlen thought caustically. "That's right."

"What are you doing with it?"

"You might say I inherited it."

"Where's the Dealer?"

"At the bottom of a canal. Dead."

"Did you kill him?"

"I didn't have to."

"You are a runaway."

Carlen said nothing.

"The Whipmaster trade you to the Dealer?"

"That's right."

"How did you get away?"

"I told you. The Dealer died."

"He just died, huh?"

"That's right. Fell off a mountain."

"Say again?"

"Broke his rotten neck."

Their gazes waged war another moment but it seemed to be a stand-off. Belamy Lynne bent and retrieved the belt from the floor.

"That's mine," Carlen said.

"No," he said. "Mine now."

He gave her a moment to think it over but Carlen didn't challenge his right to take it. Little bastard.

"Wait here. I'll send someone to attend to you."

"May I get dressed?"

"No," he said. "I think we should clean you up. You look like you crawled out of a sewer." His glance dropped to the clothes on the floor. "And those will be burned." He looked up with that smirking repugnance. "No telling what kind of diseases you walked down here with."

Carlen didn't really mind losing the clothes. The new ones didn't fit for shit and the Dealer's things were distinctly rancid when she'd stripped them off him. The thing she minded was the reference to burning the clothes. Not a very reassuring reminder of the fate of the last suit of clothes she'd lost.

What the hell had she walked herself into now? If she ever saw that Old Man again, Maena's blood or not, he was going to rue the day he ever wandered into that warehouse.

Carlen was left waiting like that for thirty minutes. She did consider getting dressed again to see if she couldn't find some way out of this asylum. But then, she was tired. Really tired. Maena was still down here, somewhere, in store for God only knew what and, well, where was there to run? If Shay had been alive... But she wasn't. The Whipmaster had swept that avenue clean over a year ago. A year... How long exactly? April, May... June? Eighteen months? Wow.

Carlen did take a moment to quickly retrieve the Dealer's hash pipe from the vest pocket. She wasn't exactly sure why, but she just couldn't handle the idea of Belamy Lynne destroying it. With the small keepsake concealed in her hand, Carlen sighed against the cold shelving, her arms crossed against a sudden pain inside her. She hung there that way until someone came.

She straightened up quickly when the door opened again. She'd actually expected a man. What walked in was a soft, round cheeked, sandy haired woman with the warmest, most open face Carlen had met in years - and she was pregnant. Very.

"Carlen?"

Carlen nodded.

"I'm Jeannie," she said, offering a big, open towel. "Welcome to Shelta."

Jeannie led Carlen out of the storeroom into the main tunnel and turned into a secondary one.

She noticed Carlen was limping badly and winced slightly at the sight of those poor battered feet. Some of the toes looked to be broken.

"I hope you like baths, because that's what I've arranged," she said a little too loudly. "I didn't think-"

She stopped suddenly and Carlen nearly collided with her.

"I suppose you prefer showers..."

"Waterfalls, actually," Carlen said.

Jeannie's features collapsed momentarily, then she looked up, her round face abruptly breaking into a smile that made Carlen believe in sunshine.

"Ah! Waterfalls. Yes." She resumed her brisk walk through the tunnel way. "Sorry. Bath tonight."

"Hot water?" Carlen asked.

"Well, of course!" Jeannie declared with broad, comical sarcasm and then she stopped again, nearly tripping Carlen a second time. Her expression slipped through another transition. "Oh look - I am sorry! I'm acting like an idiot!" she said and tried to turn away.

Carlen took her arm. "Look," she said softly. "You're not." Jeannie glanced up and Carlen smiled tiredly. "Not if you're talking to me about hot baths - in private rooms?"

Jeannie smiled very gently. "Yes. Come on. Can I help you?" She took Carlen's arm.

"Ah - no. I'm okay. Well... yes."

Carlen accepted Jeannie's support and they continued down the passageway.

The Bath Room was a surprise to Carlen. Much larger than she'd expected, by far, and no wonder. It contained a row of five enormous bathtubs.

"God. The fucking Publics!"

"What?"

"Public bath houses. In England. They're very much like this," Carlen explained.

"I've never heard of such things."

"Well, they're alright. Good water, anyway."

"Have you done a lot of traveling?"

"It's about all I've bloody done."

Jeannie had picked up a long handled wrench and Carlen saw that she was about to open the valve on the third tub.

"Ah - wait a minute."

"What?"

"Well, ah..." Carlen was looking around doubtfully.

"It's perfectly private in here," Jeannie assured her.

"It's not that. It's just..."

"What?"

"It's too - big."

"What? The tub?"

Carlen was plainly embarrassed. "The room."

Jeannie stared at her, motionless.

"I'm not used to it..."

Jeannie went on staring, then finally she said "There's a single tub in the small room, there."

"That would be better, I think," Carlen said softly.

Without a word, Jeannie led the way into a tiny room at the end and drew Carlen's bath. Carlen stared in wonder at the force of the water gushing into the tub.

"That's really something," she sighed.

The tub was nearly full in less than two minutes.

"Aren't you afraid of the waste?" she asked.

Jeannie closed off the valve with the wrench.

"No. We used to be, until we discovered it was better to use the water and re-treat it afterwards. It's as important to use the water as it is to conserve it. Flushes the system. Keeps the water from standing too long."

Jeannie fetched another towel which she placed on a small bench by the wall. She turned to take Carlen's towel.

"All yours," she beamed.

Carlen gave her the towel she'd been wearing, carefully set the hash pipe on the bench, and turned to the tub.

"Don't you want to take those off?" Jeannie asked, referring to the collar and chain.

Carlen smiled wryly. "They don't come off."

"Oh," Jeannie muttered inadequately.

She was even more confronted by the marks on Carlen's hip and back as she stepped into the water and sat down with a huge sigh.

"This is fab-u-lous."

"A - do you want me to go?"

Carlen was quiet a moment.

"I'm sorry if I make you uncomfortable," she said softly.

"Don't apologize," Jeannie said abruptly. "I'll get over it. I'm not a very worldly woman but I am full grown, after all."

"Well, I'd prefer it if you stayed - if you don't mind. I'm not feeling very well."

"Of course," Jeannie said, perching on the bench.

Silence reigned victorious over the pair until Carlen wet the bar soap and began rubbing her head with it.

"Oh no!" Jeannie cried, hopping up. "Don't use that on your hair!"

"Oh-" Carlen echoed, a little thrown. "Madam has shampoo, I presume?"

"Yes, of course."

Jeannie produced a plastic bottle of shampoo from a cupboard in the wall, perched herself on the high edge of the bathtub and began shampooing Carlen's hair. The ice was broken.

When Carlen had been thoroughly scrubbed and rinsed, Jeannie stood up. Dried her hands.

"Want to soak a while?"

"No. I might fall asleep. Better get out."

Jeannie helped her out of the tub, wrapped her in the fresh towel and drained the water. As Carlen dried off, Jeannie left the cubicle and reappeared a moment later.

"I got some clothes for you. I hope they fit."

"What's this?"

"A skirt."

"I haven't worn a skirt in years."

"It's the best I could do out of the women's stores, I'm afraid."

"Well, what about the men's stores? There must be some trousers there."

Jeannie had that uncomfortable look again. "Belamy said to give you a skirt. I told him you'd probably prefer trousers, but..."

Carlen nodded. "Of course."

"He doesn't approve of women wearing men's clothing."

"Of course," Carlen said again. "And I'm Joan of fucking Arc."

"Pardon me?" Poor Jeannie. All confused again.

"Never mind. Ah! A bra! And undies!"

Jeannie brightened. "Yes. Are they the right size?"

"I think they'll do."

"Good. Oh - and I brought some shoes."

"Ah... I don't know about the shoes," Carlen said, looking down at her shattered feet which were now also quite swollen.

"We'll have those looked at."

"No. Not tonight. Never mind."

"I know!"

Jeannie disappeared again and reappeared soon after with a pair of thick, white, terry toweling socks.

"These are just great for swollen feet. They'll be some comfort and protection, at least."

Carlen smiled. "Thank you."

"You really should have those feet seen to."

"It really doesn't matter," Carlen said, laying down the towel and pulling on the underwear.

Jeannie watched her dress in solemn silence, secretly intrigued by the collar and chain, and Carlen's concise arrangement of the bulky assembly over the outside of the denim skirt and shirt she'd supplied. It made an odd picture to Jeannie's eyes. Odd and a little cruel.

When Carlen had the whole thing perfectly organized she looked up. "Well?"

"A lot better," Jeannie said, nodding.

Carlen looked down at the clothes again.

"Really. You look fine."

"I feel strange."

"You're bound to, aren't you?"

Carlen shrugged. "It's been a very long time..."

"Well..." Jeannie murmured, briskly running a comb through Carlen's wet hair. "There. Better."

"Thanks." Carlen picked up the hash pipe, staring at it in uncertainty.

"Lucky," Jeannie said, suddenly curious but too polite to ask about the odd little object. "The skirt has pockets!"

"Ah!" Carlen said gratefully. "Right."

"Now, hungry?"

"Ravenous."

As they traversed the main tunnel, Carlen was very much looking forward to a decent meal - and sleep. Lots of it. Yet, as they came into a moderately large kitchen area, who was standing there waiting for her but Belamy Lynne. Carlen groaned.

Jeannie stopped just inside the doorway and waited. Carlen followed suit.

"Well," he said. "At least you look like a human being."

Carlen shifted with an insolent sigh. "What do you want? You've already had your peek show for the night."

"Questions. Sit down."

He yanked a chair out from the table in the middle of the room. Carlen moved to it and sat down heavily, her arms crossed in front of her.

"How long have you been on the run?"

Carlen glared ahead. Said nothing.

"How long have you been on the run?"

"I don't know," Carlen said thickly.

"A week?"

"...About that, I suppose."

"You suppose. Where have you been?"

"In hiding."

"Where?"

"Where-ever."

"The Men's Sector?"

Carlen rolled back her head. "You know, I didn't really take note of the address."

Belamy Lynne circled around in front of her, his eyes as black as a stormy night. "I don't like you. I don't like anything about you. One look at you, I see trouble. I see trouble in Blacktown, I see trouble in the Women's Sector and, most especially, I see trouble starting up here. I don't like that and I don't want it."

"I'm not going to give you any trouble," Carlen sighed.

"There's already trouble, Carlen - if that is your name."

Carlen pinned him with a look.

"Someone's been on a killing spree in Blacktown. Three dead bodies at the Penthouse. One more on the Line. All of them stuck with crossbow bolts. Any of this sound familiar?"

Carlen looked away.

"There's a new name on the streets and there are people trying to track it down. You understand me alright?"

Carlen said nothing. She understood. The little fascist obviously had a very direct line to the streets. She wished he was out there now, getting his vicious little face caved in for him.

"And you're a junker, aren't you?"

"No," Carlen said staunchly.

"What kind of narcotics are you on?"

"None," she insisted.

Belamy seized her arm roughly and pushed back her rolled sleeve. "I know needle tracks when I see them! You're a long term junker. What are you on?"

"Nothing! I told you! Nothing. I got clear."

"Oh yeah? How long have you been clear?"

"Three weeks."

"Three weeks?"

"That's right," Carlen said stubbornly.

"One week off the needle, if that. And when was your last intake of amphetamines?"

He was still leaned over her, his face very near. Carlen dropped her gaze. A most unfortunate question.

"This morning."

Belamy backed off, a sneering 'I told you so' look on his face.

"Well, you'll stay clear as long as you're here."

Yeah, clear of you, is what Carlen was thinking.

He stood there for a moment, watching her carefully. "You know, we can get that collar removed. You look like an animal with that thing around your neck-"

"No."

"I should think you'd be glad to be rid of it."

"To remove it would label me a runner. You know that."

Belamy's black eyebrows shot up. "Not only bad mannered and arrogant, but clever too."

Carlen just glared.

Belamy's eyes turned flinty again. "You might as well know it - I don't want you down here," he said. "I have no use for a hard-bitten truant like you. None at all."

He turned on his heel and Jeannie jumped out of his path as he passed through the door. Carlen let out a low hiss.

"Real hospitable guy."

Jeannie moved across to the stove, some of the color coming back into her face. "Belamy's not really like that at all," she said.

"A mirage, is it?"

Jeannie hesitated, confused and embarrassed. "I never saw him like that before."

"I guess he doesn't deal with lepers every day."

"Please don't be upset."

"I'm not upset."

Jeannie paused, her hands wrung together. Carlen was staring at the floor.

"Well - what about some food?"

"Great," Carlen said despondently.

The plates and glassware were plastic, the flatware stainless steel. Jeannie served up a vegetable stew. Carlen chose the spoon for her utensil and she didn't stand on ceremony.

"Anything to drink?" she asked, before Jeannie could take the seat next to her.

"Certainly. What would you like?"

"I'd love some JW."

"What's JW?"

Carlen looked up suddenly. "Never mind. What have you got?"

Jeannie shrugged. "Water, milk, tea, coffee-"

"Coffee?"

"Yes, or juice-"

"Juice?"

"Apple, pear, berry, orange-"

"You've got orange juice?"

"Yes. Fresh."

"Fresh, you say?"

"Yes," Jeannie said, almost apologetically.

"Well, if you truly have fresh orange juice, then that's what I'll have. This I must see for myself."

Jeannie opened the cooling unit and poured Carlen a large glass of juice from a clear, plastic, jug. Set it on the table. "That's it," she said, standing by like an expectant wine waiter.

Carlen stared at the glass without a word, but Jeannie saw her take a quick, rough swipe at her eyes before reaching for it.

"Well?"

"...as good as any I've tasted anywhere. ...fucking wonderful..."

Jeannie smiled, nodded, topped the glass up and returned the jug to the cold unit. She fussed needlessly at the sink an extra moment to give Carlen time to compose herself. Such a peculiar woman.

"So. What's the set up here?"

"What?" Jeannie said, turning.

"You and Belamy and the 'greeting committee' the only people down here?"

"Oh no," Jeannie said, coming to the table. "There are more, although Belamy is in charge."

"Kid me not. Who died and made that little fascist King?"

"Well," Jeannie smiled a little. "That's a long story."

"Yeah. A real side-splitter, I'll bet."

Jeannie said nothing. Carlen swept the room with her eyes. Fairly large, especially by normal apartment standards, but, all in all, very like an ordinary kitchen.

"This looks a little cramped for more than, say, twelve people or so," she remarked. "You know, cooking and dining."

"Oh, well, really we're in the older part of the Shelta. This is actually just a kitchen. There is another space through there for dining but the main facilities are in another section."

"I see."

"More stew?"

"No. Thanks."

"Coffee?"

"No."

"Juice?"

"Yes. Yes, please."

Jeannie poured more juice. She cleared away Carlen's dishes, cleaned them, put them up and finally rejoined her at the table. Carlen was rankling, as though irritated.

"Is something wrong?"

"What? No. I'm not all that used to clo- a, to clean clothes." She stopped scratching and reached for the juice. "When you going to drop that thing?" she said into the glass.

"What thing?"

Carlen smiled. "The baby."

"Oh! Oh. Approximately thirty-two days."

Carlen's eyebrow arched. "Approximately?"

"Oh, well I'm very consistent."

"It's not your first, then."

"No. My fifth."

"Your fifth!"

"That's so. I'm first mother."

"First mother? I don't understand."

"Well, actually, Kersey will probably be first soon. If she delivers well this time, we'll be even. I'm sure she'll move into first position after that. She's younger and been delivering consistently."

"Who's Kersey?"

"Oh - you'll meet her, no doubt."

Carlen nodded, sipped more juice. "Is that Belamy's child?"

"No. My husband's. Bill Wexler."

"Your husband?"

"That's what we call our current fathers, although Bill has always been my partner. We're one of the few original married couples left. We birth healthy babies so Belamy lets us stay together."

"Big of him."

"Actually, I prefer it. I can't really imagine changing partners every time, like some of the younger ones do."

"Really."

"Still, I suppose it suits them. I'm a little old fashioned, I guess. I was married to Bill when we moved down."

"You're left-overs?"

"Yes. In your sense of it."

"You've been down here all these years?"

"Yes."

"My God. I'd go mad."

Jeannie laughed. "Yes, well, the children keep us busy. I don't think about Topside very much anymore. It's not a bad life here. A little strict, I suppose, but it's comfortable."

"Why do you have so many children?"

"It's part of our Constitution."

"Constitution?"

"Fertile women must breed. Make a future."

"Don't you get tired of being pregnant all the time?"

"Not really. See, it's the only positive thing I can do."

"For who?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

Jeannie was a really nice lady and Carlen didn't want to drag her dream world down with her own negativity about the future they all would or would not share. There was no immediate point in telling the woman she didn't believe it was a world worth bringing children into anymore.

"It's all a little much for me to grasp," she said.

"Why, yes. Of course it is. I meet so few outsiders, I guess I tend to forget my lifestyle might be considered exclusive."

Carlen nodded.

"We've talked enough. You're tired. You've had enough to eat?"

"Yes. Fine."

A bed had been set up for Carlen in a store room. It was similar to the room in which Belamy had searched her, but not the same one. It was wider - only just. The bed, erected of scaffold shelving, stood about three feet off the floor and was only two feet wide.

"Bloody Hampton Court!"

Jeannie was plainly mortified but she didn't feign ignorance to the obvious insult. "I'm very sorry about this. Do you think you can manage? I laid several layers of bedding over. You have sheets, a pillow, blankets for over the top, although it never gets really cold here-"

"It'll be fine," Carlen said curtly, accepting the apology if not the excuse.

"I'm sorry," Jeannie said again. "I'll try to get you some night clothes."

"Don't bother tonight."

"No... Not tonight," Jeannie said softly. "Well, good night. Someone will come for you in the morning." She was backing to the door.

"Jeannie..."

"Yes?"

"What's Belamy planning to do with me?"

"I really couldn't say... I don't think he'll hurt you."

"He's already done that."

Jeannie hesitated. "Uh... Well, the light will go out in about ten minutes," she said and left.

Carlen sat down with a sigh and stared glumly around the first private room she'd had in over two years, although a part of her couldn't help wonder just how private it actually was.

She unwound the chain from her waist and lay down, tucking the coiled chain under one end of the pillow. Jeannie had done a good job with the bedding. It was surprisingly comfortable and Carlen was asleep in a few minutes, despite the worries plaguing her.

* * *

That night she again found herself wandering the dark wide corridors, the silver-backed mirror clutched to her chest. The same feminine influence was evident - strong, pushing, pushing her.

She came to the last room. She entered through the doorway. As she had known, someone awaited her there. A man. A blonde man. She panicked and shook herself awake.

She sat up abruptly in the glaring light, clutching the blanket to her chest, shaking.

"Carlen?"

"What!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you..."

Carlen's head twisted around.

"It's me. Jeannie."

"Yes. Of course."

"I've come to take you to breakfast."

"Right. Fine."

Carlen swung her legs over, wincing as her feet met the floor. They were worse this morning. In fact, everything seemed considerably worse.

Jeannie waited as Carlen wound the chain around her with a grace that had become habitual. She didn't like the look of her.

"Did you have a bad night?"

"No, it was fine. I need the toilet. That orange juice is talking to me."

Carlen's weak, fake grin made Jeannie want to cringe but she sent back a sunny smile. "Certainly. We broods know all about that!"

Carlen gave a humorless chuckle.

It was a real toilet. Bowl, seat, water, flush lever. The first her rump had contacted since - when? Since her last session with the Workshop.

Carlen splashed her face with water in the tiny sink. Wiped her face with a towel which was obviously sterile \- at least before she'd touched it. Rinsed her mouth. Her mouth tasted like used cat litter. She resisted the urge to vomit.

"Are you alright?" Jeannie called through the door.

Carlen was glad there was no mirror in there.

The door opened. Carlen emerged.

"Fine, Jeannie. Just fine."

The kitchen was empty. Carlen sat straight down. Jeannie served her oatmeal, brown sugar and milk.

"There's coffee on the stove, if you want some. I left a cup out."

Carlen hardly nodded.

"There's more oatmeal here. Refuse goes here \- underneath. You can rinse your things in the sink, drain them here..."

"What you're saying is, you have to go," Carlen deduced.

"Will you... be alright?"

"I'll be alright."

Jeannie gave an uncertain nod. "I'll see you later. Someone will be by after a while."

Still she hesitated.

"I'm fine," Carlen said firmly. "Go ahead."

Jeannie nodded again and sort of trundled out the door. Man, that woman had a funny walk.

Carlen sighed. Stared into the oatmeal. Tried two bite fulls and emptied it into the disposal. She rinsed out the bowl, left it to drain and poured herself some coffee.

She couldn't quite get over the feeling that it was still the previous night. The lighting was the same - day or night, apparently. Obviously. Weird place.

She rubbed her temples. She didn't feel like she'd slept at all. Common enough feeling anymore, but this disorientation! She was in one space but her mind was in another. 'Others', actually. Her thoughts rebounded like the silver sphere of a pinball machine. She couldn't take a grip on anything.

Physically she felt sick. Really sick. What she needed was... a fix.

What she didn't need was Belamy Lynne. He walked in and one glance at her clammy, gray complexion gave him the story.

He didn't ask how she was or if there was something he could do. She didn't expect him to. Neither did she expect the demand he made of her.

"Come with me," he said, so Carlen got up and followed him back to the storeroom where she'd spent the previous night. The bed was gone.

"You see these boxes?" he asked, indicating the shelves.

"Yeah," Carlen said, passing up the opportunity to cheap shot him. She wiped her wet forehead with her sleeve.

"They need to be organized. The names of the contents are clearly printed on the outside. You see that?"

"Yes."

"They're in disorder. I want them arranged, alphabetically, starting from the top left going down to the right. Both sides of the room. Do you track?"

Carlen smiled wearily. "Yeah. I track."

"You can read, can't you?"

"Yeah. I can read."

"Good."

"Looks like a lot of hard work."

"Hard work won't hurt you," he said. "I want six hours. You better get started." He turned to leave.

"I want to see Maena," Carlen said to his back.

"No."

"Why not?"

"She needs to rest. She's in isolation."

"I want to see her."

Belamy half turned. "Why? What is she to you?"

"She's the only bloody friend I have in the world."

"That Black girl?"

"Yes."

"You have strange connections."

"Let me see her."

"No. Not now."

"Belamy, look-"

His eyes flashed. "You don't call me that!"

Carlen glared at him for a second then sighed. "What are you going to do about me?"

He paused. "I haven't decided yet." He looked at her more intently. "It depends on a number of things, but mostly you, I think." He paused again but Carlen made no reply. "Do the work. Someone will come by to check on you," he said and he was gone.

Carlen glanced around again. Although narrow, the room was at least twelve feet long. Those shelves covered every inch of wall space from ceiling to floor. There must have been two hundred boxes stacked in there. Maybe three hundred.

That little bastard. Imagine ordering her to do all that work, the condition she was in. A madhouse! The entire city was a fucking madhouse.

As she stood looking at all this, Carlen seriously considered just dropping on her bum and telling the little shit just what he could do with his boxes. And as she stood there, thinking this, she began reading the labels on the boxes. Dehydrated soups. Chicken Broth. Chicken Noodle. Beef Broth. Beef with Vegetables. Powdered eggs. Cream of Chicken Soup. Well, that was wrong, for a start. Whether or not the soups were ordered correctly, those eggs certainly did not belong among them. She wrenched the box off the shelf and plopped it on the floor.

Carlen did not tackle the chore in an orderly fashion but, within twenty minutes, she'd pulled nearly half the boxes along one side down to the floor. She climbed the shelving to push over a stack she estimated to be properly placed but she quickly climbed down again, her hand gripped around the scaffolding. An instant later she sat down altogether, one hand still clutching the scaffold, the other pressed to her head.

The pain was on again. Coming on strong.

LATE LATE LATE

No no no! We're Off Off Off!

"Oh Christ," she muttered. "I can't do this..."

She sat there hanging onto her head for five minutes. Ten.

There had been someone waiting in that room last night. The dream. The Chamber of Mirrors...

Carlen's eyes snapped open. She saw the boxes, strewn helter skelter on the floor around her. Those alien boxes, sitting about like little companions. All at attention, those demanding little boxes which blocked out the memory of that dream.

Powdered Milk. Soya Beans. Macadamia Nuts. That was B for Beans before M for Milk followed by N for Nuts. Whatever happens, old girl, you're going to have to live through this pain...

Carlen grabbed the rail with her other hand, started to pull herself up - froze and plopped down again. The nausea was fierce and she felt a whole lot like fainting.

Look around, she told herself firmly. Look. You've made a mess, dear. See the mess. Got to fix that, right? Start here. Might as well start here. Six hours? Is it really going to take six hours? You're here now. Just start here. You can do that...

Carlen read all the labels around her then began lining up as many boxes as she could reach right there from the floor. She arranged them along the base of the shelves opposite and, as the space around her began to clear, she rocked up on her knees and sorted more into position. Then up into a squat, sorted more.

By the time the chaos was organized into alphabetical stacks for the shelves, Carlen was on her feet. She was panting and wringing with sweat. She sat down on one of the stacks and rubbed her face over with both sleeves.

"This is insane..."

If I'm insane, what does that

make you?... You push it too

far too far... You're a

fucking loon, Carlen...

Carlen glanced up quickly, positive she'd seen something move past the doorway.

It was empty. Silent.

She rubbed her face again. She'd never be able to do it. Never.

I know you can do it, Carlen -

if you'll put that magnificent,

stubborn back into it...

She don't look all too

willing... Have you got

it in order? ...Fail me

and it will be the end of

you... You're accountable

to him... His for life for

life for life...

Carlen stood up suddenly and began heaving boxes onto the shelves. Moving others over. Wedging others in. She made several mistakes and rectified them with the same mechanical mania. Worked at a furious pace in an attempt to outrun the voices banging in her head.

She worked until she'd exhausted herself and had to sit down again. Her head was swimming, her feet were throbbing, her heart was thumping and there was someone in the doorway-

Again she glanced up. No one. No sound, nothing.

She gave her feet an extra minute then got up and shuffled over to the door and looked outside. No one there. Silence.

"You are a fucking loon, Carlen," she murmured and suddenly realized her teeth were chattering. Her hands were shaking. Her knees.

She swung around against the wall inside the doorway and clung there. The snakes were awakening.

One week off the needle,

if that... There's a new

name on the streets...

What are you on???

Baby, everything you're

into is addictive...

Carlen slapped her hands up to her face.

"Hold on... hold on, girl..." she whispered. "The boxes... Just remember the boxes... Half the room to go..." She began to weep. "Never do it. Never..."

It's understood you keep

yourself out of the Dealer's

box...

Carlen propelled herself away from the wall, unbalancing one of the stacks.

This one's Trade... Looks

like you've been had by

every Lord in the city

...You're a junker...

"You little BASTARD! Bastard punk kid!"

Show him!

By the time Carlen had stacked and shelved one whole side and pulled all the inaccuracies down from the other side, she was reeling. She was seated on one of the stacks with her head between her knees when someone came in. A stranger. Another woman. Another obviously pregnant. She had a plate in her hand and a very snotty look on her face.

"You Callen?"

"No."

"Oh?"

"Carlen."

"Carlen?"

"That's right."

Carlen didn't like this bitch already.

"Well, I've brought you some lunch," she said, setting the plate on one of the more distant stacks. "Jeannie said you preferred spoons," she said, setting one beside the plate.

There was orange juice, also. Carlen went straight for the juice, thinking maybe she was wrong about this girl who was now looking over the shelves Carlen had rearranged.

"This side finished?"

"Yeah."

"You work fast."

Carlen picked up the plate. Looked with intrigue at a sprig of fresh parsley sitting atop a boiled potato. Maybe a bite of potato wouldn't hurt.

"This is not right."

"What's not right?" Carlen asked, forgetting the food.

"The arrangement of these shelves."

"What's wrong with it?"

"You've done it alphabetically."

"That's right. That's how I was told to do it."

"Well, it's not right. Belamy wants it all coded by color. Red, green, black, yellow, blue, white. You see the dots?"

"That's not what I was told," Carlen said, her fuse burning dangerously short.

"It's what I was told and I listen to what I'm told."

Carlen was close to biffing this girl.

"Belamy told me to do it alphabetically," she said slowly. "And that's exactly what I've done."

The snotty, ponytailed brunette pivoted, pinning Carlen with a cold look.

"I saw him just now, and he told me specifically to check that you were color coding it. I can go and get him, if you like."

If that girl had not been pregnant, that haughty look would have been good for two busted teeth.

"What time is it?" Carlen asked with supreme control.

The girl gave a cursory glance around. "You have time to finish," she said. "Red, green, black, yellow, blue, white. In that order. You track that?"

"I track," Carlen said coldly.

"You better get it organized," the girl said and left.

"Bitch," Carlen murmured after her.

Carlen ate her lunch in fits and starts between work bouts. One bite at a time, just to be on the safe side.

About three-quarters of the way through the re-organization reality departed.

"Dehydrated Peas, marked green, go after Soups, marked red, go before Baking Soda, marked yellow..."

The man was definitely blonde. Even in the darkness she could see that.

But, the thing was, she only knew one blonde man now. As blonde as that... The other had been long ago. In another life. In a time when she might have been capable of loving someone. Might have been. Might have had the freedom to love someone...

Carlen snapped to suddenly. Tried to take grip and concentrate on the colors, but the colors were playing tricks on her mind.

"Red, green, black..."

Black. That had been the color of Etiene's hair.

What does a woman like you

want? ...What's the matter,

Carlen? Did he hurt you?...

You will not prevent me...

"Wait a minute. Red, green..."

Green is the color of His eyes.

You're mine now. That's all

you'll ever be...

Carlen. CARLEN. Concentrate!

How does a woman like you

come to such a position?

...You won't be breaking

for the border, runner...

"Red! Green! Black! Yellow! Blue! White! Got that? Got that? Good. Now go! Red, green, black, yell-"

Green, black, yellow. That was the Zoo.

Most conditions can be

changed... Sooner or

later you will come to

recognize your position

...How long have you

been on the run?...

What are you reaching

back to? ...Got

something to hide...

Black. Like the bars at the Zoo. Like the Dealer's mark. Like Braidshawk's eyes.

That's the special one.

That's what makes you

Hardchange... Who's

property are you now?

...Return to me in

disgrace and... You

don't go out anymore!...

"JESUS, Carlen! Get a GRIP!" She jerked another box up off the floor.

What's the matter, Carlen?

Got no stick? stick? stick?

...Sounds like you talking

hardchange, newblood...

Carlen swung around, hurling the box into the doorjamb.

"NNNNOOOOOO!!!!"

The shout echoed away down the tiled tunnel way as Carlen stood, wrung, and dumbly blinking at the figure poised in the doorway. A boy? A man-child in a crumpled, oversized shirt and pants of nondescript color, with a mop of shining golden-brown hair, hands pushed into his deep pockets, staring. Intrigued. A little apprehensive. The tirade of voices in Carlen's head fell silent, replaced only by the dull hum, the impulses of power that were the lifeblood of the Shelta.

The boy didn't speak and, an instant later, he was gone again. Carlen stared after him but he didn't come back. And neither did the voices.

She looked down on the dumb, dull boxes, all stacked and ready for shelving. The job was nearly done. Slowly she bent and picked one up. Set it in its place on the shelf. She bent for another, perspiration dripping stingingly into her eyes. She didn't swipe at them, she just picked up another box. The job was nearly done.

* * *

Carlen had just about double checked the placement of every box by the time Belamy Lynne came. He stood and watched her slow, meticulous progress for a moment before he spoke.

"Finished?"

Carlen spun around. "...Yes."

She glanced again at the shelves. "I think it's all correct."

"It looks that way. Come on."

Carlen picked up her lunch dishes from the floor and followed Belamy out of the storeroom.

"I'd like to - I think I should clean up."

"You can bathe after dinner."

The dinner was good. Tasty and nourishing. The table was set when she came in. Fully set. Carlen made a point of using the fork and the knife.

Belamy left her in peace to eat and, shortly after, Jeannie came in. She took Carlen down to the bathroom. Treated her very sweetly. Shampooed her hair for her.

Carlen was standing beside the tub toweling off when Belamy Lynne appeared in the doorway. Carlen straightened up and slowly raised the towel in front of her. Jeannie was aghast but Carlen didn't flinch a jot. She'd heard him coming.

"You can go and see the Black girl when you're dressed. Jeannie will take you."

Carlen gave a small nod. Belamy left.

Jeannie vented an angry snort. "Well, if that boy shouldn't learn some manners somewhere!"

"He did it on purpose," Carlen said.

"On purpose!"

"Because of my station."

Jeannie's embarrassment was magnified by Carlen's lack of it. "Well, I can't say I know much of that but he's not allowed in here in any case."

Carlen dropped the towel and reached for the clothing Jeannie had laid out. "This isn't exactly 'any case', is it?"

Jeannie was too flustered to know what to say. She bustled away with the laundry and came back just as Carlen was sliding the Dealer's pipe into her pocket. "Well," she said, with a brisk smile. "Maena."

"Maena."

* * *

The tunnel Carlen had been confined to was connected to two others which splayed out in a two prong fork. It appeared that these, also, split off into other, identical tunnels.

Off the main passageways were numerous doors. Behind some of them were secondary passageways but mostly they were rooms. Some large, some only tiny cubicles.

As they came into the Women's Quarters, Jeannie explained there were large spaces for those who wished to share with four or five others. The more diminutive cubicles were for those preferring single occupancy. Some of the doors were open and Carlen had a peek inside. Despite the dormitory atmosphere, there were elements of warmth and color and living in some of the rooms that put an ache in her heart.

"Is this where you stay?"

"Three months before term, yes. The rest of the time I'm with Bill."

"Oh, that's allowed?"

"Things weren't always like this," Jeannie said. "We adapt to our times."

For as long as we can, Carlen was thinking. She was beginning to wonder at what point the elasticity just snapped off altogether.

"Where is everybody now?" Carlen asked.

"At dinner."

"...I see."

"If the question is - are you being isolated deliberately, the answer is yes. We are very careful about disease."

"So am I," Carlen replied.

"We've had some problems in the past."

"You think they're past, huh?"

Jeannie walked on a few steps, then pulled up suddenly.

"Carlen, I-"

"Look - I'm sorry," Carlen apologized. "I'm not quite fit for social assimilation yet. Please don't allow me to upset you. I'm very tired and a little screwy."

Jeannie was all concern again. "Do you want to forget this?"

"No. I really must see Maena."

Jeannie's features smoothed out. She nodded and led on.

Maena had been installed in one of the small cubicles at the very, very end, well beyond all other signs of life. Unlike the other women's rooms, the cubicle was bereft of any decoration or personal effects beyond the crib she'd been issued, a three drawer dresser, a chair for a nurse and the Dealer's box. The bed, although plain, was quite large and it did look comfortable.

Maena was all propped up on fat pillows, dressed in a white gown, looking for all the world like a patient in a hospital.

Carlen entered the room with reluctance. These tiny cubicles were a little small for her ease of spirit.

"Carlen."

Carlen swung her arms out in a self-deprecating shrug.

"I'll wait outside," Jeannie said, pulling the door to behind her.

"You look awful," Maena said.

"Ha! Do I? Thanks."

"I mean it. What's been going on?"

"Oh, Belamy's had me working."

"What kind of work?"

"Oh, shifting stuff. I don't know."

"You're not fit for work."

"Tell Belamy."

"Well, if he can't see for himself-"

"Never mind," Carlen said brusquely.

There was a short silence. Carlen seemed distracted, ill at ease. "What I came to find out is, are you alright?" she said.

"Yes. I'm fine."

"Is he going to let you stay?"

"Yes. I think so."

"Good. Good."

"What about you?" Maena asked.

"What about me? That's a good question." Her eyes were stuck on the Dealer's box.

"Carlen-"

"Look," she said, backing off. "I'll see you later-"

And she was gone.

* * *

Carlen's bedding was setup in another location that night. Another storeroom. This one square. Very small. The bedding was laid out on the floor, but it was thick and comfortable and Carlen slept like a stone.

* * *

Next morning, after breakfast, Carlen was taken on a tour of Shelta by the abrasive young woman who'd brought her lunch the previous day.

The Shelter, or "Shelta", as it was commonly called, was enormous. Perfectly sealed and ventilated, perfectly impenetrable and unnoticeable from the street. No one who was not part of the original life of the city would know of its location or even its existence.

Carlen suspected there were probably rumors circulating about the place. Many had probably tried to find it in the hope of laying hands on the treasures it held - both factual and legendary. Yet, there it was. Inviolate, it bloomed in its function as a self-sufficient underground sanctuary, peopled by a society of beings who were totally removed from the current of life in the city inside whose womb it flourished.

The main question in Carlen's mind was, why were they showing her this?

"Belamy wanted you to have an understanding of what we're about," the girl explained.

Well, it was much less an explanation of what they were about than a testament to what they had accomplished.

Carlen didn't see it all. The girl gave the distinct impression it was quite deliberate. All the same, she treated Carlen to quite an eyeful.

These people had everything. They had just about every storable variety of food there was. Mountains of it. Canned goods, dried, dehydrated, freeze dried, smoked, and salted.

They had water purifying tablets, straws, and filters, plus a huge nitrogen flushed tank of pure water, in addition to access to the city supply.

They had clothes, blankets, sheets, pillows, portable cots, refrigeration units, and pure, filtered air.

They had fuel. An enormous supply of it. There was gasoline, kerosene, diesel, chemical logs, and fire starters, paraffin, mentholated spirits, sterno, butane, and propane. They had generators, batteries, and a huge supply of light bulbs as well as fluorescent light tubes.

They had medical supplies. Splints, bandages, adhesive tape, antiseptic, hypodermics, cold packs, hot packs, surgical instruments and supplies. Antibiotics, pain killers, vitamin supplements, and narcotics. Of course they had everything necessary for pre-natal and post-natal care.

In fact, they had everything necessary to keep a population numbered in the low hundreds going for a very long time. Another twenty-five years or so of very exclusive living. Maybe more. Everything that had been set up when we still expected "Them" to do it to us - before we realized we'd do it to ourselves just as effectively.

It was nothing short of awe inspiring, but nothing impressed Carlen so much as the hydroponic gardens and the orchard, in which every conceivable type of vegetable and fruit was under cultivation. Now she understood the potato, the sprig of parsley and the orange juice.

The orchard was the most alluring of all. Despite the startling enormity of the cultivation tunnel, all the trees had to be, of necessity, cultivated in miniature, although the fruits were almost full size. And it was all there. Everything Jeannie had mentioned and more. Peaches, apples, apricots, and even a strawberry patch.

The lighting, although obviously artificial, lent a surprising sense of reality to the scene. If Carlen ignored the high, arched ceiling, she found she could almost delude herself into believing she was outside.

The sight and smell of the orchard moved Carlen nearly to tears. This startling testament of the prosperity and fertility of Shelta. There was nothing she could imagine more inspiring than the beauty of those tiny trees and the brazen color of the fruits that laden them. She wanted to reach out and grab them. Feel them swell and split as she squeezed their gorgeous juices into the light. Ached for it.

But she kept all this feeling carefully contained, that her tour guide should not catch a glimpse of it. She took special care to show even less interest when the girl seemed to extend extra effort to stimulate or impress because she plain didn't like her.

As before, she'd adopted a very high tone which Carlen found offensive. Arrogant, self-important. In some ways, she reminded Carlen of Dalroy during her first night in the city, although this girl had no desire to win anything from Carlen but her awe and a sense of non-belonging.

Everything was Belamy this and Belamy that. A one-woman propaganda machine, although it was obvious to Carlen that Belamy could not have been solely responsible for even half of what had been established or accomplished.

She had also successfully kept Carlen from contact with the few people they saw, but the encounter in the orchard was entirely unavoidable when the girl tripped and nearly fell over two booted feet protruding onto the walkway. Carlen noticed the feet and half hoped the girl would stumble, her nose was stuck so high in the air. She didn't even reach to steady her as she danced back awkwardly, trying to maintain her ungainly balance.

The man jumped up and quickly steadied her, expounding apologies. Her attitude with him was just as it was with Carlen, although he must have been twice her age.

"This place is a danger!" she huffed, playing the entire incident up out of proportion.

"Only for such delicate young ladies as yourself who have not been forewarned about my big clumsy feet!" the man replied with extraordinary good humor.

His eyes darted curiously over to Carlen but he didn't address her. The girl didn't speak either, so Carlen just stuck out her hand.

"Carlen."

The man smiled broadly, pulled off his work glove and grasped Carlen's hand. "Bill. Bill Wexler. Glad to meet you. Newcomer?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Ah. Getting the tour, then?"

"A - yes," Carlen said glancing around. "This \- is something."

"Ah, our orchard. We're very proud of it."

"With good reason," Carlen said. "You don't see oranges like these growing just anywhere, anymore."

"No, I guess you don't..." Bill said, and fell off awkwardly for a moment. "Would you like one?" he asked suddenly, brightening again.

Carlen thought she must have blushed. "I would."

Bill reached over and pulled one right off the tree. Put it in her hand.

"Thanks," she murmured.

Bill was touched by her smile. This was an encounter he would never forget.

"Well, I'm in charge around here," he said. "If there's anything you need to know, just come ask me!"

"We have to go," the girl said abruptly.

"Thanks again," Carlen said.

Bill actually winked. That smile made him look half his age. Jesus. Where had all the people like Bill Wexler gone?

"Well, that's all I'm supposed to show you," the girl said as they moved back into the main tunnel.

"That's fine," Carlen said, feeling, but not looking at her orange. "But would you mind telling me one thing?"

"What's that?"

"Your name."

The girl stopped. Looked Carlen directly in the eye. "I'm Kersey. Kersey Lynne. Belamy's wife."

Oh.

"Enchante," Carlen said.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Kersey's lips pursed slightly, then she turned and continued down the tunnel.

* * *

Carlen didn't have to dine alone that evening. Kersey kept her company.

She sat down at the table with Carlen, although she didn't eat. She merely observed every move Carlen made with those nosy, insolent eyes. Carlen wasn't interested in conversation but that didn't dissuade Kersey.

"What was it like?"

"What was what like?" Carlen asked between mouthfuls.

"Living with that animal!"

Carlen's eyes turned up slowly. Her chewing stopped.

"The Dealer," Kersey stipulated as though the word made a nasty taste in her mouth.

Carlen's chewing resumed. She swallowed. "In the first place, he wasn't any animal. In the second place, it's none of your bloody business."

She stabbed another potato on the plate. A potato Bill had grown.

"I just wondered how you put up with it..."

This girl was thick skinned. Like a serpent.

"Yeah? Well, I wonder how you put up with it," Carlen shot back.

"What?"

"Belamy Lynne." She said it like a curse.

Kersey got right up on her high horse. "Belamy Lynne is-"

Carlen raised her fork into the air between them. "Don't tell me what Belamy Lynne is! I see well enough what he is."

"He's a good man. A real man."

Carlen's head turned again. "A real man? You wouldn't know a real man if you had one stuck up your arse."

"What?" Kersey shrieked.

"Let me tell you something, little girl. Belamy Lynne is no different to any other son-of-a-bitch in this city."

"That's a lie!"

"A lie, is it?"

"As if Trade like you would know."

"I know a damn sight more than you, my dear."

"Well, you don't know anything about Belamy-"

"Oh really?" Carlen cut in. "Really. Then, tell me something, cow. Where is he tonight? Mm?"

"I... can't tell you."

"Can't tell me? Or don't know?"

"He's - out," Kersey said.

"Out, you say. Out where?"

Kersey's lips bowed in.

"Well, I can tell you where," Carlen said. "He's 'out' keeping a handle on things. All for his little wives? Ha! To protect his investment. He doesn't give a shit about you personally."

"That's not so!"

"Not so, huh? Okay. You tell me. When has he ever fucked you for any reason other than to make you pregnant? Huh?"

Kersey was too confronted to speak.

"Has he ever spent the night with you? The whole night? Does he ever sleep with you when you're pregnant? What has he ever risked to be with you?"

Kersey's eyes clouded. She was hurt and Carlen was glad.

"And what about his other wives? There are others, aren't there? I'll bet he services every available brood down here, doesn't he? Jesus. He must be the coldest fuck in town-"

"How dare you!"

"You stupid cow. The stark truth is, he's just the same as every power hungry motherfucker in this town. You might as well wake up to it." Her chair scraped back suddenly as she stood up. "Tell me about men? Ignorant cunt."

She stamped out, taking her orange with her.

CHAPTER 66 \- HEART OF STONE

Jeannie was buzzing over the news of Carlen's blast at Kersey when she picked her up from yet another location the next morning. Over breakfast she could talk of nothing else.

"Did you really say those things to Kersey Lynne?"

"I'm sure her version was embellished," Carlen said, thinking the eggs here were not as good as at the Zoo \- and wondering why she should think such a thing.

"Well, whatever you said, you sure got her steaming."

"She had it coming, the cow."

"Ooo!" Jeannie laughed - that free, warm sound Carlen could so easily grow to love. "She said you called her a cow! That really set her off."

"I guess she's not used to being talked to like that."

"No. She isn't," Jeannie said. "She's a bit... Well, Belamy's flag man. Thinks the world revolves around him."

"That's evident."

"It's a pretty common feeling amongst the younger ones," Jeannie explained. "His generation, particularly. They all more or less grew up in the Shelta. You know."

"I hadn't thought about it like that."

"They know no other way of life, really. I guess it's not so hard to understand."

"Maybe."

"So, what do you think of it all? Kersey showed you the gardens?"

"Oh, yes," Carlen said, holding up the orange. "I saw Bill - briefly."

Jeannie lit up. "Did you? How is he?"

Nonplused, Carlen said, "A - fine. He's fine."

Jeannie gave a knowing smile. "We're completely segregated for the final three months. I suppose we could protest it but it wouldn't really be fair to the other women who are also segregated. It's part of the system we devised at one point and Belamy wants it kept that way."

I'm sure, Carlen thought.

"We're all used to it by now and it does cut down on domestic quarrelling, so..." She shrugged. "I don't suppose you can understand everything at once."

"It's a lot to take in," Carlen admitted. "Things are - very different - up there."

"Topside?"

"Yeah. Topside."

"Yes... Sometimes I wonder about that..."

You should, Carlen thought to herself.

"Ah - by the way. You didn't tell Kersey anything about, well... You know, yourself."

"Hell no."

"Ah, good. Straight through Kersey and on to Belamy."

"I figured that much."

Jeannie smiled. "Good. You're a pretty smart woman, Carlen."

"Oh yeah. Just fucking brilliant."

Jeannie indulged in one cup of coffee with Carlen and quietly handed over a couple of pain killers she'd smuggled for Carlen's feet. They washed up the breakfast dishes and had everything about put away by the time Belamy came.

"The Black girl wants to see you," he announced.

There was an unnamed dread Carlen felt at the prospect of seeing Maena again, but Belamy made it sound like a command.

"I'll be finished here in a minute," she said and Belamy left.

"Do you remember the way?" Jeannie asked after a moment.

"What? Oh. Yeah."

"Well, go on ahead. I can finish this."

"Fine," Carlen said, but she stayed anyway, took the pain killers and wiped down the table.

When there was no more to be done, she handed Jeannie the towel and left without a word.

* * *

Maena was up and she was dressed. She appeared to be waiting.

"So, how you doing, fat lady?"

"I'm doing just fine. What about you?"

"Better, I guess, but this place gives me the creeps. It's like living in an egg crate."

Maena laughed.

"The amazing thing is, though, these people have got it all. I mean, everything. Incredible. The only thing they haven't got is a world to enjoy it in."

"You're anxious to get out."

"...Yeah. I never could tolerate canned air that well."

There was an awkward silence.

"You seem to be feeling stronger," Maena said.

"Yeah... I guess."

Carlen wasn't looking at Maena. Her eyes danced around the room, finally landing on the Dealer's box. She bumped it with her toe. "He let you keep this?"

"He doesn't know what's in it."

Carlen snorted. "Don't be too sure. That little pest seems to know everything."

There was another pause. Carlen retrieved the Dealer's pipe from her pocket and stared at it, gently rubbing the smooth grained wood with her thumb. With a soft sigh she lifted the lid of the box and gently laid the pipe in its compartment on the top shelf. Closed the lid. "R.I.P.," she whispered on another sigh.

"Carlen?"

"Yeah?"

"I want to talk to you."

Carlen swung away from the box and commenced a restless migration around the tiny space, her movement like that of a caged animal. Now she was at the dresser. "So talk."

"What happened with the Dealer?"

Carlen pivoted around. "You don't know?"

"I know you've been in a lot of agony."

Carlen looked away. Dabbed at an invisible speck of dust on the dresser top. "The Dealer died. It was an accident."

"Why hasn't anyone found him yet?"

"...I pushed him in the canal."

"I see."

"He wasn't Mr. Wonderful, but I couldn't see him picked apart by Vets. Nobody deserves that."

"What about you, Carlen?"

She gave an exhausted sigh. "What about me? You keep asking me that."

"What are you going to do?"

"Do? Nothing. Nothing to do."

"Is that what you think?"

"What do you suggest I do? Let's see. Leave here. Go turn myself into the Zoo. Maybe score re-assignment. Yeah. The Bitch survived one contract. See if we can't bring her down another peg!"

"Carlen, what do you want to do?"

"Ask me now? When you prevented me from doing it a month ago?"

"Carlen, you must stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Thinking so much about death."

"Oh!"

"It's time to exorcise this devil inside you. Get on with things. Move into the future."

"Devil, you say? Get on with things? What things? What future?"

"Your future."

"My future? I have no future. None. I've seen you safe and sound. That's what I had to do. It's done."

"You think it's over but, really, it's just beginning. You are only now coming into your power-"

"Power? What the hell are you talking about? You're the one with the power, girl."

"Power? I'm Black, female, and pregnant. What would you have me do? Become the Whipmaster? The next Dealer?"

"Is that your advice to me?"

"We all have a place in this thing."

"Oh, will you stop all this causes and meanings shit! I'm only here because some crazy old man dragged me out of a cozy hole I'd crawled into to die."

"That crazy old man is my father and you were not dying in that hole. You were psyching yourself up to kill someone."

Carlen's head twisted slowly around, her eyes steely gray. "What are you talking about?"

"When the Old Time Man found you, you already had the crossbow. You were target shooting, so engrossed you didn't even see him come in."

Carlen remembered the death dreams. She didn't recall the crossbow practice. "So what?" she said coldly.

"So, who is it you've got in mind?"

Carlen blinked, looked away.

"Your business isn't finished yet," Maena said more softly.

Carlen didn't reply.

"Carlen, things are disrupted all over the city."

"Not my problem."

"There'll be no resolution unless you get back in the game. And there's the future of Shelta-"

"Oh, you're saying I'm responsible for these people, now?"

"Carlen, you're responsible for yourself."

"Well, fine. Because I've finally realized I don't matter anymore. I've done my bit, see? I'll just leave here and that'll be it."

Maena sighed angrily. "You talk about leaving but you have no direction. Every day the danger increases and you want to turn your back." Her eyes glowed darkly. "What's the matter? Do you doubt yourself?"

Carlen felt like she'd been physically pushed. "Doubt myself? Of course I doubt myself. My GOD, Maena! I've been beaten, raped, tortured, drugged and brainwashed. Of COURSE I doubt myself. Everything said and done to me for two years was intended to FEED those doubts! Hell. I don't even know who I am anymore... And neither does anybody else."

"Your identity presently resides in the psyche of others," Maena said.

"Oh Christ! Don't start that again."

Maena stepped closer. "Carlen, you've become a sleepwalker-"

"I've been one a long time."

"That's not so. I heard you in Blacktown. You were alive."

"That wasn't alive. I was more alive at the Zoo. At least those people really let me feel."

"I meant the less conspicuous moments," Maena stressed. "I heard your discussions with the Dealer-"

"What do you mean 'heard'?"

"You turned him around to you," Maena said gently.

"Oh sure I did!" Carlen exclaimed with a ghastly laugh. "Right after he stripped the hide OFF MY BACK!"

She suddenly swung round and took a bruising grip on the back of Maena's neck. Pulled her close.

"You see and hear everything but the TRUTH, seer. I'm a shadow, Maena. I've got no stick! They took everything from me. Everything there was. My identity. My sanity. Every shred of decency there may have been left!"

Carlen couldn't see it then, but Maena realized a genuine fear of her at that moment. But the spark died, replaced by a sudden vacancy that was almost as scary.

"The pain has stopped. That's all I care about."

"Has it, Carlen?"

Carlen refocused, unhanded Maena and stepped back as though just realizing what she'd done.

"You need your head put on straight," Maena said.

"I imagine you'd like to give it a little twist yourself, wouldn't you?" Carlen rejoined. "Everyone else has had a go. Why not you?"

"Why not me? ...If you'd trust me to do it."

Carlen looked at her a long moment then started for the door.

"You owe me, Carlen!"

Carlen never broke stride. "I paid that debt, Maena. Paid it!" She passed out the door, knocking into one of the other women who had been drawn by the shouting.

"Damn it!" Maena murmured, lumbering back to the bed.

* * *

Carlen charged down the passageway back to the storeroom looking for someplace to curl up and hide. She threw open the door only to find all trace of her nesting had been removed - again.

"Where the hell's my bed!" she stormed, bursting into the passageway. "Isn't there one bloody corner in this God damned place I can go for a little privacy?"

Jeannie came hurrying out of the kitchen. "You've been moved," she said.

"Again!"

"It's a better place."

"I'm sure."

"I'll show you."

It was a better spot. Much larger room, although still a storeroom, but at least a proper cot had been set up for her.

"My God! What did I do to deserve this?"

The room was hexagonal in shape with a low beamed ceiling. There was no scaffolding although the area was half filled with large wooden crates. The ambiance of the space reminded Carlen of the hold of a ship.

"Well," she sighed. "No work? No tours?"

"Uh... no."

"Good. Leave me alone. Please."

Jeannie nodded and backed out.

Carlen plopped down on the cot, her head in her hands, trying to get a grip on her fury. She wasn't even sure why she was so angry. Everything was confusion. This strange place. Her sudden catapulting out of position. The constant moving of her bed. The double work load in the storeroom her first day in Shelta. Now Maena's questions, to which there were no answers. What the hell did she expect? What could anyone expect? What the hell...

Carlen lifted her head, glanced around at the crates, all set about at odd, space wasting angles. What the hell. She pushed herself up and, crate by crate, wrestled the sons of bitches back to clear a reasonable living area around the cot. A simple mindless task to keep the confusions at bay.

"Can I come in?"

Carlen glanced up from her labors, startled by the appearance of the boy she'd glimpsed in the doorway of the stockroom she'd reorganized two days prior. So. The young beggar hadn't been an hallucination after all.

"You're in, aren't you?"

The boy edged past the threshold as Carlen shifted the last crate to the wall by the door and resumed her seat. She tracked with her eyes as the boy moved around the space, assessing the layout, the crates and ultimately the cot on which she sat.

"This is your room?"

"For the last ten minutes, at least."

His eyes traveled around again. "This is a storeroom."

"Astute."

His eyes came back to Carlen. "A what?"

"Then, maybe not."

"I don't understand."

"That's apparent."

A tiny crease of consternation formed between the boy's brows.

"You're a Topsider... The old man brought you down. You and that other."

"Mine of information, aren't you?"

"She's pregnant."

"Observant, too!"

"Well, I haven't seen her."

"Oh. Too much credit, yet again."

The line between his brows deepened.

"What's your name, kid?"

"I'm not a kid."

"You're not, huh?"

"I'm nineteen."

"All of nineteen! Man of the world."

The young man backed up to the crate nearest the door. Leant there, one leg crossed over, hands sunk into his pants pockets. "I'm Darion."

"And what's your function? Come to spy on the prisoner?"

"Spy? No."

"Oh."

His head cocked over slightly. "You really are a prisoner, aren't you?"

Carlen huffed softly. "Whose in particular?"

"A State prisoner."

"Oh."

"I can't imagine that."

"Why would you want to?"

His brows compressed as he dropped into a deeper level of concentration. "Is she the same?"

"She who?"

"The other."

"The same?"

"A prisoner."

"What's it to you?"

"I just wondered... I guess she'll be staying."

"Staying?"

"In Shelta."

"Mad if she doesn't."

"And you?"

"Mad if I do."

"Is she Trade, too?"

Carlen tensed. "What did you say?"

"Belamy said you were Trade."

"He said this to you?"

"Well, I heard-"

"Oh, you heard. Sneaking around. Listening at keyholes?"

"What?"

"Eavesdropping."

"What? No!"

"Bel-amy Lynne," Carlen growled. "And just what else does Belamy Lynne have to say?"

There was a slight surge in the boy's vibration. "You don't like him."

Here we go, she thought. "Who in their right mind would?"

"But he's helped you."

"Helped me what? Feel better about myself and the world at large? Tell me all that Belamy Lynne has done for me."

"He didn't have to let you in."

It was a divinely spiteful thing to say, yet Carlen detected no trace of malice in the boy's eyes. It was merely an insight - one Carlen hadn't really stopped to consider. An insight jammed with possibilities too chilling to contemplate.

"I'm sure he regrets it."

For some reason, Darion's gaze dropped. "Sometimes..."

"Sometimes?"

"You're not the first Topsiders to be admitted."

This was interesting. "There have been others?"

"There have been."

"Since the city was sealed off?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"Different times."

"How many?"

"I don't know."

"What happened to them?"

Darion shrugged uncomfortably. "Different things."

I'll just bet, Carlen thought darkly.

"Belamy doesn't like it."

"I'm sure."

"He says they have no place here. Calls them refuse."

"Refuse?"

"Shit."

"Shit."

The change in Carlen's tone made him look up. She was on her feet. Her eyes had grown dark and cold. Darion's hands wadded into fists in his pockets as she took a step toward him.

"And all this you know, but you don't really know because it's only what you heard. But there's more, isn't there? Spit it out, kid. Spit it the hell out."

Darion's voice dropped to a murmur - and no wonder. "Belamy says you're not a real woman."

"Oh, does he?" She leaned in closer. "And what do you think?"

She was now so near he could make out the fine stitching in the collar around her neck, discern the tight join of the linklock that held it and the chain in place, so near he could smell the scent of the shampoo Jeannie had given her for her hair... One step nearer effectively blocked his path to the door.

"You come tippy toeing in here, slinging shit, another esteemed graduate of the Belamy Lynne Academy of Charm. But you haven't a clue which end is up or what the fuck you're on about!"

With stunning speed, she closed in, seized his wrist and broke his grasp over her knee before Darion even realized his hands had slipped from his pockets and risen in defense. Neither of them moved as the folding knife dropped and skittered across the floor.

"Close your mouth, kid. You look like a fish."

"I swear!" Darion cried. "I didn't mean-"

"I know you didn't."

Releasing Darion's wrist, Carlen quietly crossed and bent to retrieve the weapon. She paused to look it over, her momentary calm an odd counterpoint to Darion's sudden terror.

"I don't understand the first thing about you, kid, but I'm pretty sure you didn't come in here to shank me..."

She paced slowly back to her previous position, still studying the knife. Darion remained frozen as she opened the blade which flashed in the light as she turned it in her hands. She spoke softly at first, but the air seemed to thicken as her words came.

"You hear that moralistic pissant refer to me as shit and you come around to see for yourself. See what it is he's captured. You're uninformed. Curious about things. Seeking you don't know the hell what. Either you're completely brainless or, for some reason, you've determined there's not enough trouble in your life.

"I don't know what choices you have..."

Another glint as Carlen turned the blade. Caressed the edge with the pad of her thumb.

"You can counsel with Belamy Lynne and become just like him. Or, you can accept the truth. Because it's shit like me that keeps the walls from crumbling. It's shit like me that keeps the Men's Sector from committing suicide. It's shit like me that's kept Belamy's little wives safe and sound this long, and it's shit like me that can bring the whole thing down."

"If he lets you out."

Finally she met his gaze. "And if he doesn't, it'll be his last mistake."

Darion backed harder into the crate, mightily fighting down a cry as the blade rose up before his eyes.

"So, don't come in here talking about shit before you take a good look in your own back yard, because it's little shits like Belamy Lynne who'll keep us in the Dark Ages another hundred years to come."

"...Dark what?"

"Go read a book! Form an original idea."

There was a tight silence. Carlen's hand dropped and the blade of the knife snapped home with a soft click. She proffered it.

"Now get out. Get the hell out."

Darion snatched the knife from her hand and squeezed by to make the door.

"And don't come back!"

Damned punk kid! What the hell was he sniffing around her for? His opinion of her was obviously already tainted, so what was his interest? He'd lied. He was a spy. Belamy's little spy. Had to be. What else made sense?

The silence left in the wake of Darion's departure created more of a pressure than his visit. Carlen dropped her behind on the cot with a sigh but, as tired as she was, she didn't dare lie down or close her eyes.

Too many issues. Too many complexities. Too many influences pulling this way, and that. Too many loose ends. That was really it. Too many loose ends.

She thought again of the storeroom she'd busted her ass re-arranging for Belamy Lynne, and how all those cursed boxes were sitting like little soldiers on those scaffold shelves. All color coded. In perfect order. Except, it wasn't perfect. Everything in Shelta was stored alphabetically. She'd seen enough to know that.

Fuck Belamy Lynne for doing that to her. Fuck Kersey for being so willing to do the little turd's dirty work for him. Fuck the bloody lot of them. She was damned if she'd let them get away with it.

Carlen jumped up from the cot and left the room, returning to the narrow storeroom where she'd spent her first night and day in Shelta. She stood, hands on hips, staring at the boxes she'd so efficiently organized.

The whole thing now had a clarity she'd missed before. Those boxes were not so large or numerous as they had been. Something finally made sense. She grabbed a box and hoisted it briskly to the floor.

"Come on, me little darlings. Let's get this thing straight, once and for all!"

Carlen worked for three solid hours, re-ordering the entire storeroom for yet the third time. And this time she did not pause to rest. She didn't have to. She didn't stop at all until every box was placed and she was satisfied everything was ship-shape, Shelta style.

When she had done she was tired, quite tired, but she felt she had accomplished something. She wasn't sure what, exactly, but this achievement seemed in some small way significant.

She made one last check look around before leaving for the kitchen. She had a cigarette in mind. A cup of coffee would have to suffice.

The coffee on the stove was tepid but Carlen didn't care. She poured it as it was, noticing the ache in her arms and back. She didn't care about that, either. It wasn't the mean debilitating soreness that had plagued her for so long. It was the good healthy ache of hard work. An ache that cleared the head and made her feel ready for rest.

She padded over to the table and sat down, her hands wrapped around the mug, savoring the imagined warmth, her mind blissfully blank. For quite a few minutes she was completely unaware of the confrontation taking place between Maena and Belamy Lynne in the small dining room right next door.

"This area is restricted to you," Belamy said.

"As the women's quarters are to you, but we have to talk."

"We?"

"I want to talk about Carlen."

"Look, I told you. You can stay. That's all that should concern you."

"What about Carlen?"

"I want her out of here. The sooner the better."

"You're going to force her to leave?"

"One way or another."

"Do you have any idea what she has to face up there?"

"I think I do. It's not my problem."

"She needs sanctuary and time," Maena argued.

"How much time? And for what? You see? It's no issue to me. My interests start and end with Shelta. I think this woman is bad for those interests. Bad for the women, bad for the men, no good for the children. She's mired. An unacceptable influence."

"She doesn't have to be. I think she could-"

Belamy wheeled around. "You think? You think you can come down here and tell me how to make my decisions?"

"You don't know the first thing about Carlen."

"She's a jack-up artist!"

"She's clear of that."

"Clear? And how long has she been clear?"

"At least since she left the Dealer."

"She was running with the Dealer's belt. She was jacked the day she came down here."

"My father only did that to give her strength for the journey."

"Now there's a positive recommendation for the stability of this person! You have no argument, Black girl. None. This runaway is no use to us. She's sullen and half mad. Besides, she's sterile."

"You would condemn her for that?"

Belamy's eyes narrowed. "What do you care? She's White."

"She saved my life."

Belamy's lips stretched in a thin smile. "You think someone would kill you in Blacktown?"

"You think I could bear and raise this infant over there?"

"You'd be in no danger from your own."

"Do you imagine we have conditions like this over there? I've suffered two miscarriages already! You don't know shit about it!"

The note in Maena's rising voice caught Carlen's attention. She started to listen. Started to hurt, listening.

"And you do not hear what I say, mare!" Belamy retorted, his voice raw like rain on the wind. "No matter who this woman is, no matter what she's done, she's Trade now. Hardchange. She's marked and nothing in the world will remove that mark. She's the Whipmaster's slave, his Bond. A certified runaway. Blacknews."

Maena's voice softened to the same tone her father had adopted with the boy. "The situation is complex. More complex than it appears. Carlen is no ordinary woman."

"Apparently," Belamy clipped in. "But what do you suppose will happen when they come after her? What do you imagine will happen here?"

"No one is coming after her," Maena said. "The Dealer is dead-"

"The Dealer!" Belamy trumped. "Don't make me laugh. I'm talking about HIM. He'll never accept that the most valuable property in town has gone missing. I'd trade her back, if I didn't think it would dirty my hands."

"He doesn't know she's missing."

"What?" Belamy snapped.

"He must know by now," Carlen rejoined from the door, startling them both.

"Well, he doesn't," Maena sighed. "There's no... anger."

"What are you talking about?" Belamy demanded.

"If he knew Carlen was on the run he'd be angry, wouldn't he?"

Belamy just glared but Carlen made a small reluctant nod.

"Well, he isn't."

"How the hell could someone like you know a thing like that?" Belamy growled.

Maena's eyes glittered like stars in a black sky. "I can feel his anger," she said.

Belamy actually recoiled. Carlen shivered herself.

Maena turned to her. "I could feel his frustration with you when he had you with him. I felt your anger, too. I knew he was sending you to Blacktown before you did. He was angry the day he let you go!" She wavered. "Clear across the city I experienced his anger. We're closer now. Much closer. If he was angry, I would know it..."

With an exhausted sigh, Maena drifted past Belamy, clutching her abdomen with both hands.

Carlen met Belamy Lynne's frigid gaze.

"Well," she said finally. "He's right. I don't belong here."

Maena turned. "Where do you belong?"

"...Nowhere."

Belamy had won. He crossed to the door, stopping before Carlen. "Go back. You've been too long in chains," he said and brushed past her.

Maena stepped in quickly and gripped Carlen's arm before she could get away. Her voice shook a little. "You don't go anywhere until you talk to me," she said.

Carlen looked at her a moment, then nodded reluctantly.

CHAPTER 67 \- SHADOW BOXING

That night Carlen shook awake again. Her eyes burned, her head throbbed.

She lay there, sweating, heart palpitating, nauseous with adrenalin rushes, an hour. Two. Until her legs swung over the edge of the cot and her feet, as though on automatic pilot, carried her down to Maena's room.

Maena was up, dressed. She seemed to be waiting.

"I came down to see if you had any aspirins," Carlen said in a grainy voice.

Maena nodded at the dresser where two tablets had been set out with a glass of water. The sight of them frightened Carlen but she covered the fear. All she had to do was take the tablets and leave.

"You promised to talk to me."

"It's late."

"Later than you think."

Yeah. Maybe the Master didn't know she was running yet, but Carlen was acutely aware there was a deadline attached to the information. She didn't know exactly how much time had elapsed but, when Freddie failed to appear and make his report, the Whipmaster would make enquiries. What then? Would he search for her? Probably.

"So talk," she said tiredly.

"Sit."

Carlen dropped heavily onto the spot Maena had vacated on the bed. Kept her eyes on the floor.

"It's time to look into the mirrors."

One line show stopper.

"What mirrors are those?" Carlen asked, hearing the tension in her voice.

"The ones in the dream..."

"That's only a dream."

"A dream that's slowly pulling your head apart."

"Well, it's my head."

"I can help."

"You can, huh?"

"I can help you find the answers you're seeking. They're all there. Locked inside you."

"There's nothing in there."

"In your heart, your mind-"

"My mind! Oh God. You don't want to get into that-"

"I do."

"You don't!" Carlen flashed looking up at last. Then she sighed. Her voice became very intense. "Understand me, seer. It's all over in there. Finished. They opened my mind. Cracked it apart like an eggshell. Everything spilled out."

Maena gave one of those slow, rich, exclusively Black smiles. "No, lady. I'm the one who's going to crack your head."

Carlen had the sensation of being pulled into that dark, liquid whirlpool again. The girl was so compelling. Carlen knew she would not be walking out on her tonight - whatever happened.

"Okay, Maena," she sighed. "Okay. What's on your mind?"

Maena was all ready. "We have to go outside for this," she said.

"Outside?"

"For a short while."

"Belamy will never allow it. Anyway, what for?"

"These tunnels are not conducive to your present karma."

"Kid me not," Carlen said, wondering where the girl learned words like "karma".

"We'll go now," Maena said.

"It's the middle of the bloody night! It's not safe."

"It'll be alright. There's a spot. Some of our people patrol it at night."

"'Our people'?"

"The Sheltakin," Maena said with a tinge of irritation. "You know they weren't all born down here and they don't intend to be imprisoned here indefinitely by the upper crust. They do have a street of their own, only don't expect to recognize them on it, if you see them at all."

The two women stared at each other for a moment, then Carlen stood up. "Well, we going, or what?"

Maena's shoulders dropped slightly. "Carlen, you are a difficult woman at times," she sighed and, not for the first time, Carlen acknowledged the feeling that the adolescent was ages older than herself.

"Can you manage the Dealer's box?"

"The Dealer's box!"

"Yes. We're going to need it. I'll get some help if it's-"

"No," Carlen said, hoisting the strap over her shoulder. "I'll manage."

They got out of Shelta without a problem, although 'out' was not strictly accurate. Once passed the sliding door, they were still underground, as they had been for their initial admittance to Shelta. Carlen didn't recognize the location and it made her wonder how many access points there were to the place.

Although they climbed a level or two, they did not come out on the street. The journey ended abruptly at the end of a carpeted hallway and through the unlocked door of an apartment. A nice apartment.

Antsy and confused, Carlen cast a cursory glance around. This was no sterile, boxy econo-pad but a nicely designed space with traditional architectural details like crown molding and faux wood flooring. The ceilings were unusually high and, at one end of the room, two windows bayed out to make a feature of the huge picture window in the center.

A bluish illumination from the streetlight outside cast a square of light across one side of the room leaving the opposite wall draped in shadows. Apart from an area rug that covered nearly the whole floor, the room appeared bare. Emptiness had long since claimed this abode. Become its natural state.

"Set the box down there," Maena said, pointing to a spot on the floor directly opposite the windows. Carlen set down the box and Maena indicated a spot for her, also. "Sit."

Carlen took a seat behind the box, her back to the windows. She watched as Maena crossed into darkness then re-emerged, gripping the corner of a large pillow that had been hidden in the shadows. With one hand clutched to the small of her back, she dragged the thing around the other side of the box and awkwardly seated herself on it. She seemed strained and tired.

"You up for this?"

"Oh yes," Maena replied, opening the box.

The first thing she took out was a candle. Then a box of matches and one of the little glass dishes the Dealer had used for cleaning the hypodermics. She struck a match, melted some wax off the bottom of the candle into the dish, pressed the base of the candle into the solidifying wax and lit the wick. The flame cast very little light but enough, apparently, for her purposes.

Next to come out was a mortar and pestle. Then a pinch of this herb, a pinch of that one. Then some tiny opaque bottles: green, gray, blue. All things Carlen had never seen come out of there before. She observed this meticulous selection with unconscious fascination until it suddenly dawned on her what Maena was doing.

She recoiled in disgust. "Ah no. Not more chemicals! I just got clear!"

"Did you?" Maena asked, without looking up.

Carlen gave an impatient huff but said no more. She watched in grim, uncertain silence as Maena closed the box and, using it for a table, prepared an amazingly intricate compound which she poured into a small Chinese cup she'd also found in the box. Then she put everything away but the candle and the cup.

What was Maena doing? And where, or from whom, had she learned how to do it? It was as if her mind was elsewhere, her hand guided. With slow, measured movement she slid the box aside with a smooth strength she'd lacked earlier to lift it. She placed the cup on the floor between them.

Carlen feigned a calm front but the ritualistic atmosphere Maena had conjured made her uneasy. Maena must have picked up on this but she made no indication. For several minutes she sat perfectly still, her legs crossed, as well as possible, her eyes cast at the floor.

At last she picked up the tiny cup with the tips of her fingers and proffered it to Carlen with such a sense of ceremony that Carlen laughed aloud.

Maena didn't flinch a jot and Carlen's humor evaporated. With unconcealed reluctance, she accepted the cup and briskly downed the bitter draught.

Maena took the cup and set it aside. She got up and moved around the room, momentarily distracted from Carlen who watched her avidly, small rushes of fear pulsing through her.

Maena grabbed the corner of a second pillow, dragged it out of the shadows and placed it behind Carlen.

"Lay back on that," she instructed before turning away again.

Carlen slowly lowered herself back, eyes on Maena, awaiting the effects of the unknown potion. Maena returned with yet a third pillow. "Raise your legs," she said and positioned the last pillow under Carlen's knees, bolstering her feet a couple of inches off the floor. She then checked the placement of the first pillow over which Carlen's back was arched, her head hung virtually upside down.

"Damn it, Maena! Do you honestly expect me to lie like this?"

She wrenched her head up but Maena gently eased it back again. "Just relax."

Maena's hand left her and her voice, when next Carlen heard it, came from somewhere near Carlen's feet.

"You won't notice the discomfort for long."

"What the hell did you give me?"

"Old recipe."

"I feel so..."

"What?"

"Where are you?"

"Here."

"You sound so calm."

"Just relax," Maena soothed. "It's time to begin."

"...I can't stop thinking about my feet. Are you touching my feet?"

"...Yes."

"I thought you were... I can't stop thinking about that..."

There was a short silence.

"You are touching my feet?"

"Yes." Maena touched Carlen's feet.

"You won't let go...?"

"Are you afraid I will?"

"...Yes."

"I won't let go."

Carlen took her at her word. The elixir was taking effect. Carlen's eyelids felt heavy but she dared not let them shut - because the walls were closing in.

Carlen, can you hear me?

...Yes, Carlen said, although she would have sworn there hadn't been a sound in the room.

Are you holding me?

Yes. Can't you feel it?

Carlen wasn't altogether sure what she could feel. Her heart pounded and her breath now came in sharp gasps.

Oh shit. I'm scared.

Fear is no stranger.

I don't think I can do this...

You're already committed.

Carlen didn't hear herself moan.

Maena... The room's... too small...

You can get out of the room...

The suggestion threw a switch in Carlen's psyche and suddenly the reality of walls and windows was transformed into an illusion of infinite space. Stars and planets revolving. Fantastic and terrifying at once.

Mysterious?

Yes?

I think... I'm falling.

Then fall.

Despite a desperate desire to get up and run, Carlen couldn't move. Physically, she was dead meat. Psychologically, a raw nerve. Demonic laughter rushed at her like wind down a black tunnel. A cruel, unfamiliar voice sounded in her head.

Come to terms, changeling! Know who you are? What you are? Sleeper awaken! Look at yourself. You traded the passport to freedom for the chains of bondage. Self imposed life sentence. Taken and turned \- Trader to Trade. Provocateur to capitulator. Keeper of lists to listed-

Maena, stop! Stop this!

These are your thoughts, Carlen. Not mine.

You're working on me, just like the rest!

You're working on yourself.

Maena, don't fuck with this!

You don't have to apologize, but the secrets are going to surface.

No!

It is the shackles of the past that enslave you. To break free, you will reveal yourself to the enemies of the present.

You think you can make me do that?

I'm only the medium through which you'll re-connect with your inner nature.

...That will only bring darkness.

Darkness will not be the victor.

Carlen's consciousness seemed to drop another level as she experienced the first push from Maena's extraordinary mind. She tried to re-ignite the anger but Maena met it with equal force and continued guiding her down. Pictures from the past flashed through her mind like a film winding backwards. Laughter, pain, guilts and fears. So many fears.

Through transition after transition she dropped with increasing speed, no longer able to distinguish words or pictures. Only the suggestions mattered. They formed tight wires in her mind, drawing her from reality to reality.

Maena plucked selected images from her memory and reeled them back with such force that Carlen shouted, grappling for mental blocks. Maena resisted her attempts to retreat and drove her back until she hit a block that stopped her. Push as she might, she could not move Carlen beyond it. When Maena paused to regroup, Carlen seized her momentary advantage.

It was you, she said. In the dream. The female influence. It was you.

Yes, Maena confessed. It was me.

You're trying to coax me back into that room.

You must confront what awaits you there.

HE is waiting!

He is not the one you run from.

...You're kidding, of course.

There's a difference between the freedom you seek and the freedom you need.

Don't double talk me.

From the past you will draw the strength to emerge from darkness into light.

There is no light.

Not when you walk in shadows.

I am the shadows.

You will become the light. Turn around. Look into the mirror.

Maena sensed Carlen give slightly. She pushed but Carlen's opposition was incredibly strong. Maena had expected a war of wills, but she had never doubted her ability to force the necessary breakthrough. Now she realized her raw, unpracticed skills may not be a match for the rigid psychic barriers Carlen had taken years to construct. Maena had spent tremendous energy to progress even this far, but she knew it was insufficient to detour Carlen from her present course of self destruction. She had already failed with one crucial aspect of the probe. Further failure could bring disaster.

I can't help if you resist. You must trust me. Do you trust me?

Maena's question was met with a void of silence.

Carlen, do you trust me?

...Yes, Carlen responded at last.

Maena paused then pushed again with what she feared was the last of her energy. It proved to be enough and Carlen found herself once again within the chamber of the dream that had haunted her for so long.

Look into the mirror...

Slowly, Carlen turned to face that dark image of herself, clearer now than it had ever been before. She saw that she was not wearing the uniform of the intern, as she had always thought. And there was light, although only tiny, stabbing pin points of it, winking like minute stars. She could not understand their source but they emanated from her form.

She wanted to turn away, afraid as always to look into the eyes that glowed with a dim, ominous light of their own. It was too late. As surely as she was physically fixed into the "M" shape Maena had made of her over the pillows, so was she psychically fixed to the spot before that mirror.

Is there light?

A little.

Good. Turn it.

Turn what?

The mirror.

The mirror?

Turn... the mirror...

Maena's connection seemed to be growing fragile and the message was confusing. How was she supposed to turn that bloody great mirror?

Turn... it... Maena urged and Carlen was about to protest when she detected a small movement in the dim reflection before her. She strained to make out what it was and suddenly her heart seemed to freeze to stone.

Oh no...

There was one small, yet significant detail she had forgotten about. The silver backed hand mirror she clutched in her fist. That strange, metaphorical prop which, in response to Maena's suggestion, was slowly turning to face the mirror before her. A sudden, nauseating impulse of adrenalin shot through her system and again she tried to rise up.

No! she cried but she was paralyzed. Powerless to stop it.

The edge of the frame glinted as the handle twisted in her hand. It pivoted slowly around to reflect against the surface opposite - accompanied, as always, by the huge, hideous roar - the gasp of a beast wakening from a nightmare. Carlen was suddenly confronted by a surrealistic psychic landscape of incomprehensible fury and devastation. And there she stood, a lone warrior on this desolate frontier, her eyes as cold and empty as some fiend from the pits of hell.

Beyond speech or any thought of it, Carlen watched in helpless misery as the image of an innocent Black infant appeared in the blood smeared arms of this terrible warrior. The image was incomprehensible but the child was as familiar as her own blood. A sob broke out of her when the hand of the warrior lowered over the face of the sleeping infant, as though to smother it.

Carlen, she heard Maena call faintly.

Help me!

Carlen, you are not the enemy.

How do you know?

Look deeper...

As Carlen watched, the image of the child faded, but her relief was fleeting. The fist of the warrior began to rise, in it the weighty blade of a bloodied machete. The weapon was familiar, as familiar as the memory of the act committed with it. The weapon appeared to be directed at her and she found she could not step back as it seemed this experienced hand would slice down and smash the mirror, showering her in murderous shards of flying glass.

Once again, Maena's voice cut across the action.

There is no purpose to an act of revenge without triumph. You must look deeper.

Again, the image froze in mid-motion then appeared to melt back into its original stance. Carlen waited, her breath pent so tightly it hurt. She had not forsaken her desire to run, but her mind seemed to have deserted muscle and bone. Her limbs jerked in the spasmodic dance of the marionette as a pitiful mewling started up in her throat. Yet she felt nothing. Heard nothing. Trapped within the bubble of her psychic landscape, she looked on as the nightmarish pictures dissolved from one horror into the next.

Now, in the fist of the warrior, there appeared yet another weapon. Carlen's eyes teared in renewed terror at the sight of a small blood drenched knife rising in preparation to strike. This weapon, too, was familiar. Yet, this time Carlen didn't think of attempting to escape. She stood in blank acceptance as though prepared for an undefended outcome.

Maena struggled to clarify the implication but, although the image threatening Carlen was clear, the meaning behind it was obscured. All she could read for certain was the quality of Carlen's sudden surrender.

Self reproach is neither weapon nor armor! she admonished.

The knife was about to strike. Carlen urged it on but Maena, groaning herself with the effort, managed to overrule the outcome. The knife melted away, but the eyes of the figure in the mirror clouded and the entire image began to fade, also. Maena almost panicked. Nearly exhausted, she sent out one last plea.

Carlen, do you hear me?

...I hear you.

Don't submit to this shame, whatever it is. You must not relinquish control. Concentrate. Look at the light.

Halfheartedly Carlen refocused on the tiny pinpoints of light. They were still there, although more faint than before.

You will break out of the darkness, Maena encouraged.

Break out...

Do it, Carlen.

Carlen watched the tiny twinkling lights, too weak herself by now to resist their mesmerizing effect. Her body had quieted, the keening ceased. She seemed to be suspended in a kind of limbo, floating aimlessly into a timeless void, when she noticed the image of the warrior was redefining itself, now in sharper focus than ever before. Slowly the fist began to move in one final gesture. The lights were hypnotizing, comforting, but Carlen could no longer resist the need to see what horror that rising fist would now display to her. She had to see.

The fist was already raised to shoulder height by the time Carlen was able wrench her attention from the flickering lights to focus on the content of the warrior's hand. She had expected to see the instrument of her ultimate destruction, but what she saw she didn't comprehend at all. The entire landscape was momentarily illuminated by a sudden flash of light reflected off a silver chain dangling from the fist.

This makes no sense, Carlen said, trying to grasp the meaning.

Are you sure?

I don't understand...

The only place to run from the past is into the future.

Maybe I don't believe in the future...

The fist had almost achieved full height. Carlen's heart was beating double time.

The key is in your grasp, Maena told her. Unlock the gate...

The fist now paused at the zenith. Desperately Carlen tried to think of a way to stop it from falling.

Do it, Carlen. Do it now!

All at once, Carlen saw the key and she understood the implication behind Maena's suggestion. What would be unleashed, should that gate swing open. She would not allow it. Could not!

As the fist began its final, fatal descent, Carlen suddenly knew what to do. In a mighty surge of energy, she sprang up off the pillows and, with the poise of an Olympian, she turned and ran.

Carlen, NO! Maena cried but too late.

The fist exploded through the mirror and Maena wakened in time to witness, if not prevent, Carlen's suicidal dive through the picture window.

CHAPTER 68 \- MYTHS AND LEGENDS

Carlen was flat on her back on the sidewalk when she came to. Must have rolled, she thought, but how the hell did I survive? She arched her neck back and stared up at the window she had emptied, staring back at her from only five feet above her head. Fucking great. Might have been smart to check the drop before risking no more than lifelong disability.

There were voices murmuring around her and the sound became more distinct as she came more to herself. Maena was there and the Old Time Man. In fact, there was a small crowd. People speculating, questioning, touching. Where had they all come from?

Carlen sat up, roughly throwing off their solicitations.

"Leave me," she growled. "Get off!"

They all stepped back in quiet surprise as Carlen gained her feet unsteadily. Nothing seemed to be broken. In fact, she didn't seem to be hurt very much at all. Again she took in the broken window, then the glass scattered on the pavement beneath her feet. Then she looked at Maena.

"You said you had hold of me!"

"Carlen, no one has hold of you. Don't you know it yet?"

Carlen was too dumbfounded to know what to say.

"You shattered it. Fit the pieces back the way it suits you. It's your move, Solitaire. In twenty-two hours everything will be just as you want it. The rest is up to you." That hand went to the small of Maena's back again. "Now, you'll have to excuse me," she said and turned to go. "I have a baby to birth."

"Mysterious!" Carlen called but Maena waved her off.

Carlen scanned the inquisitive faces circled around her.

"Touch nothing. Move nothing!" she commanded and passed out.

The Old Time Man was crouched beside her when Carlen came to a few minutes later. Everyone else was gone. He helped her sit up.

"Is Maena alright?"

"Yes," the Old Time Man said. "The Dealer's child will be born tonight."

Carlen nodded, noticing the black bag in the Old Man's hand.

"We must get moving," he said. "Things to do. Are you ready?"

Carlen regained her feet. "Let's hope so."

* * *

A shaft of light from the passageway cut across the bed as Carlen opened the door of Jeannie's single room. Jeannie blinked awake instantly.

"Who is it?"

"Me."

Jeannie switched on a bedside light and squinted up at Carlen. "Goodness! What happened to you?"

"I've just been shaken to my senses. Look, I need your help."

"What can I do?"

"Are there seamstresses here?"

"Seamstresses? Yes."

"Can they sew leather?"

"Why - yes."

"Good. Get them up. And put some speed on, girl. There isn't much time." She snatched Jeannie's robe from a hook on the door as Jeannie rolled out of bed.

"You want them to sew now?"

"Yes. Of course!"

"They won't sew now."

"You just show me where they are. I'll get them sewing."

Carlen and Jeannie roused two sleepy, reluctant girls from their beds and hustled them down to the sewing room. While one of them threaded up the heavy duty machine, Carlen and the other went through the material stores.

Carlen chose several pieces of black suede from the limited supply of leather and they took it to the girl who was preparing the machine. Carlen had brought the black bag she and the Old Time Man had filled and the girls' eyes darted uncomfortably at the unpleasant sound it made as Carlen set it on the table.

"Now," she said officiously. "This is what I want..."

Carlen explained her requirements in precise detail and wouldn't allow the girls to begin work until she was confident they understood.

"Carlen-" Jeannie interjected as the girls took Carlen's measurements. "You want this for the streets?"

"Yes."

"Won't it make you conspicuous?"

"Conspicuous is good," Carlen said. "It frightens people."

"But, what about the light? You'll be easy to spot."

"Light? What light? There is no light in this city."

Jeannie shrugged but she didn't look convinced. Carlen placed a hand on her shoulder with a reassuring smile. "You're thinking right, Jeannie, but don't worry. No one who isn't meant to see me is going to."

When Carlen had both girls down to work she turned again to Jeannie. "Now. A cobbler."

"A what?"

"Shoemaker. I'm going to need some boots, aren't I?"

They wakened yet another reluctant soul to which Carlen gave some of the suede and more lengthy instructions. More measurements were taken and Carlen was ready to get on to the next.

"Jeannie..."

"Yes?"

"The men's stores."

"Oh Carlen-"

"I need some pants. Men's pants."

From the men's stores Carlen chose a pair of sturdy, multi-pocketed trousers and a pair of thick dark socks.

"Okay," she said. "That's just about all we can do here, but there's something I'd like you to get me from the kitchen, if you would."

"Anything you want," Jeannie promised.

"I need about half a cup of salt, some matches and a bit of cork, if you can find it."

"I think I can do that, but you really should get some rest."

"There's no time for rest, Jeannie."

"When are you leaving?"

"In about twenty-one hours, but I still have a lot to do."

"Well, there should be enough time to squeeze in a few hours sleep."

"Jeannie-"

"There's a vacancy next to my room. I'll get it ready. You can rest and get yourself prepared in there."

Carlen shook her head with a sigh. "Mother, mother, mother."

"That's absolutely right," Jeannie said firmly. "Seems like you've been too long without one in any case."

Carlen's eyes dimmed slightly.

"Oh, I'm sorry-"

"It's okay, Jeannie. You're probably right."

The Old Time Man was waiting for them in the passageway.

"I'll see you in the women's quarters," Jeannie said and bustled away.

Carlen and the Old Time Man moved off in the other direction, deeper into an area of Shelta that had been omitted from Kersey Lynne's tour. The armory.

One glance took Carlen's breath away. "Holy smoke. This must the biggest stockpile in the city."

"There's only one other that compares," the Old Man said, referring, no doubt, to the Whipmaster's cache. "I don't think you'll have any problems finding what you need."

Unlike the other parts of Shelta, there was little to no order in the arrangement of the armory. There was no shelving in this tunnel and most of the weaponry was not even stored in crates, but laid out on the floor along the walls, as though hurriedly brought in and dumped. At least most of the items were grouped in batches of like kind.

The Old Time Man was right about one thing, though. Order or not, there certainly seemed to be a little of everything. Hand guns, non-explosive hunting weapons, rifles, shotguns, machine guns, right on up to minor grade rocket launchers.

"Start a small war," Carlen remarked. "But why is it all in such disarray?"

"The Sheltakin are not war-minded people. They came down here to escape the Conflict and they've never really needed to tap this resource."

"Not yet, anyway."

"We can hope it never comes to that."

"Yeah," Carlen murmured.

"You can take whatever you need but, first, let me show you what I've prepared."

The Old Time Man led Carlen over to a table where he had laid out a variety of items. Carlen looked them over with a nod.

"You're familiar with the workings of such things?"

"Yes. I got some experience in Europe."

"I thought something like this might give you added security," the Old Man said. "Buy you some time, if necessary."

Carlen nodded again. "It looks fine," she said. "But let's make two..."

Carlen and the Old Time Man worked together at the table for an hour.

"I wonder," she said. "Can you dig up a padlock from somewhere?"

"That shouldn't be any problem," the Old Man said.

"Good. I can finish up here."

By the time the Old Man returned, Carlen had completed their task. She stuck the padlock into her skirt pocket and set the key on the table. They packed the equipment into a canvas shoulder bag, then moved down the aisle as Carlen selected the hand weapons she wanted.

Contrary to her situation on the streets, nothing here had to be make-shift. Although not necessarily the latest, state-of-the-art equipment, everything in the tunnel was brand new. A lot of tasty stuff.

First of all Carlen chose a pair of matching palm daggers and a belt which carried them in concealed, vertical sheaths at the front. She also took a wooden handled, double edged boot knife.

Lastly, she looked for a new crossbow. She was greatly relieved to find a model with a hand cocking action which would save precious time on re-loading. She chose a leg quiver for the carriage of eight field bolts and the Old Man helped her rig it with a rifle sling so she could carry it across her back.

"I don't want anything interfering with my legs. I might have to do some climbing."

"I have something else for you," the Old Man said.

Carlen accepted the object with a chuckle.

"Tranq pistol! Handy little toy, but it's only got one dart."

"It can be re-loaded. There's enough in it to knock out twenty people."

Carlen twirled the hypodermic dart in her fingers.

"The ultimate weapon..."

The Old Man had a holster for the pistol which slid nicely onto the belt containing the daggers.

Carlen was well pleased with these acquisitions. The sight and feel of them gave her a sense of power and security she hadn't felt in a long time. Perhaps Maena was right. That girl seemed to be right about everything. It was damned eerie.

"Well, that's me," she sighed with satisfaction.

"You haven't selected a gun."

"Not going to."

"You're going without a gun?"

Carlen patted the Old Man's shoulder with an affectionate smile. "Guns make big announcements, boss. Not my style. I have enough."

The Old Time Man nodded. "Fine," he said, then extended his arm. "Sit down."

"There's no time-"

"There's time. Sit down. I'm going to tell you some things."

Carlen pulled up a few square inches of floor in the aisle and the Old Man sat down near her.

"There are three men of whom you'll have to take particular care."

"Ha! Only three?"

"No wait - Two. One is out of town."

"What?"

"This is what I mean to tell you," he said, his eyes taking on that special depth she'd seen in Maena's eyes.

"The Whipmaster retains three professional assassins. They take care of business around town for him, but - these three also handle contracts outside the city."

"OutSIDE the city?"

"There are people leaving and entering the city all the time."

Carlen thought back to the night the Master sold Shay for a load of iron. Those men had been officers of the NCL. And, something else the Dealer had said about having the best connections in the state - even still. Oh yes. In and out. Yes indeed.

"You will have to dispose of these two men before you do anything else."

"Dispose of them?" Carlen nearly gagged.

"It won't be too difficult."

"Uh-huh."

"Not once you know how to recognize them and where they'll be."

"Oh right. Easy as pie!"

"And what their weaknesses are..."

Carlen hung her head with a sigh. Two assassins in town. Holy shit. She'd never had to deal with professionals before. Maybe she could bump one. Maybe. But two? In one night? She wasn't sure she could move quietly enough to even approach a professional assassin. She wasn't sure she could.

The Old Time Man went on serenely.

"The first is a man by the name of Olean. He's a German. Six foot one, slim, thin graying hair. About forty-five years old. His favorite weapons are blades and the garrote. He will not be carrying a gun."

"Oh, that's a relief."

"One thing you can do is take him from behind. He likes to look into the faces of his victims. If you catch him from behind he won't be able to react."

"Right," Carlen said despondently. Her palms were beginning to sweat.

"It won't be as difficult as you think. He won't be expecting anything and you'll have the advantage in a three-quarter approach."

Carlen's eyes flicked up. "Three-quarter?"

"Yes. Olean is blind in the left eye."

Carlen was beginning to wonder if...

"In the dark you'll recognize him by his step. He has a step like the Keeper's, although a longer stride, and you'll notice an accent because he walks with a limp."

"Like me, huh?"

"Less pronounced."

Carlen sighed. "Okay."

"The other goes by the name of Jinx."

"That's poetic."

"He's a younger man. In his late twenties. He's about five foot eight, brown curly hair, short, trim beard. Jinx wears rubber soled shoes. You won't hear his footsteps in the dark but, whereas Olean is contained and cautious, Jinx is a vain man. He carries a fob with two silver charms that ring when he walks. Of the two, he is really the greater danger to you."

"And what's his weapon of choice?"

"He's a shooter. Carries a .45 revolver. Carries it everywhere."

"Into Technicolor noise, huh?"

"You'll have to take him face to face."

"Oh fine."

"Again, he won't be expecting anything."

"Sure. Sure..."

"You'll find a way."

The Old Man took a crushed paper packet out of his pocket.

"Cigarette?"

"Smoke? In here?"

"The ammunition is stored in the next tunnel."

Carlen nodded vaguely and accepted a smoke. It was sure great timing on the old man's part.

"Dispose of the bodies as soon as you've killed these men."

"Oh, of course."

"Somewhere near where you drop them."

"Right. Which is where?"

"I'll tell you where to find them."

Carlen watched the slow curling of the smoke in the static atmosphere of the tunnel as the Old Man's information flowed into her head.

"Is that all?"

"That's all I can tell you. I can't tell you what you want to know about the others."

Carlen cut him a sharp look. The old man was about as good as his daughter at pulling the thoughts out one's head.

"It might be better if you didn't know," he said.

"You mean I can find out?"

"Ask Maena."

The Old Man got to his feet. "Now you'll want to complete your preparations."

"Yeah," Carlen sighed and rose. Thanks seemed inappropriate. "Oh - give us one of those smokes to go, will you?"

The Old Man had one left and he handed it over as though he'd expected her to ask.

On the way out, Carlen spotted a four-bladed broadhead bolt on the floor. She paused to pick it up.

"Now there's a pretty thing," she murmured, sliding it into the quiver alongside the others.

* * *

There were only a few things left to attend to. Carlen decided to check on the progress of the cobbler before subjecting herself to Jeannie's fussing. The boots were nearly done.

"This is very good," Carlen said, turning a boot over in her hands. "Fast work."

The cobbler beamed.

Carlen handed the boot back. "Now put the sole on."

A crease formed between the girl's eyebrows. "The sole is on."

"Not this. It won't do. It's too hard. Put another layer of suede over it."

"Over it?"

"Yes. They must be silent, like cat's paws."

"Catspaws?"

Carlen sighed with impatience. "Like bare feet. Get it? Silent, like bare feet."

"Bare feet."

"That's it. Do it. Do it now."

The girl nodded and went back to work.

* * *

Jeannie was waiting for Carlen in the sleeping quarters. As promised, a bed had been made up for her. A real bed, in a private room. It actually looked very inviting. Carlen was doubly pleased by the sight and smell of the food Jeannie had prepared and brought.

"I didn't know whether to make breakfast or lunch or what. I hope it's alright. You do feel like eating...?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." Carlen took a seat at the small table. "Thanks."

Jeannie sat in the opposite chair. "Everything about ready?"

"One or two small details yet," Carlen said, spearing a potato with her fork.

"Oh, here are the things you asked for."

On the table Jeannie laid a book of matches, a small plastic bag filled with table salt and a round plug of cork.

Carlen picked up the cork. "Where'd you get this?"

"Don't ask. Will it do?"

Carlen smiled. "It's perfect. What's the time?"

"There's enough time for you to get a few hours sleep," Jeannie said evasively. "I'll get you up in time for everything."

"Fine," Carlen said, just noticing that Jeannie was still in her nightgown and robe.

"God. I've kept you up all night."

"Please don't worry about it. We pregnant ladies don't sleep all that well near term, anyway. It's kind of a relief to have something to do."

Carlen nodded, studying Jeannie's eyes - so alert yet so tired. "Jeannie, all night long it's been like you anticipated all this."

Jeannie's mouth flexed in a momentary smile. "Well, it seemed like something was going to happen." She gave a nod at Carlen's plate. "Eat up. I'm not leaving until I see you in that bed."

* * *

It was a deep, dreamless sleep. The kind of sleep that had evaded Carlen for so long. When she wakened, she didn't feel exactly rested but she didn't feel tired either. She felt kind of numb. Empty. Ready to be filled. Filled with the future, however short, doubtful or unworthy it may prove to be. She felt no need to question it. For the moment she knew where she was going and what she would do there and that was enough. She was glad to have that much.

Everything was there in the room, ready. She stripped out of everything but her panties and hung up the skirt and blouse Jeannie had given her. She pulled on the trousers she'd taken from the men's stores and the top the seamstresses had fashioned for her and left the cubicle, headed for Maena's room.

Maena's door was open. Carlen stopped in the doorway, staring at the scene before her with a kind of reverence, just realizing she'd been too involved to even think of asking anyone how the birth had gone.

Maena was sitting up in bed concentrated on the face of the infant nursing at her breast. The serenity of the moment put an ache in Carlen's chest. Embarrassed to break into it, she turned to leave.

"Come in, Carlen," Maena invited without looking up.

Carlen hesitated, then walked softly to the bedside where she stood feeling awkward and out of place.

"Sit down," Maena invited.

Carlen perched reluctantly on the edge of the bed, self-conscious lest her weight upset the balance of the other two. Maena glanced up, the most extraordinary expression of victory and contentment on her face. Carlen smiled, too, relishing the feeling the sight of that baby awakened in her.

"Boy?"

"Girl."

"The Dealer would have loved that."

Maena smiled, a little sadly and nodded.

"You've named her?"

"Yes."

"Oh yeah? What?"

There was a tiny spark of mischief in Maena's eyes. "Athie."

"Athie. That's good. I like it."

"You should."

"How's that?"

"I wanted to give her part of you."

"Me?"

"I named her after you."

Carlen looked puzzled, then her expression flattened out. "That's not my name," she said in a different tone.

Maena was unruffled. "It's as much of it as I could glean from that trap you use for a mind."

Carlen stared at her a moment, then bent to get a better view of the infant's face. She reached out a tentative hand and touched the baby's head.

"It's a good choice."

"I think so. I think the Dealer would have approved."

Carlen smiled weakly. "Perhaps."

"He wanted the child to live. You saw to that."

"Well, her grand dad had more than a little to do with it."

Maena looked again at the child and in that moment of silence lived the sweetest peace. The smell of warm milk and swaddling.

"You're leaving tonight."

"Yes."

"What have you come for?"

"To say good-bye."

"It's more than that."

Carlen felt the warmth drain out of her. "Information."

Maena nodded but her attention was on the child. Carlen waited, watching Athie whose eyes were planted on her. Her suckles became more sporadic and at last her eyelids began to droop.

Maena gently extracted the infant from her breast and handed her up to the attending nurse who placed Athie in the crib. Maena watched after and, once the baby was settled, turned her full attention to Carlen.

"Now. What's this information you need?" she asked, unself-consciously tucking her breast back in her robe.

When Carlen failed to respond, Maena turned a look on the nurse who took the cue and left. Maena turned back to Carlen.

"It's these people," she said and Carlen nodded.

"Yes. I need to know more."

"Why?"

Carlen said nothing but stared at her in fixed determination.

Maena sighed. "Alright, Carlen."

The two women stared into each other's eyes, Maena's unique mind reaching for the connection, Carlen's straining to meet it.

"Not names, Carlen," Maena said. "I need pictures."

Carlen made a mental correction and put an image of Dalroy up to her mind's eye. Almost immediately Maena responded with a flood of images that covered all of Dalroy's history.

When Carlen felt she had enough, she withdrew Dalroy's image and put up Nolty's. Once again she was quickly rewarded. She saw the picture of a younger Nolty passing through several situations and she realized that, with the exception of rank and license, Nolty was no more and no less than he had been on the outside - one hell of an astute and dangerous interrogator. It amused Carlen to discover that Nolty actually had been an officer of the NCL and that even they had deemed him too fanatical in his practices to be of further use to them. Hence, his internment in Newcity. It made her wonder how much any of them had really changed.

When she had enough on Nolty, Carlen replaced his image with a picture of Kick. Maena did not respond right away. Carlen strained to clarify the definition of Kick's mashed features but, rather than becoming stronger, the picture faded. Maena had replaced it with an almost perfect image of the Whipmaster.

Carlen sat, amazed, as strong impressions of color flashed through her mind. Red, black, and passing flashes of light. Reflections? Yes. Reflections. Mirrors.

She saw the impression of two young men. Both blondes. Both perfectly familiar yet unfamiliar to her. As she wrestled to get the location and the identities straight, the entire scene burst into an inferno of orange flames.

"My God," she murmured, and Maena sagged back into the pillows with a sigh.

"What was the identity of the other man?"

Maena released a labored breath. "His name was Jason."

"Jason..." Carlen whispered, and there dawned in her eyes a very personal shock and anguish.

She paused for only an instant before her eyes darted back and she seized Maena's wrist. "There's one more."

Maena looked at her dubiously but Carlen wasn't going to be put off.

"Alright," Maena sighed at last.

Carlen put Kick's picture up again and this time she got the results she sought as Maena relayed a very clear and detailed run down of Kick's history into her consciousness. Carlen was taking it all in with voracious interest when Maena abruptly withdrew again and the picture went black. Carlen's brow furrowed.

"That's not all," she said, trying not to sound anxious. "You haven't given me his crime."

"You've seen enough."

"No, I haven't! I need to know his crime!"

Maena was shaking her head. She looked a little ill. "You don't want to hear this," she said, looking away.

"Tell me. Damn it, Maena, tell me!"

Maena glanced up, a sick cast to her eyes. The statement was hardly more than a whisper.

Carlen's forehead smoothed out. She drew in her breath, held it a second, then released it slowly.

"Thanks. Thanks."

She was about to go.

"You don't want to know about the other?"

"What other?"

"The one who's initial is 'J'."

"Jaim?"

"Yes."

"There's no real need."

"I thought you might like to know."

"Know what?"

"He's something of a hero of yours."

"A hero!"

"He wrote that song you gave the Dealer."

The color drained from Carlen's face. "...Jaim is Sebastian?"

Maena nodded.

"Well, I'll be fucked. You know, there was always something... Jesus Christ."

"There's something else."

"What?"

"He's left the city."

"Left, you say?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You'd probably know the answer to that better than I would."

Carlen gave a thoughtful nod. Yeah, maybe.

Carlen moved again as though to stand but Maena gripped her wrist. "Carlen-" There was a strange intensity to her eyes. "You ought to know that the people you left behind are all as scared as you are. I know this won't stop you. The move you make tonight is part of your destiny. Go collect what is yours. It's your heritage. But please, make your peace and come back."

"Belamy may not let me back in," Carlen said gently.

"He will," Maena said. "After tonight a lot will be changed. You must come back. I want my daughter to know you. You're as much her parent as I am."

Carlen gave a humorless smile. "Maena, I am not parent material."

"Promise me, Carlen."

Carlen looked at her a moment. "If, by some unnatural fluke of luck, I should survive this, I'll come back. I promise."

She squeezed Maena's hand. Very tightly. Raised it to her lips and kissed it firmly. "Good-bye, dear friend."

She stood up suddenly and moved to the door.

"Carlen-" Maena called, arresting her one last time. "Don't let him use you to cast light on his darkness. And don't let his darkness dowse your light. He wants you, Carlen... and something in you wants something of him."

Carlen nodded slightly and disappeared out the door.

Jeannie was waiting in the tunnel. "Time?"

"Time."

Jeannie nodded solemnly and they started down the passage.

"Do you have a mirror in your room?"

"Yes."

"Do you think you could bring it to me?"

"Yes."

"Good."

* * *

While Jeannie and Carlen put the finishing touches on Carlen's preparations, the Old Time Man confronted Belamy Lynne.

"You must release Carlen."

"Release her?" Belamy gave a cruel little laugh. "With the knowledge she has of us? This place? I can't do that."

"You let her out with Maena."

"I knew where she was. She was under surveillance."

"You don't want her here. There's no point in detaining her. You should let her go back to the streets, where she belongs."

"In chains is where she belongs, old man. She's going to get us all fouled up. She'll betray us."

"She respects what's going on here. She won't do anything to endanger it."

"She's hostile!"

"Only towards you."

"She's a junker! She'd sell her soul to get back in the habit."

"She has much more important things on her mind."

Belamy scoffed. "Whatever she has in mind, it can't be too healthy. She's crazy."

The Old Man's eyes sparked. "It's a mistake to think that. She's no crazier than you are."

Belamy's eyes narrowed. "What's this all about?"

"Just know that it's important. She knows she must go. She hasn't asked you yet, but she's making preparations to leave. Tonight."

"Tonight?"

"You've been putting pressure on her to leave. She's leaving."

"No she isn't."

"You've wanted her to leave since she came."

"I've had time to reconsider."

"You think you'll prevent her from going?"

"Yes. By force, if I have to."

"That would be a mistake," the Old Man said coldly. "I warn you, don't make an enemy of her."

Belamy stared at him a moment, his features taut with anger. "Where is she?"

* * *

Carlen leaned back from the mirror. Yes. That was it. She was ready. She stood up.

"Well?"

Jeannie gaped in suppressed horror. "You look fit..."

"To kill?"

Jeannie was overwhelmed. "I would hardly know you."

"That's a relief," Carlen said.

She picked up the bag of salt, ripped the top off and carefully slid it into the pleated pocket on the right leg of her trousers and buttoned the flap down. "Thanks, Jeannie. You've been absolutely wonderful."

"I was glad to do it."

"I know I compromised you and the others. I'm sorry."

"Oh poo! Don't worry about that. It's good for us. We don't get much excitement down here, you know."

The smile looked unnatural on Carlen's new face. "That's just the way I hope it stays," she said.

"Oh - sit down. I have something for your feet."

They sat on the bed and Jeannie rubbed Carlen's feet over with the same ointment the Old Time Man had used for the return to Blacktown.

"How does that feel?"

"It's good. Should help a lot. Thanks for thinking of it."

"I only wish you had let me have something done about these feet of yours. They're bound to be a liability."

"Yeah, well I doubt if Belamy would have been into that. He's done as little as possible, you know."

"Well, they won't heal properly the way they are."

"No. I don't imagine they will..."

Jeannie wrapped Carlen's feet much the same way the Old Man had and gave her two pain killers for good measure. Carlen pulled on the socks and boots.

She packed the boot knife, strapped the belt and holster on, slung the quiver and bag straps around her shoulder and tied a black headband around her head.

"That's it," she said and Jeannie nodded.

There was an awkward silence.

"Well," Carlen sighed.

"Well," Jeannie echoed.

Another pause.

"Do you want me to see you out?"

"No. I think it would be better if you stay here. Besides, you need to get some rest."

Jeannie nodded and again they seemed at a loss for words.

"Well, thanks again, Jeannie. Thank the others for me."

Jeannie nodded once more then, quite spontaneously, embraced Carlen tightly. "It's been a real experience meeting you. I wish you all the luck you'll need," she whispered.

"You've been a real friend," Carlen said.

"I hope to see you again."

"Ha! Don't jinx yourself," Carlen said, hesitated, then picked up the crossbow and passed out the door.

* * *

Belamy Lynne strode down the tunnel way, burning with fears and angers he'd never known before. He'd put a stop to this. Once and for all. He would not allow this woman to turn his world upside down. Not allow her to challenge his authority or interfere with all he had built. Damn it. He would not allow it.

But when she appeared at the intersection up ahead, an unexpected coldness caused him to stop. The clothes, the weapons, her eyes... She looked unearthly, frightening, and, although he actually saw nothing, Belamy was aware of a sudden darkening. A shadow obscuring everything he had ever been sure of.

The tension wound up a little tighter inside him, squeezing at his anger and his determination to slam her down for good. She had seemed so close to collapse, but now... Something had changed in her and he could not decide if it was for the better.

He knew where she got the weapons and the clothes, and what she must have done to get them. He knew these realizations should have fortified his fury, but his words were suddenly dammed up as if he'd been struck dumb. The words meant nothing. His hatred of her and all she stood for, his anger, all flat. Impotent.

He wasn't sure where she intended to go or what she intended to do, but he knew she could not be stopped. Not by him. Not by anything. He now knew he would not try to stop her. Even from returning to Shelta, if she ever decided to.

In that one instant he knew all this and it made him feel more insecure than ever before in his life. He realized he'd never known a moment of true fear until the moment he first laid eyes on this woman. Everything that was certain would be leaving with her. It was all with her and he finally understood, at least in part, what the Black girl had been trying to tell him. He still wanted to reject it, but he knew there was nothing he could do to change it.

"Are you going to show me the way out?" Carlen asked and it was evident she expected no argument.

Belamy paused, gave a curt nod, then turned and started back down the tunnel. Carlen silently followed.

* * *

The Old Time Man might have been knocked down in the collision had he not sensed the boy's rapid approach and pressed back into the tunnel wall as Darion swung around the corner. It seemed he would hurry on, steeped in his adolescent concerns, oblivious to the old man's presence. But he stopped and turned, his beautiful face cramped in anxiety.

"You," he charged. "You brought that woman down here."

"That would be...Carlen?"

"Carlen," he tested the syllables on his tongue.

"What about her?"

"Do you know where she is?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I've looked everywhere-"

"That's a lot of looking."

"Everyone's in bed-"

"And so should you be."

"No! I have to..."

Have to Have to Have to...

This boy and Carlen? What could he possibly 'Have to'? Well, what the lad had to was be dissuaded from interest in Carlen.

"She's leaving, you know," he said softly.

"Leaving! When?"

"Tonight."

"Tonight! She can't!"

She can't. CAN'T.

"Did you think she'd be staying?"

"Well, no, but..."

So soon? So soon? No. No No No No No!

The Old Man touched his fingertips to his temple as though to still the banging in his head.

"Will she come back?"

"I don't know."

Come back? Stupid. Why would she? She wouldn't. She won't. No. No no no... Too late!

The dialogue was leading nowhere, the boy's internal monologue incomprehensible. He should be dismissed and sent off to his safe bed. The Old Man had someplace to be.

But he couldn't move. He could make no sense of Darion's emotional turmoil over a virtual stranger, but there was one glimmer of revelation in all this that was so clear it was almost blinding - the depth of the ache in his soul. A revelation visible only to one who could empathize with it.

"It's best to forget her," he said gently.

"Forget her?"

Unbidden, another insight pierced the Old Man's psyche. More coherent than the rest of the jangling, it echoed up from the dark well of the young man's misery.

I don't know what choices you have...

His breath caught as the Old Man absorbed this second revelation. It had sounded in a different voice and suddenly things clicked into place.

The poor boy had no idea how to articulate what he was feeling. No real idea what it was he felt. No matter. He was as transparent as glass.

The Old Time Man understood a great deal about a great many things, but in this case... My Lord, he thought.

"She's hooked you in."

"Hooked me into what?"

That was the question alright.

The Old Man sighed. "You better come with me."

"What? No! Not Belamy."

The Old Man started down the tunnel way. "No," he said. "Not Belamy."

* * *

Belamy Lynne paused at one of the main three way junctions. "Which direction are you going?"

"East."

He took the right hand tunnel and did not speak again until they reached the end where he stopped and turned to her.

"If you should decide to come back, use this entrance. But remember, if you're being followed you won't be admitted."

"Fair enough."

"And if you betray us I will kill you. Some way."

"I know that."

"...I may have been wrong about you."

"Common enough mistake these days. Don't lose any sleep over it."

"It doesn't bother me to admit I hope I never see or hear of you again."

"Well, it's entirely possible you won't."

"I wish you no harm."

"I know and I do appreciate your efforts to help."

That seemed to be it.

Belamy turned and punched in the key code. The pressure lock released and the hatch opened. Carlen stepped through. The first hatch closed, the second opened and she was out.

* * *

Belamy was already at the junction when one of the men met him there.

"Did you just open the northeast hatch?"

"Yes. I let the slave out."

"Well, somebody used that access not ten minutes ago."

"Who?"

"The old man."

"Oh," Belamy said with disinterest.

"But someone left with him."

"With him? Who?"

"The boy."

"Boy! What boy?"

"Darion."

"Darion!" Belamy's head snapped around. He cast his eyes down the empty tunnel way. "Damn! Damn it!"

"Should I send someone after them?"

Belamy made a sound of disgust. "No. It's too late. ...Damn her."

CHAPTER 69 \- PRELIM

Carlen was sitting atop a rubble pile when Darion and the Old Man came around the corner. The Old Man quickly pulled Darion back and they hunkered down out of sight, observing her silhouette against the backdrop of shadow and reflection from the buildings behind her.

"Why is she sitting there?" Darion asked, bobbing up to get a better view. "What's she doing?"

"Eating an orange."

"Now? What for?"

"Give her energy."

Darion sighed, fidgety and nervous, not knowing in which direction to look first.

The Old Man watched Carlen. She ate the whole orange, skin and all, save one piece of peeling he saw her tuck into the left leg pocket of her pants. She wiped her hands on the knees of her trousers, her mouth too, then she paused to sniff the scent of the fresh orange against the dressed twill.

Then, in one fluid movement, she stretched up to full height. She surveyed the night, her feet planted on that precarious mound like some urban mountain goat, her stance as proud and defiant as any man's in town.

The sight of her like that put a gleam in Darion's eyes, although it would be a long time before he understood fully what was to occur this night.

Then - poof! She dropped over the edge and out of sight. The Old Man gave the boy a push.

* * *

The Park was close. Only a three block walk to the northwest corner. The mist on the street was still low and thin but the Park was nearly hip deep in it. Carlen traveled along Park North Avenue, from shadow to shadow to the northwest gate where she crossed the street and entered the Park.

There was no resisting the surge of emotion and memory that rushed her psyche as the mists billowed in around her. She was struck by the polarity of time, approach and intent between this and her last pilgrimage in this sacred domain. How much her motives had changed. How much everything had changed.

* * *

The darkness was almost overpowering and Carlen would have faltered in the face of it had she not been so sure of her path. She knew where the light would be found and she was going directly to it. She stuck to the main walkways using a stick she'd picked up for sonar against the asphalt. The trek through the mist on those dead, invisible feet was an unforgettable experience.

She didn't have to climb the Zoo gates. They were open. Couldn't have been easier. She just walked in - almost as though she'd been expected.

The Compound was clear. Sparse mist, no people. Carlen made her way over to the southern complex where the Whipmaster's horse was housed. The lights were on. No one was there.

Nice stable. Lots of room, lots of straw. The horse was in.

Carlen crouched by one of the support beams near the mare's stall. She took a small box out of the canvas bag and settled it in against the base of the beam, a nice bedding of straw covering it.

Next she crossed to the northern complex near the west gate where two buildings formed a dark corridor. Formerly storage and administration, these buildings had been converted to housing for compound personnel.

As Carlen slipped into the geometric shadows cast by the concrete structures she was acutely aware of the dangers of patronizing this part of the Compound, but she also sensed that this was not the place she was likely to find Nolty.

The corridor was nearly pitch black, with only a couple of squares of light emanating from one or two open doorways. The occasional murmuring of voices - those off duty for the night.

Carlen crept along, sticking close to the wall, her palms already damp and clammy. This was an absurd situation. How the hell was she supposed to find these men, anyway? Go up to one of the doors and enquire? 'Pardon me, but do you happen to know where I can locate my first victim of the night?' like that. Oh really-

Carlen flattened into the wall. Someone was coming. Long, steady stride. Carlen was so panicked she nearly convinced herself it was Nolty. She rested her head back, drew two deep, silent breaths. No. The stride was longer than Nolty's and there was a detectable accent. It was Olean. He was coming straight toward her.

Carlen remained still as death, praying the shadow was deep enough to obscure her. Olean walked right by. Never saw her at all. Hadn't the vaguest idea how closely mortality stalked.

As Carlen watched him proceed past her, she realized this was the only moment there would be. She started after him on silent creeping feet, her fingers curling around the grips of the palm daggers. The left eye, she kept telling herself, and she realized the Old Time Man had been right. Right time, right position. Slick as ice, except-

The instant of impact she knew she'd struck him wrong. On one side, at least. The left dagger had hit low, fouling the quick success she needed so badly.

Olean's right arm hung unresponsively at his side, but his left arm was moving. Instinctively Carlen knew it was his secondary hand and she praised the heavens for this extra, undeserved chance.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to Olean before she yanked the blade free and stabbed him again, this time fatally.

His emaciated skeleton slid down between Carlen's clutching arms. It was a poor kill, yet, holding the man so intimately now, she realized not so premature. Olean was wasted with cancer. She could feel it.

She deposited the body, as per the Old Man's instructions, and moved on in search of Jinx, by no means as confident about the next encounter as she would have liked.

Down the other end of the corridor Carlen found a small niche at the base of a staircase where she concealed herself. She was close to the entrance of the corridor and the path here was diagonally sliced by light from one of the Compound lamps. Carlen's niche was on the dark side so, providing Jinx was moving in the right direction - that is, from light to dark - all should be well. Providing...

A hundred doubts crowded her mind as she stood there waiting, such as: How could that old man possibly know beforehand what the movements of these men would be tonight? Olean had been there, but what were the chances of that being purely coincidental? What guarantee was there he could have been right about that? Or right about where Jinx was likely to turn up and when? And, all that aside, considering the botch up she'd made with Olean, what were her chances of making a clean, quiet job of it on Jinx who was younger, always packed, and who she was supposedly going to take face to face?

She seemed to be standing there clutching these fears for an interminable time although it had only been about three minutes. She was about ready to pack it in and quit the whole egotistical game when she was frozen to stillness by a sound, very faint, at first. A jingling sort of sound. The sort of sound made by two silver charms dangling at the end of a fob chain. Jinx was coming, just as the Old Time Man said he would.

Carlen's hand tightened around the stock of the crossbow. With her free hand she reached into her pocket for the cigarette the Old Man had given her. The jingling got closer, as though tolling a predetermined cue to signal the entrance of the next player. There was something unholy about the way these two men walked directly into the line of Carlen's foreknowledge - or, more specifically, the Old Man's foreknowledge. It made Carlen uncomfortable but she knew she could not have done without it.

Just as Jinx reached the end of the staircase, Carlen stepped out, directly into his path. She raised the cigarette.

"Got a light?"

"You startled me."

"Sorry."

Jinx reached into his pocket for the matches. The gun was with him, comfortably nestled up under his left breast.

"Who are you? Haven't seen you around."

"Freelancer," Carlen said. "But I'm marked."

"That right?" The matches were stuck in his pocket.

"And so are you."

Carlen raised the bow and released the bolt. Into his heart. Point blank. He made a horrible sound in his throat and Carlen stepped aside as he toppled.

She dragged Jinx back into the corner she'd emerged from. He wouldn't be spotted there until daylight and that gave her plenty of time. The rest was up to her.

CHAPTER 70 \- END GAME

Carlen went to the heart of the Compound, the promenade, one place she knew Dalroy frequented. Dalroy was there tonight. Carlen knew it. They were all there.

She'd already passed Cage 7 and traveled about halfway down in search of an entrance to the interior when she stopped abruptly, cocked an ear, then quickly tucked herself in behind the spectator wall.

The jaunty clip of Dalroy's step was coming down the walk. Jesus. She'd been right behind her! And she walked right by. She never saw Carlen's black figure rise up and appear over the railing.

"Hey Spiker!"

Dalroy pulled up and wheeled. Instant recognition. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Carlen fired the tranq pistol, striking Dalroy in the shoulder. She tottered drunkenly, then hit the pavement with a thud. There was a slight stirring in the cages as Carlen retrieved the dart, bent to hoist Dalroy over her shoulder and carried her off the promenade.

The nearest entrance led to the Cold Room where Carlen dumped Dalroy on the floor and stripped her. Within ten minutes the scene was set for the entrance of the third player.

Carlen stood in shadow beside the vertical beam bolted to The Table, softly whistling the tune of "Rule Britannia". It was a small sound but it carried well through the cement lined catacombs of the interior. She had not long to wait before her prey was lured by the call of it.

Kick stepped through the crack in the doorway sideways. One step. Two steps, and he was in. Carlen stopped whistling. Kick hesitated, squinting through the semi-darkness. He sensed something was wrong, that was evident. What a pity he didn't sense the danger. He moved further into the room, apparently assured of his ability to deal with the mystery, whatever it proved to be.

He stepped closer, straining with his eyes, his head cocked, listening. Closer, and a little more, until he was about three feet from the base of The Block. Carlen saw him tense and draw up with a discomfort he could not define.

"Easy does it," she murmured in a tone that raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

He moved into the small circle of light created by candles set about on the floor, squinting harder.

"Who is it?" he whispered. "Who's there?"

He'd apparently mistaken Carlen for Dalroy or Nolty and the thing arched awkwardly over The Block for some Compound creature. He utterly ignored it. It was the figure in the shadows that interested him. Drew him closer. "Dalroy?"

Carlen stepped into the light, the crossbow leveled at his chest. Kick's features were a comedic play in confusion until, finally, the clouds cleared and his eyes blazed with the ferocity Carlen remembered so well.

"You! You went to the Dealer..."

"The Dealer's dead - and you're right in range."

His features sagged in disbelief.

"Disarm."

Kick hesitated a second, took in the sight of the crossbow, then slowly unbuckled his utility belt and dropped it to the floor.

"And the rest."

Kick unloaded three more concealed blades.

"Back up, boyo."

Kick began slowly stepping away. Carlen followed.

"Right to the wall."

Kick complied.

"Now, bend over and pick up one of those collars."

"What for?"

"Your neck, you ingrate!"

"They're too small. I'll never get it on."

"Force it."

Kick picked up an iron collar from the floor and raised it to his neck. He had to readjust it twice before it finally locked into place with a satisfying click.

"Sit down."

Kick bumped to the floor on his behind, hitting his back against the wall. Carlen moved over to the slide attachment and pulled the chain up taut to keep Kick flush to the wall.

"Now don't move. At all," she cautioned.

Kick shook his head slowly.

Carlen moved over to check on Dalroy. "You see, we have another guest. It would be impolite to commence without her."

"What are you talking about?" Kick demanded.

"Down boy. It's not your turn at questions."

Carlen turned away momentarily to set down the bow and pick up a stiff cored whip she had chosen from the wall beforehand. There was a weak moan and she turned back to Dalroy just as she blinked awake. Carlen stared into her face, patiently awaiting the dawn of recognition in Dalroy's eyes.

"Carlen?"

"Right first time, old mate. Comfy?"

"What the hell-"

"I was just telling your comrade-at-arms, here, that his term at questions is ended. And so is yours."

Dalroy raised her head in an attempt to sit up and was suddenly made aware of the restraints that held her stretched over The Block. Panic sparked in her eyes and she gave a mighty pull. Pulled again.

"If you keep that up, my dear, you'll strain yourself. And, besides, I want your full attention."

At the first vibration of Dalroy's angry shout, Carlen slashed her across the stomach with the whip. Dalroy let out a yelp, jerking at the restraints.

"Kick?" she called, straining her neck up to catch sight of him.

"I'm here," he called back sullenly.

"For Chrissake, do something!"

"I can't do nothing!" he snapped angrily.

Carlen seized Dalroy's throat and forced her head back. "I can kill you right now, Dalroy. Want to choose a way?"

Dalroy shook her head as best she could.

"Keep your voice down."

Carlen's hand lifted off. The coldness left her tone, replaced by an inflection of greased sarcasm. "Well. Isn't this cozy? Just the three of us, reunited at last."

"What the fuck are you up to, Carlen?"

"Don't jump the gun, boyo. Savor the moment..."

"You're a fool," he said darkly.

"A fool to have allowed myself to be hauled in here in the first place."

"You shouldn't have come back."

"No place else for me to go, dear boy."

"You'll be caught here."

"Caught? I don't think so."

"Nolty."

"Who says Nolty's even available?" she said, hoping to God she was right.

"The Master, then."

"Oh. Well, I know what time it is and he's probably busy hassling the shit out of some lady right now... Besides, he doesn't really come down here much, now does he?"

Nobody argued.

"We've got the place to ourselves! All the time we need."

"Time for what?" Kick demanded.

"A game. I know how keen on games you both are."

"Ah, Carlen!" Dalroy whined. "What the hell is this all about?"

"One more question, Dalroy, and I might have to bring that horsewhip over here..."

Dalroy froze. One of Kick's legs slid down to the floor.

"I'll ask the questions," Carlen said chillingly. "You need only respond with a 'Yes' or a 'No'." She stroked the shaft of the whip down Dalroy's thigh. "That's pretty direct, isn't it?"

"Yes," Dalroy hissed.

"You'll like this game. We've played it before. It's called 'What's My Crime?'."

She heard Kick relinquish a sigh.

"Ladies first. Suppose you tell us if Dalroy is your real name."

"This'll be the end of you, Carlen," Dalroy said, trying to sound sure of it.

She gasped as Carlen sliced her across the thighs with the whip.

"Attention! Your part is to answer Yes or No. That's it. Shall I repeat the question?"

Dalroy released a shuddering sigh. "Yes," she said. "That's my name."

"I see. Is it your Christian name? Or is it your family name? Oh! That's right! You never had a family, did you? Dump site birth, weren't you?"

Nothing.

"Weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Brought up in a ghetto, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Now you're getting the idea."

The chain rang against the wall as Kick shifted.

"I'm coming to you," Carlen called over darkly. "Just keep your bum still and listen. You might learn something."

She turned back to Dalroy who was beginning to ache from the unnatural contortion Carlen had bound her into over The Block.

"Where was I? Oh yes. It's generally known throughout the Sector that you were put away for arson. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Slum burning. Right?"

"Yes."

"But this is inaccurate, isn't it?"

Carlen knew Dalroy would balk at the question. She lay a slash across Dalroy's nipple.

"Yes!" Dalroy yelped.

"The fact is, you couldn't set a decent fire if your life depended on it, could you?"

"No."

"Fine," Carlen said with a nod. "All we have to do is figure out where your true talent, if any, actually lies..."

Dalroy released another labored breath.

"Around this Sector those in the know refer to you as a Spiker, don't they?"

"Yes."

"May we assume that the term 'Spiker' is a derivative of the verb 'to spike'?"

Silence.

"Answer the question," Carlen coaxed.

"A... yeah."

"Ah! And, therefore, the action 'to spike' pertains to some activity you perform?"

"I s'pose."

"Now we're getting somewhere." Carlen paced in a small, slow drawn circle, as if pondering some weighty point. She stopped and looked up. "Could 'procure' be an alternative for the term 'spike'?"

"...Yes," Dalroy sighed reluctantly.

"Well, now. Procuring is something you do have a talent for, isn't it?"

Carlen began pacing again, this time around The Block. "You complained to me of overcrowding in ghetto life, isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"A whole lot of unwanted people. Right?"

"Yeah."

"But - there are still places where people are in demand, aren't there? Certain people in particular, wouldn't you say?"

"I guess-"

"Yes or No!"

"...yes."

"Now, let me guess... These people... They wouldn't happen to fall into the classification of children, ages twelve and under, now would they?"

"I couldn't sa-"

"Tell me, Dalroy!"

"Yes! Alright. Yes."

"In fact, the further under the age of twelve the better. Right?"

"Yes!"

"A child procurer!"

"...Yes."

"What were these children for, Dalroy? Pornography?"

"Yes."

"Prostitution? Slavery?"

"Yes."

"Snuff tracks?"

"I don't-"

"Don't tell me you don't know."

"...yes."

Dalroy flinched as Carlen leaned in and spat in her face. "You cunt."

Carlen slowly straightened, glimpsing the hope that was fading from Dalroy's eyes. She ambled over to Kick.

"Now to you..." One look at him told her he was ripe. He was tense, ready for anything, but his eyes had the rolling distrust of a whipped dog.

"Your case is somewhat different, isn't it? Let me see if I've got it right... I think it's safe to assume you fled to this country to escape arrest and subsequent prosecution for crimes committed in your own country. Right so far?"

"Yeah," Kick said roughly.

"And these crimes included armed robbery, forced entry, vandalism, rape and murder, mostly committed during Corkblack night raids. Correct?"

"How the hell did you-"

"Didn't they!"

"Yeah."

"Uh-huh. So, you came over here, into the midst of all the chaos, and just started it all up again."

Kick dropped back into sullenness.

"I'll bet you had yourself set up pretty well, too. A man with so many advantages. White, English, uninvolved. Still, you've killed your share of Blacks, haven't you? I know how deep your hatred runs. But who gave a flying fuck about that back then, eh? Christ, it was the national sport!" She softened ever so slightly. "I imagine you murdered your share of Whites, too, didn't you darlin'?"

"Yeah. So what?"

"Nothing at all. Just one ongoing party for a man like you. But you took it beyond that, didn't you? Perhaps for a man like you the whole killing thing took on the edge of necessity. Hm?"

"Carlen," he growled dangerously.

"All that death. So many bodies. So much blood... You developed quite a taste for it, didn't you?"

There was murder in his eyes.

"Hey, Dalroy!" Carlen called over. "You think you know this fucker? Think you got an idea the sort of company you've been keeping? I wonder if you know what your 'colleague's' favorite sport is... besides the beating, raping and torturing of helpless women... Do you know?"

"No."

Carlen turned her cold eyes back on Kick. "He's a fucking cannibal. Ain't that right, darlin'?"

Kick glowered. "I'm going to kill you, Carlen."

"Missed your chance, dear boy."

She savored Kick's pulsing enmity a moment longer before her features relaxed into the sweetest smile.

"Well. This has been fun, kiddies, it truly has, but it's time to get down to cases."

"Carlen, what are you going to do?" Dalroy pleaded, by now desperately uncomfortable.

"Game's over. Time for sentencing."

"What?" Kick demanded.

"We've established your crimes. Now I'm going to pass sentence."

"Like fucking hell-"

"You first," Carlen interjected, looking at Kick.

His eyes narrowed. "Why don't you kill her first? She turned you over."

"I like you better," Carlen said. "Besides, you'd enjoy that too much."

"Bitch."

"You don't know the half of it, darlin'..." Carlen rejoined softly.

She paced away for a moment, as though in thought, then swung back to him, her finger pointed. "You, I sentence to... a mid-night snack!" Her quick smile was chilling.

"What?"

"Stretch your legs out."

Kick hesitated a moment then complied slowly.

"Good. Now spread 'em."

Cautiously Kick moved his legs out to right angles.

Carlen turned away and traded the whip for the bow. She crouched down and rummaged through the pile of weaponry Kick had deposited on the floor. Finally she picked up a Balisong fighting knife and rotated the butterfly smoothly open.

"Nice," she remarked. "Pity..."

She slipped the shaft of the blade under the corner of The Block and pulled up on the handle. The blade bent in the middle and she repeated the process with the point. She stood up and tossed the open knife down between Kick's legs.

"Now, you know that bird'll never fly straight again, but just in case you get it in mind to fling it at me anyway, you might consider how very fast the bolt will spring from this bow - and, believe me, I'll see to it you die slow."

She gave him a minute to think it over.

"Now, pick it up."

Kick's hand was shaking as he reached for the knife.

"Cut the leg of your trousers open."

Kick looked ready to protest but changed his mind. The crossbow was leveled at his abdomen. The heavy material of the pants slipped from his fingers as he tried to push the bent point of the knife through without injuring the leg inside. The material finally gave way and Kick slit the pant leg down to the knee.

"Across a bit."

With a dour look, Kick bent to the task. Rivers of sweat ran down his sides under his shirt. He tried to douse the dark ideas he was having about what might be going on. He wrestled with the tough material until both sides of the slash were split and torn, forming an open cross on his leg.

"Tuck it back a bit."

With an angry sigh, Kick folded the corners of the material under so that his thigh lay exposed.

Carlen smiled slightly. "Now carve."

"What?" His voice was nearly a shriek.

"I hope you like it raw..." she said softly.

"Oh God," Dalroy whimpered softly.

"You're crazy!" Kick shouted.

Carlen's smile broadened, and she laughed out loud. "That's a good one! I'm glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humor." The smile evaporated. "Start cutting."

"It's impossible!"

"It's not. It all depends on how badly you want to stay alive."

"You're going to kill me anyway."

"Did I say that?"

"It's what you came for, isn't it?"

"You flatter yourself. What do you suppose I really came for?"

"I don't know. What?"

"Revenge, you Neanderthal defect! You've accrued a sizable debt with me, you tree jumping freak! I want satisfaction. My pound of flesh, so to speak. You might live..."

She gave pause, allowing him time to assimilate, then she gave one more push. "Carve. Don't be stingy."

Kick's shaking hand pressed the blade to his leg. The trembling and the bend in the blade forced him to take away more than he intended. His brow furrowed in terrified amazement as the piece he'd cut came away in his hand.

"Take a bite," Carlen ordered.

He may have been in shock then, it was hard to tell, but Carlen watched as he raised his hand up to his opening mouth, accompanied by Dalroy's desperate chorus of "Christ-Christ-Christ!" in the background.

"That's enough," Carlen said. "Put it down."

Kick placed the remains on the floor in front of him.

"Now, roll up your sleeve."

Kick was nearly in tears. "Christ, Carlen! You're insane!"

"We've established that. Now, roll it up!"

The grinding of Kick's teeth was an audible crack in the silence as Kick complied again and the procedure was repeated.

By the time two small pieces of flesh lay on the floor between Kick's legs, along with the knife and his bloodied, fumbling hands, the man was crying openly.

"Satisfied now, you vicious bitch?" he sobbed softly.

"Not quite."

Kick glanced up, his face crumpled and streaked like that of a small boy. The anger drained away and all that remained was fear.

"Not quite a pound left now, is there?" Carlen said callously.

Kick stared at her in miserable confusion.

"Cut your fly open."

"Ah, no. No! Fuck you! Kill me! Go on! It makes no difference!"

Carlen said nothing. She reached into the pocket of her pant leg, scooped out a handful of salt and casually tossed it into the open wound on Kick's leg. He glanced down quizzically then suddenly arched back, as if to escape the burn.

"You bitch! You BITCH!"

He writhed and pitched, his hands clutched around his leg. Carlen observed his torment with cool detachment until he calmed somewhat, pinning her with a malevolent look.

"You said you'd let me live!" he gasped.

"I said you might."

"A pound of flesh, you said. You said you weren't going to kill me!"

"I'm not," Carlen said smoothly. "You are."

"...Me? ...Ah, no. I won't do it!"

Carlen leaned forward slightly. "If you don't do it," she said softly, "I'll do it myself. But it'll be more than a pound - starting with the tip of your nose..."

Carlen waited, sadistically monitoring the kaleidoscopic effect of his reaction. She fed on every transition from the emboldening aspects right down to the ultimate and final defeat. Dalroy's weak pants sounded dimly in the leaden silence.

At last Kick's hand reached for the knife. He pulled the crotch of his pants well out in front of him and hacked a large, angry slash through it. Then he dropped his hands and looked up at Carlen, as if for further instructions.

"You know what to do - lover."

A few seconds after the final incision, Kick sagged to unconsciousness, his life's blood draining into a pool between his legs.

Carlen emptied the bolt into his chest and reloaded the bow. With hardly a backward glance at Kick, she turned to Dalroy.

She came alongside The Block and stared down into Dalroy's face, the bow lowered at her side. Dalroy's features were drawn, her lips puckered and white. The three welts from the whip had risen to blood blisters which stood out prominently on her pale skin.

"He dead?" she whispered in a tone of near reverence.

"Oh yes."

Dalroy lapped dryly at her lips. Her forehead stood out in cold beady sweat. "What about me?"

"Yes. What about you?"

"Come on, Carlen! We were friends!"

"We were never that."

"I took you in! Looked out for you! It was you that turned on me!"

"I never hurt you."

Dalroy's dry tongue lapped again.

"Betrayal, Dalroy. That's the crime you're being sentenced for. Deviants like you make me want to puke. Things like you that turn on their own kind. Things that sell infants for a few measly bucks! You're shit, Dalroy. Sewage. You deserve to be wrecked and you deserve to know why."

"I never laid a hand on you, Carlen. Not really."

"No, of course not. You'd fucked it up too badly. But never mind. Leave it to the others to sort me out and do away with me. Let somebody else sweep away your mistake. And it was a mistake, Dalroy. I survived..."

"So what now?" Dalroy challenged, but her stomach turned sickly at the return of Carlen's smile.

"Why don't you tell us about your sex life?" Carlen murmured sweetly.

A small cry sounded in Dalroy's throat.

"Tell me, Dalroy, have you ever been fucked by a man?"

Dalroy was askance, as if she were unsure whether or not to answer.

"Well?"

"No."

"I imagine it's because you never bathe," Carlen said with distaste. "There's really not much to be said for your miserable life, is there?"

Dalroy squirmed.

"Would you like to know your sentence?"

Dalroy froze.

"I've got something very special for you..."

Carlen crooked up her arm and Dalroy's eyes nearly popped out at the sight of the bow and the four bladed broadhead Carlen had loaded into it. Once Carlen was sure of her effect, she walked slowly to the foot of The Block. Dalroy craned her neck up to see.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, knowing but still not believing.

Carlen stepped back slightly. "I'm going to give you something you've always wanted."

"What...?" Dalroy began but faltered.

Carlen leveled the crossbow between Dalroy's opened legs. "A taste of me," she said and released the bolt.

Dalroy contracted rigidly, a strangled sigh lodged in her throat. An instant later she went slack.

By the time the last twitches had ceased in Dalroy's legs, Carlen was already gone.

* * *

Although he was the most vital part of this phase, Nolty was the hardest to find. He hadn't turned up in any of the places she'd been so far. Apart from the Whipmaster's chamber, where was he likely to be? So much about Nolty was still a mystery. He was the last loose thread and he could really hang her if he found her before she found him.

She stalked the catacombs of the main complex for twenty-five minutes but there was no sign of him. Too long. It was taking too long! Was it possible she was wrong? That he actually wasn't on the compound tonight? Maena had said things would be the way she wanted them. That included Nolty. Had to. Without him it would all come to naught. No. Worse. Disaster.

Carlen pressed on, starkly aware of every second wasting. This search was stealing valuable time and she was already thinking she'd have to give it up when she inadvertently stumbled into a square of light from an open doorway. She froze in her tracks, looked in - and there he was.

He was stripped to the waist, half crouched over a small table at the head of a single bed against the right wall, which was the first thing there was from the doorway. His eyes caught her instantly and instantly he knew. Oh yes. Nolty had always known she was the enemy.

She stepped into the room, skirting the foot of the bed. She took in what she could but dared not take her eyes off Nolty. So far he hadn't moved.

There was another person in the room. His turn. She was on the floor by the left-hand wall. Carlen didn't know if she was mobile or how she'd react. She steered well clear of her.

She squeezed in a little closer. As close as she dared, as far back as possible, and there she stopped. Everything was frozen.

Carlen noticed only two things in that moment. The disarray of a certain collection of paraphernalia on the table under Nolty's hand and something about Nolty. Something she'd been wrong about. Nolty was marked. Nearly the entire symbol was imprinted on the lower part of his left breast.

She didn't recall being frightened. She must have been numb. She never knew how she got her mouth open to speak and she could never have repeated what she said.

"So many interesting games we could play, but I'm afraid there isn't time. Anyway, you're too damn dangerous to play with. The brief knowledge that you failed with me will have to suffice. Please, take it personally."

Nolty began to rise and Carlen triggered the bolt straight into his forehead. He staggered into the back wall and sank, but his eyes were fixed on Carlen, even as he passed, and she had to wonder if such an apparent malediction actually could be transferred to this life from the next.

"...devil take you," she whispered, reaching back to the quiver for a fresh bolt.

Wrenching her attention away from Nolty, Carlen found herself confronted by the black stare of his woman, crouched by the wall with the glaring distrust of a wild animal.

In a flash Carlen saw herself. The collar, the chain, the God damned wall. She saw the reconfirmation of the woman's enmity towards her. Even still. No, it was greater than before. Graver.

This raw hatred confused Carlen - until she noticed the new markings. Nolty had burned her face, just the same as he'd burned her thigh, with perfect precision. It seemed that the girl's hostility was the focus of a blame, a blame she laid on Carlen like a curse.

Carlen was offended and angered by it. She was certainly never responsible for Nolty's actions... At least, not until she came to the Zoo.

Bright hatred flared up, freely hurling itself at the girl. This nameless girl who once spat on her. Carlen remembered that. Spat on her before she knew anything about anything around here. Yes, she remembered those black eyes, and that magnificent black hair, a lock of which, from root to tip, had since turned completely white. This evidence of the stress the girl must have endured did not detract from her beauty and Carlen couldn't help it. She wanted to kill her. Extinguish that startling beauty forever. She even raised the bow. Yeah. Put the poor creature out of her misery.

Something made her stop. A flash of anger in the girl's eyes. Reproach. Non-understanding. Carlen suddenly realized this girl wanted to run. She was not like the others. She had never given way and now she wanted to fight for life.

Carlen lowered the bow.

"Keys," she said and she followed the turn's eye line to a peg in the wall where the Keeper's keys hung.

Carlen stepped over Nolty's leg, half expecting him to spring back to life and grab her. She made an estimate of the length of the turn's chain and set the keys on the bed. Within reach, but not too close.

She started out.

"By God, I hope you make it," she murmured over her shoulder, not breaking stride as she hooked a bottle of Chivas Regal out of the box by the door.

CHAPTER 71 \- TERMS

On cat paws Carlen crept from the shadows into the circle of light created by the three candles on the table. This was the Master's secretary. The girl who kept the Master's interviews from overlapping. This was the last outpost, the right angled junction of the corridor leading from the exterior to the Master's chamber. Very near now.

The secretary was naked and collared, like the rest of the women, but in this corner she had a table, a chair, and it appeared she even attended to a small amount of paperwork. She also had a bell - it stood on the corner of the table. A warning bell. The secretary's hand was going for it now.

Carlen glided forward and elbowed down on the table, across from the girl. The crossbow was poised between them, the point of the bolt forming a small indentation in the secretary's chest.

The girl was motionless. She didn't even recognize Carlen and Carlen wondered if the girl had ever really looked at her before. She was looking now.

Carlen's voice was barely a vibration. "Is he in there?"

The girl nodded slowly. Carlen mirrored it.

"Alone?"

Again the girl nodded.

"Good. What about you? You want your freedom?"

The woman was a blank. Didn't seem to comprehend.

"Do you want to leave here?" Carlen articulated more slowly. "To run?"

The woman shook her head slightly. Carlen looked her over. She supposed she couldn't blame her. This was a true convert.

"Alright," she said, her modulation carefully confined within the tight circle of intimacy between them. "I'll tell you exactly what you're going to do. You're going to sit here quietly. Very quietly, yes? Anyone who comes in here, wants to see him, you tell them to come back later. Later, you understand? The Master is busy. He does not wish to be disturbed."

The girl nodded with effort.

"And keep your hand off that bell."

The secretary nodded again.

"Don't forget," Carlen forewarned. "Because I won't."

She drew back and moved soundlessly down the passageway. The last passage to the inner sanctum. A passage both larger and smaller than she remembered it. The passage that had brought her in. The passage that had brought her out. And now in again.

A rectangle of light from the inner chamber cast a dim glow across the presentation area up ahead. Not many candles burning tonight. It was very quiet. That emptying silence he was so adept at manifesting.

Carlen stopped a couple of feet shy of the archway, her back pressed to the wall. She carefully lifted a second box out of the satchel, squatted down, the box poised on her knees. She opened the lid, set the mechanism and resettled the lid.

With one hand she slowly reached the box along the wall towards the edge of the archway - not watching the progress of the box she moved with her careful hand, but watching three feet above it with nervous eyes. She was so sure he knew and any instant he'd appear around the corner, catching her again. Catching her - with that look in his eyes.

She glanced down at her hand and gasped a silent oath of terror. The edge of the box was past the corner of the archway. She'd moved it too far!

She drew it back, forcing herself to go slow and not wrench it. Back, just far enough. Right at the edge. Set it down gently, slip fingers out from under, easy, not to let it drop...

It was set. She drew back, rested her head against the wall with a sigh. Her heart was hammering so loud she could hear it. Last phase. Most important. Most dangerous. But there was no going back. No undoing what was now done. The news would not please him. Wouldn't please him at all.

Carlen silently stretched up, pushed away from the wall, raised the crossbow and stepped around into the archway. The Whipmaster was seated on the Stage, his back against the wall, reading. Perfect. It was a full three seconds before he looked up and saw her. His eyes clouded in question and Carlen could almost hear the quick mechanism of his mind clicking over with answers that would drive him mad.

He saw that she still wore the collar he'd made for her. That, still hitched to the chain which now hung down between her breasts and wrapped around her like the belt of a barbarian. That was all that was the same about her.

Her face, smeared cork black as it was, was unrecognizable to him. Even once he was sure of the features, there remained something alien in her eyes and the set of her jaw.

Her hair had grown to length, nearly concealing the earring. She wore sturdy black military style trousers tucked into a pair of suede boots, also black, that must have been custom made for her.

On the top she was laced into a striking black suede vest. Individually inlaid in the vest, framed and stitched into place by custom cut pieces of suede, were fifteen or twenty pieces of what appeared to be broken glass. Even the weak light cast by the candles was deflected back into his eyes by this collage of tiny panes.

He didn't remember that she stood so tall, or so straight. She hadn't been standing that way during her presentation to him and she certainly hadn't been standing that way when she was presented to the Dealer. In between she had done very little standing at all.

The look of her there scared him. The moment of reckoning was at hand. The clothes. The stance. Those eyes. And that crossbow.

"I lied about a couple of things," she said in a voice he'd never heard before. "I'm a perfect marksman. I never miss what I'm aiming at."

She waited to see if he'd do something. He was stillness incarnate.

"How slow can you move?"

His attention was perfect.

"The center chain," she indicated.

He reached up with exceptional care and, as she watched, she was reminded of the poetry of his limbs in motion.

"Round your waist."

Slowly he eased the cold snake around his bare midriff.

"Use the end," Carlen encouraged.

She reached into her pocket for the padlock and tossed it to him. He allowed it to drop to the pelts before attempting to touch it.

"Lock it up."

He snapped the lock in place and held the connection up with his thumb for her to see.

Carlen gave a nod. "So we can both relax."

"You expect me to relax?"

"My expectations will be made evident in due course," she replied, unresponsive to his attempted levity.

She stepped in, stopping about halfway to the grand platform. Looked around carefully. Yeah. They were alone. He was cornered. At long last.

She waited for him to speak. Relished the waiting.

"I take it things have changed," he said.

"As you see."

"What happened?"

"You don't know?"

"You got away."

"Yes. I got away."

"I hadn't heard."

"I guess not."

There was a pause.

"Why did you leave the Dealer?"

"Had to."

"How did you get away from him?"

"That was the easy part."

"How did you get out of the Men's Sector?"

"Had some help."

"It was very quiet."

"Yes. Quiet."

He paused again, dropped his eyes to the quirt he was worrying with his fingers. He was grappling with an instinct to ram, head-on, her cool attitude. This was not the scenario he would have set these questions to.

He glanced up, his tone smooth as ice. "You want to come back."

"No."

"This is the only decent set up in the city."

"It isn't."

"The Dealer's got nothing."

"The Dealer's dead."

That stopped him.

"You didn't know."

"Does anyone?"

"Not really."

He nodded slightly. "Did you kill him?"

"Me? No. He died of 'natural causes'. I merely extricated myself from him."

"So why have you come back?"

"Unfinished business."

"With me?"

"You didn't expect me."

He shrugged, set his book aside. "Who in the city would expect you but me?"

"Well, Dalroy was speechless."

A shadow crossed the Whipmaster's face. She noticed his eyes kept sliding over to the archway.

"No one is going to rescue you."

His eyes flicked back. "Do I need rescuing?"

"That remains to be seen. However, I do suggest you keep very still and very calm. Don't entertain any fantasies of trying to restrain or inhibit me. Believe me, it's the best advice you'll get tonight."

"You have me covered."

"Better than you imagine," she said with a small smile. "You see, this time I did bring the bomb." It was an old, old reference but she could see he remembered it. "It's already planted. Set on time."

"How much time?"

"Or I can trigger it from here - if you make a mistake." She sauntered up and touched the base of the platform with her toe. "This ought to go up nicely, don't you think?"

The prospect of fire seemed less ominous than the understated coolness of her remark.

"There's a second planted elsewhere on the Compound," she said without looking up. "Set the same as the first. A little added insurance."

"Extreme measures."

Now she looked up. "Simple measures. Direct and rather appropriate, don't you think?"

"Why not just kill me outright? That's what you want, isn't it?"

"I want to talk."

"Now she wants to talk."

Once again Carlen refused to acknowledge the irony.

"Does it occur to you we may be interrupted?"

"No." She drew her foot back with a sigh. "I've taken care of that."

He was suddenly struck by her monotone, her dispassion, and now a complete digression.

"You got any cigarettes?"

"On my table," he said, somewhat knocked.

He was sitting forward, elbows on his raised knees, toying with the quirt again.

Carlen pinned him with a dark eye. "Sit back."

He moved back slightly.

"Right back. To the wall. And put your legs down."

He moved again. Flattened his legs out.

"Just stay there."

He nodded slightly.

Carlen slowly skirted the platform to the table. As she reached for the cigarettes, her eyes lighted on the blindfold draped over the chest. Her blindfold. Well, maybe not hers anymore.

He watched as she shook a cigarette from the pack, opened the match box, struck a match and lit up, all with her left hand, the crossbow comfortably clutched in the right.

"This is great. How can people live without booze and cigarettes?" She latched onto the cigarette and dragged, her face suddenly distorting in revulsion. "RAT TURDS! They're stale!" She dropped the offending thing to the floor and stamped on it. "Shit... I've got something better than that in my pocket..." She pulled out the cigarette the Old Time Man had given her. The cigarette Jinx died for. Lit up. "Mm. Better... I don't recall you having such lousy cigarettes."

"That's the same pack you left behind," he told her.

"...Shit."

She navigated slowly around to the front again. She seemed to be fully occupied with the cigarette. He was thinking of the bomb.

"You said you wanted to talk."

"Yeah," Carlen sighed on a breath of smoke.

"What about?"

"Oh, everything."

"That takes in quite a lot."

"It takes in what you wanted," she said.

"Which is what?"

"Information. The truth about me."

"And what is the truth about you?"

"Long story."

"I'm listening."

"...I don't know where to begin."

"Why don't you begin with Dalroy?"

Carlen huffed. "You want to spend your first question on Dalroy?"

"You brought it up."

"You want to know about Dalroy..."

She set her foot on the bottom step, rested the crossbow on her knee. She wasn't even looking at him, but at the bow. She flicked the filter of the cigarette with her thumbnail. The accumulated ash dropped.

"Dalroy is on The Block. I made perfect work of the biggest stone cunt in town."

"Sweet revenge."

"She was listed the day I was run down by that truck."

She paused over the smoke. He'd never seen anyone savor a cigarette the way Carlen could.

"She's not alone," she added softly. "Kick's in there with her. Of course there are one or two pieces out of him. Such strange appetites..."

"You tortured him."

"Actually, yes."

Was it possible, he wondered. "You're bluffing."

She looked up. Smiled a little. "Am I?"

Is she? he asked himself.

She dropped the last of the cigarette, drew her foot off the step to tamp it out. "It's okay," she said. "I don't expect you to swallow it all at once."

"I'm surprised you expect me to swallow it at all."

There was a look in her eyes that compared to the smile on her face. Something in it made him seize that moment to prevent her from delivering the news he ran headlong into by trying to divert it. "The cigarettes are stale but the Scotch in the flask is good..."

One two three.

Her grin broadened. "That's okay," she said, her hand in the bag still slung over her shoulder. "I've got that, too." She raised the bottle of Chivas Regal by the neck. "Nolty's favorite, right?" She set it on top of the stocks. "Perhaps you feel like some."

The Whipmaster only glared at it.

"And perhaps not. Perhaps you're not a man who believes what he sees."

"You could have picked that up anywhere."

"Thing is, I didn't."

The news of Nolty's death hit him hard. He wanted to strike back but Carlen struck first.

"You don't honestly believe I could let that tyrant live. Not knowing what he wanted from me - even still! Kick wanted to kill me. Dalroy wanted to fuck me. You wanted to bend me. But Nolty? Nolty wanted to bust me. He wanted possession - body, soul, and consciousness."

She stopped a moment.

"And what did you want?" he asked.

She glanced up. "I wanted to kill you."

"You have your chance."

"It isn't necessary now," she said.

"I don't understand."

"You don't?" There was a wild look in her eyes. An anything can happen look. "I could have killed you. Any time. Could have done it with my bare hands."

"But you never tried."

"Because of THIS!" She grabbed the chain attached to the collar. "This. Because then... Then it would have been Nolty."

The man was dead but she was still afraid.

"He did a good job on you."

"...yes," she whispered.

She snatched the bottle off the Stage, ripped the seal with her teeth. She tossed the cork away and took a hefty slug out of the bottle. And another. She had the crossbow on her knee again, but the bolt was aimed at the wall about two inches to the left of his shoulder.

"You know, Nolty admired you," Carlen said more calmly. "He really did. I think I understand it. He played Rene to your Sir Stephen. Like in the book. You remember the book."

He gave a small nod.

"Everything was always easy for you, wasn't it? You never had a problem getting what you wanted. You didn't need to possess me to be satisfied with owning me. But not Nolty. Nothing was easy for him. You know, he really suffered."

"Did you torture him, too?"

"No. I didn't fuck with him. I never fucked with him."

"You did once," he reminded her.

Carlen's head bobbed up.

"Right here."

"That was different," she said. "I knew you'd protect me. Well... I thought I knew. Turns out I didn't know shit." She swigged again. "He was never satisfied with me, was he? Never sure. He knew better than to ask you, but he wanted me to himself, didn't he?"

"I don't know," the Whipmaster said.

"Well, if that's true, then you're not as smart as I thought you were."

"Maybe you give me too much credit," he said.

"Maybe I don't give you enough..."

"Did you kill Jaim, too?"

"Couldn't very well kill someone we both know isn't here. I'm good, I'm not a magician."

"Was Jaim listed?"

"Not if he kept out of it."

"He hurt you, too."

"Jaim never enjoyed himself at my expense."

Despite himself he felt the cut of that remark.

"How did you know he wasn't here?" he asked.

"Got my sources."

"What? Psychic sources?"

"Sure, if it amuses you to think so."

"So it was Nolty you came back for."

"Yes. Mostly."

"You didn't think I would have you tracked?"

"Of course. That's why I had to neutralize Nolty."

He paused. "Well, you were right," he said.

"Right?"

"I would have found you."

"Turns out you didn't know I was - missing."

"I'd have found out eventually."

"Yes," Carlen conceded.

"Then I wonder why you didn't come to me."

"You wonder."

"You must have been in trouble."

"Measures and measures."

"I would have looked after you."

"Of course, until you decided to execute me."

"Execute you?"

"For running in the first place."

"I doubt if it would have come to that," the Master said.

"Oh. Planning on re-selling me, were you?"

There was a long deadly silence.

"You think killing three of my people will win you favor?" he asked softly.

"Five."

He froze.

"I killed two of your Contractors. I'm genuinely sorry for that but, well, you understand my position. If we should fail-"

"What are you talking about?"

"Now who's bluffing?" Her eyes danced a little then darkened again. "Olean and Jinx is what I'm talking about."

"How did you-"

"Know about them? It isn't important."

Oh yeah. He was making a real effort now to control himself. She could imagine the kind of things he'd prefer to be doing to her.

"You've gone to a lot of trouble."

"Not really. A little death clears the air..."

She turned away. Paced a short distance. Swigged from the bottle. She had virtually turned her back on him.

"You know, when you sent me away I felt like a fucking convict. Exiled. And when I got over to Blacktown it got me wondering how you knew so well what to prepare me for - although I was hardly prepared... Eventually, though, I figured out what made Freddie different from the rest. Poor Freddie. Just couldn't keep his prick in his pants."

"You talk about him as though he were dead."

"He is. Died about a week before the Dealer. I don't know, exactly. He kept me so jerked up, by the end I couldn't tell night from noon."

The Whipmaster already knew about Freddie, but he had to wonder just how 'jerked up' she could have been when she managed to get away from the Dealer.

"Yeah. You sure as shit stuck me in it," she sighed. "Still, the world doesn't come to a crashing halt just because some prick fucks your ass for you."

"That was the Dealer's preference, not mine. I only-"

"Did that to align me for him. Yeah, I know."

She seemed tired, exhausted, he thought, and somewhat insane, although her force was undeniable. This was not the time to question how much he may have underestimated her.

She threw back another big swallow. She seemed to be in no hurry. Almost as though she was waiting for something. The bomb to detonate? Blow them both to Kingdom Come? Could be a fitting end.

"If you move real slow, I'll let you come down and share this fine Scotch with me."

She traveled around to the right side of the platform.

"Right there," she said and pointed.

He edged cautiously down to the second stair. Seated himself.

"Fine," she said. "Only keep both feet on the step. That's right. Near the edge. That's good. You take direction well."

Still she made him wait while she polished off the top third of the bottle. He'd never seen anyone drink like that. Finally she moved up and set the bottle on the bottom step.

He could have grabbed her then. Just grabbed her and - anything at all. He waited until she withdrew her hand before slowly reaching for the bottle. He hoped he was correct in assuming there was no need to kill her. He'd do almost anything to avoid it, he suddenly realized.

Carlen seated herself on the edge of the lower platform across from him, the crossbow rested comfortably on her knee. The look in her eyes seemed to say, "Well! What do you think of all this?"

He raised the bottle to his lips. "Where have you been?" he asked and swigged.

"Why the HELL does everyone keep ASKING me that? What the hell difference does it make WHERE I've been?"

"You're very defensive about it."

She gave him a sideways look. "It's none of your damned business where I've been, where I go or what I intend to do."

"Everything in the city is my business, Carlen. You know that."

"Well, NOT ME. Not anymore. I want a divorce."

That forced a smile to his lips. "A divorce?"

"Yes. You're going to release me."

The smile faded. "Is that what you think?"

"Tonight's the night."

"No."

"And you call me stubborn."

He set the bottle on the step, a little heavily.

"Over there," she stipulated, so he stretched it further away and sat back.

Carlen stood up and took possession of it. Turned away again.

"Is there a man?"

Carlen's head twisted around. "A man?" Her mouth drew tight then her head fell back and she laughed, full and round from the pit of her stomach. "Well, now! I guess I've had just about every man in the city worth having, wouldn't you say?"

The question dropped into a pit of silence. Carlen's energy lapsed into that cold exhaustion.

"No," she said. "I have no partner. No army. I'm alone. As before. I'm just not Newblood anymore."

She drank again, then said, as though in answer to an unspoken question. "You needn't worry. None of the others are coming after you, that I know of. Certainly none of the hags on Moreau Street. I doubt those poor bitches could find their way off the block."

"What do you know about Moreau Street?"

"Been there. Dainty joint."

"What were you doing there?" Did he sound anxious?

"Good restaurants," she said with a teasing smile.

She moved by again, depositing the bottle on the step for him. As he reached for it he had to admit the scene was wearing on his nerves. Her tone, her attitude. The trends of the conversation. He wondered if she was trying to goad him into something.

"What's this information you've come to give me?" he asked, raising the bottle to his mouth. He was gripping it much too tightly.

Carlen seated herself again. "What are the questions? I'll be fair. I'll give you five. One for each corpse. Ask me anything you like."

"And you'll answer?"

"Don't waste your questions. Just shoot."

"Your crime."

She smiled. No. It wasn't a smile. It was a silent snarl. "Gamemaster! You haven't guessed?"

"I'm asking."

"I'm afraid it was a case of murder."

He waited, but he waited in silence, and when he realized Carlen was not going to answer more fully, he experienced a flush of fury, not only with her, but with himself for wasting the question.

"Details," he enunciated tightly.

"You want the details..."

Her expression flattened out. So did her tone.

"I listed and hunted down five people and murdered them in cold blood. No more, no less. Those are the crimes I was interned for."

She paused again and again he prompted her.

"I assume the details of a murder confession would include a motive."

Something in the sardonic curve of her mouth made him suddenly wish he could retract.

"He wants a story..."

Her eyes latched onto the bottle. He set it down.

Carlen got up and took it. Paced a little. Drank.

"Well, it's no great international intrigue, but it's a pretty tale. Just your sort of thing, really." Her back was turned but her voice was raw with suppressed tensions. "These four animals jumped me on the street one night and dragged me down to this basement for the lost week-end. There was no method to it. They didn't care who I was, what I'd done or how it all turned out. They just fucked the hell out of me. Used belts to tie me up. Scarves to stifle my screams. Cowards...

"They, a... shut me in this - crate. When they wanted a break. I'd been very lucky a very long time, but they put me in this crate... I sat in there, listened to their talk. Their laughter. Only I couldn't get the joke. They spoke Spano."

She drank again. Pivoted around about halfway towards him.

"I think I was with them three days, but I've never been sure. They tried everything they could think of... Not a very imaginative bunch. Not like your lot. I only came off with two black eyes, some cuts and bruises, a cracked rib, fractured ankle, broken arm... Oh, and some bleeding that didn't stop for a week. I suppose the scarves were the only thing that saved the teeth," she said, ticking her front tooth with her fingernail. "You see, they were drunk and they kept falling over me in the dark..."

A slight crease had formed between the Whipmaster's eyebrows. Carlen swallowed more liquor. Dabbed her mouth with her wrist.

"When it was finally over, they just left me... But by then I'd picked up enough to know the encounter hadn't been an accident."

She paced a couple of steps. A little closer.

"They wrecked me up pretty good but they didn't roll me. I had money to get a car home.

"You can appreciate the healing process took some weeks. I couldn't work. Couldn't leave my place. Hell, I couldn't walk. But I had a good flat, phone, a few connections and time."

"You didn't lose your position?"

"No. They held open for me. As long as I needed to recover. Although they didn't know I was recovering. At least, what from.

"Thing was, when I recovered I didn't feel like working anymore. I was tired of it. Tired of running. All I could think about was getting back. At them. At men in general. And getting home..."

"Philsberg?"

"No. Not Philsberg..." She seemed to be losing focus.

"You said five," he prompted.

Her eyes flicked across. "There was a girl involved. Another courier. She took money from those men for my location that night." Carlen was looking straight at the Master but it wasn't him she saw. "Betrayal. Now that's a heavy crime... She made the List. The list of five. And I filled in all the details."

She drank. Seemed to come back on track.

"One detail was something that was left - besides my wrecked chassis. Two red feathers on a loop one of them had been wearing on the button of his shirt."

"That's how you found him?"

"I didn't find him. He found me."

Her eyes sparked for an instant and she made an uncharacteristically fey gesture with her hand. "I wore it in my hair. Attracted him right out of the woodwork. And I didn't kill him before he turned over his three cohorts - and the bitch, who'd changed her digs, wouldn't you know? Apparently she got into this kind of thing on a regular basis."

Her lips curled into that little snarl.

"Well, I tracked them down, ve-ry methodically, and I killed them all - very methodically."

Listening to her talk about it made his skin prickle. It was a nasty story with a bitter after taste. All along he'd wondered how he'd feel at learning something like this about her.

"Did you torture them?"

"Oh yes. All but the girl, although she did break a sweat. I saved her for last, of course. A nice public execution." Her teeth glinted dimly. "The machete is an efficient weapon. The bitch's head was dangling from my hand by the hair when they finally picked me up on Amnesty Avenue. Isn't that a classic?"

"You're a high roller."

"At the trial the judge actually congratulated me. There'd been so much of that sort of thing going on and he didn't really care for Spics, anyway. He made me a Friend of the Court and thanked me for my service to the State. That's how I retained all my digits. I was 'Interned with respect'. It was sublime."

"I can understand why you were reluctant to confess all this to the Workshop," he said.

"Oh, come on! Let them know I cold-bloodedly chalked four men who made the mistake of raping me? Nolty had me down first time out of the chute. If I'd told them, they would have trashed me - and you'd have let them. And once you came on - well. You were hardly going to keep me there with you night after night, knowing you slept with a murderer."

"I might have acted differently."

"Tell me!" Her laughter had a metallic sound.

She took another swig, checked the contents of the bottle and set it down within his reach. She'd taken less than last time but he felt in need of more.

"You got another question? Your time, your nickel."

He bent to retrieve the bottle.

"Tell me about your mother," he said and tipped the bottle for two large swallows.

"What the hell has that got to do with anything? Why the fuck do you keep asking me that?"

Carlen's abrupt outburst caught him by surprise. He took pause. Lowered the bottle. "Why are you so touchy about it?" he asked softly.

He knew he'd struck fire when Carlen's temper slid into a darkness even deeper than the murderous disposition she'd walked in with. Her eyes narrowed and, had her voice been a weapon of steel, it would have sliced him like a razor.

"You are a very clever man," she enunciated coldly. "Master of the game, accustomed to dealing and winning by house rules. But you'd do well to remember whose finger is on the button tonight... This issue is closed."

"Is it?"

"To you it is. I will not discuss it with you tonight. Move on."

Studying her now, he wondered if this savage wit had always been a part of her natural personality. Or had it evolved as a result of her desperate struggle for survival during the years since the onset of the Conflict? The fate of her mother was a conspicuously important component in this jigsaw of temperament. He truly burned to know the whole truth, but it would not come tonight.

To signal capitulation, he broke eye contact and set the bottle down. "Then why don't you tell me about your start in the Underground?" he suggested, hoping he had not forfeited this chance at further revelation from her.

There was a pause, then, as though satisfied he was content to change the subject, Carlen stepped forward and snatched the bottle from the step. She moved off a little, swallowed from the bottle and her tone gradually mellowed as she spoke her tale.

"I began as a third rate Runner. Carried anything, everything."

"That was here?" he ventured softly, now watching her again.

"Yeah. There was plenty of opportunity if not a lot of cash in the lines I carried. Still, I figured if I stayed independent I'd be alright. But, as I got a picture of how things were shaping up, I realized I was going to need a lot more if I was going to survive. The line I was in was getting too risky. People rolling over left, right, and center.

"So, I hung onto every cent I could lay hands on. Stayed loose. Moved around. Kept to myself. In the confusion before things came under control, I slipped out on my old passport. In Europe I wasn't expected to be anywhere or anyone. I could get a line on trends here and I had time to learn some things. Driving skills, weaponry, demolition. I met some real masters. Got better training than most of the hardmen in here."

He was thinking he wouldn't mind hearing more about that.

"I had a pretty good education, too. Could read and write. I learned some French. Traveled around. When I heard about the blanket banning, I cashed in everything I had on two short European Wildtracks. With an updated photo and one or two changes in my passport, I re-entered and took the films to the Underground. It was months of work, but I was Class One the day I delivered. I ran eight years for that organization. You work it out."

"Well, I knew you weren't twenty-six."

"But you didn't know I was thirty-four."

"Why did you lie about your age?"

"Well, it wasn't vanity! I just thought it would be better if you thought I was younger. I didn't want you to think I was too..."

"Experienced."

"Right."

"Considering your history, it surprises me you didn't attempt a break."

"From the Zoo? Well, apart from my... understanding about Nolty, the ugliest thing about it all is I had no option but to let you do as you pleased with me."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't. It's what I've come to explain."

She returned the bottle to him and resumed her seat.

"If by some miracle I had managed to get away from the Zoo, where could I have gone? A runner with no friends and only hostile connections. I'd have been worse off than Shay. A lot worse."

"You'd have had to get out of the city."

"Yes, but you see, I didn't want to do that."

He started to speak.

"Let me finish. It's important for you to understand a couple of things.

"I stayed here because I had to. To have left the Zoo would, as you pointed out, have meant subsequently leaving the city because YOU would never have let it lie. If I planned on staying in the city, and alive, I had to stay here. Had to do what you wanted because you own the city."

"I own you."

"I'm coming to that. Now, I understand all the reasons you wouldn't, couldn't have let me go. Speculated a lot about what you might have done if I'd tried something. What Nolty would have done if I'd moved against you." She shrugged. "No percentage in it. So, you see, I had to stay. Right there on the Stage. It was the only place I could be relatively safe. The ideal spot, is one way of perceiving it. Anyway, the only spot."

She sighed.

"Well, I succeeded. I succeeded with you. I succeeded with the Dealer. I succeeded in staying alive and I'm still in the city. And I learned a lot."

"Who for?"

"For me. Me. I'm not here for anyone's reasons but my own."

"Carlen, I don't-"

"My name isn't Carlen," she cut in suddenly. "It's Sterling."

Their gazes locked and the Whipmaster's features suddenly flexed in dawning realization. "Rainer Mathie," he said.

"Well done! My father-"

"Was Warren Taylor Mathie. President of Newcity. A dedicated public servant who committed public suicide in the hope of restoring civic peace."

"He was a hero."

"He was a maniac."

"Well," Carlen grimaced. "They were really fun times for everyone."

"One of the great liberal thinkers. A man with ideals of a bygone age."

"I admired him," Carlen said.

"So did I," the Master concurred.

"I'm glad he's dead. That he didn't see..."

"The rest of it," the Master concluded for her and Carlen nodded. "There was a lot of speculation about the fate of his wife and daughter."

"Well, now you know. I've just come home is all."

There was a funny little smile on the Whipmaster's face.

"What?"

"So, you are a blue blood."

Carlen winced. "Big deal."

He smiled more broadly at her embarrassment.

"Well," he said. "This is all very illuminating, but why tell me now?"

"The information is Bond."

"Bond for what?"

"My freedom."

There was a tight silence.

"I can't release you," he said.

"Why not?"

"It isn't done."

"It isn't done?" She made a queer smile. "Oh, that's cute. Well, it's going to be done. Tonight."

"No."

"Yes!"

"What is it you want?"

"Grace."

"I see."

"You don't want to give me Grace."

"No."

"Why not?" Carlen demanded.

"You're a slave."

"That's not the only reason."

"You have more information now. A whole lot better, too, I'll bet."

"You want to make bets?"

"What about it?"

"You're not entitled to that," Carlen said flatly.

"None of it?"

Carlen sighed. "Like what?"

"Who's in power off-side?"

Carlen laughed unexpectedly. "No one."

"Come on."

"No one! They'll be fighting it out forever."

"Who?" he persisted.

"Who do you think?" she tossed back.

"Braidshawk, Jack Hos..."

Carlen nodded. "Right."

"So, who?"

"Don't you know?"

"I never met them. I assume you did."

Dirty blow.

"Guess."

"Braidshawk."

"Sure. Why not?"

There was a pause.

"Where have you been hiding out?"

"I've answered enough questions."

"Where?"

"No go."

"It's not enough, Carlen."

"Not enough? Then what about your life? What's that worth, hm?"

"Apparently not much to you."

"Well, certainly no more to me than to anyone else in the city."

"Am I listed?"

"You're still trading, aren't you?"

Carlen rose, retrieved the bottle from the step and drank again. There was less than a third left. She moved off, weaving slightly. Or was she limping? Funny, he hadn't noticed that before.

"I don't care how you word it, Carlen, I'm not going to do it."

"I'll word it any way I must to drive it home to you. And, if I get tired of arguing the toss, well, I guess I'll kill you. Or both of us. It really makes little difference..."

"You've played with a few lives tonight."

She pivoted around, her eyes glowing like dark, flecked jade. "And the game is nearly at its end. The collar comes off, tonight, and I leave here with a new identity. One way or another. That's what's coming down."

The intensity of her eyes excited him. It also contributed to his belief that she may well have done the things she claimed.

"Nobody wants you dead right now," she said in a gravelly tone. "Not really. Don't risk your life with me tonight. It's not worth it. I'm not worth it. Just let me go."

"Are you sure you're making the right move?" he asked.

"I'm making the only move I have left. I tell you, anymore of this shit and I'll plain lose my mind."

"We can't have that, can we?"

Carlen cocked an eyebrow at him.

"We could make another arrangement," he suggested smoothly.

"What other arrangement? What would you suggest?"

"I could get you out of the city."

"No. I told you."

"You could come back here-"

"Here! For what? For you?"

"Not necessarily."

Carlen snorted. "I don't want one damned thing to do with this place."

"I see."

"I wish you did," she murmured. "No force on earth could bring me back to this. I crossed your glacier." She drank again.

"Is that how you view me?"

"What?"

"As cold as that?"

"Yes."

"You really find it impossible to see me as a man."

"Quite impossible."

"Do you think me infallible?"

"No. Oh no."

"Well, I'm glad of that."

"That's illuminating..." she said in a fucked-if-I-care tone.

"I'm not your enemy, Carlen."

"I trust you see that I'm yours."

"Are you?"

"Yes," she insisted.

"I'm the only person in the city you can turn to."

"Not so."

"Who else is there?"

"You'd love to know, wouldn't you?" she said with a cold smile.

"I'd be fascinated."

"Sure you would."

Their gazes locked and something in his eyes told her she'd better beware. She knew that look. He was working on her. Working the side of her that had succumbed to his persuasion. The side that had sheltered under the umbrella of his protection. The indefinable thing Maena had warned her about.

She broke it off and stiffened slightly. "And perhaps my history is not the only one come to light," she said suddenly.

"...Meaning?"

Carlen fixed those scary eyes on him. "You have my secrets. Let's discuss yours."

His eyes changed. The intimacy of the moment evaporated.

"What was your crime, Whipmaster?"

"I was a Trader."

"Weren't we all."

"It was a torture house."

"An SM parlor?"

"Yes. Things got heavy. People died."

"Died how?"

"There was a fire," he said.

"Awfully fond of burning people, aren't you?"

"Are we talking about then or now?"

"Well, there is the small matter of Jason Cassidy."

God damn it! How did she get her hands on that?

"That - was an accident."

"You were busted for it. You're doing the time."

He didn't dispute it.

"Tough case. You killed the senator's son. And you did! Only - it was an accident? Only, you didn't do it?"

"I did not contract to do it, no."

"Like I say, you do the time." Carlen swigged again from the bottle. "I also know about that dude in Pittsburgh penn. Before you came here. Hard on you, wasn't he?"

"There was a gang," he said, real low.

"Gangs are fun, aren't they? They burned you. Marked you for what you are. A torturer. You were younger then. Hadn't really come into your power. But you still walk like your feet burn..."

He was thinking of it now. Trying something. Only, she was too far away. She smiled like she knew it.

"You'd like to know how I found out about all that. Yeah... Well, I know quite a bit about you. Couldn't have defeated you without coming to know you."

"Heroes and villains?" he said with a sour smile.

"Well, I realize you couldn't have done all this if it hadn't been in you. I sure didn't need your crime as an excuse to kill you. But you, yourself, are no killer. Killing is where you like to draw the line. You'll have it killed, direct all the little killings along the way, but you're rarely in on the kill itself, are you?"

"Unlike you," he countered.

Carlen's lip twisted the tiniest bit, but she refrained from comment. Raised the bottle again.

"Why are drinking like that?" he asked suddenly.

"I just killed five people. You drink after the kill, don't you? Drop a pill or something?"

He didn't care for that.

"Man," she sighed. "I saw those needles in Nolty's room. You know, I really wondered about him some nights. Where he got it all from..."

She fell quiet for a moment, as though she'd forgotten he was there.

"It's anesthetic," she said finally, in reference to her suicidal drinking bout.

"For what?"

"What you're about to do."

"Which is what?"

"Well," she said, taking one more swig and setting the bottle on the step again. "Sober me up, for one thing."

She wiped her mouth and stepped back in a way that suggested she was ready to get down to business. He was caught by her eyes which seemed to reflect some speculation over him.

"Since you're so into Bonds and Symbols..." she said, raising the bow. "What about this-"

She triggered the bolt. It hurled itself at him, sticking with a thump into the side of the step between his legs.

"Your life tonight for my liberation. You have my Bond, whatever it may be worth."

He didn't doubt the gesture was genuine and he was ill-inclined to test this apocalyptic mood she was in. She was still a standing arsenal.

"You're Bond is worth a great deal," he said.

"You think so?"

"You fulfilled your contract with the Dealer."

"Your contract," she amended.

"Based on the Bond you made to me."

"Well, I'm breaking that Bond tonight. Find someone else."

"There is no one else."

"Oh, there must be a replacement for me by now. I've been gone eighteen months."

He was the one who'd been in a hurry. Now, he found all he wanted was to delay her.

"I haven't been with anyone since you left," he told her.

"Bullshit."

"It's true."

"Bullshit."

"...Alright. It isn't true. I took Spane to bed."

"Thought so."

"Only a couple of times."

"Only a couple?"

"Four times exactly."

"Well, she's perfect for you."

"No she isn't."

"She is."

"Only you were perfect," he said.

Carlen gave a bitter snort. "So perfect you sent me away."

"I had to."

"Sure you did. By the way, where is that bitch? I'd like to do something to her."

"You still hate her?"

"For-ever."

"She never hurt you."

"She hurts us all, whoremaster. Besides, she hates me just as hard."

"Why should she?"

"Jealousy," Carlen said flatly.

"Jealousy!"

"Didn't you know? She's in love with you. She - loves YOU!"

"Nonsense."

"A blind man could see it! My position on the Stage was eating her alive. She detested me. Where is she? I want to settle up."

"She's gone."

"Gone where?"

The Whipmaster said nothing.

"You sold her," Carlen deduced. "The best pieces on the Compound and you kill them or send them away."

"It was an outside trade."

"Oh yes! We may all die tomorrow but let us save our worthless asses today!"

"She didn't go that high," the Whipmaster said.

"Not as high as me."

"No. Not as high as you."

"She didn't want to go," Carlen said.

"Neither did you."

"What?"

He reached for the bottle. Never looked up. "Do you love me, Carlen?"

He asked the question as though the idea of her loving him was painful to him. Her face felt kind of numb suddenly.

"That has got to be the most absurd question you have ever asked me."

"More absurd than the concept of Spane loving me?"

"I'm not Spane," she said tensely.

"Oh, I know that. But that isn't the answer..."

Carlen expelled a tight breath. "I'm not the source of love for anything," she said tiredly.

Looking in her eyes now he could believe it. He could believe it all.

"What's your decision? Time is short."

There were all sorts of unexpected and inappropriate feelings circulating through him. Above all the desire to keep her there. Somehow.

Unfortunately, he had to face the fact that it was her show. She had already seized her freedom, if only by virtue of the acts she'd committed. No sane man could dispute it. She had the taste of it. That and the flavor of the balance on her over-stimulated palate. The precarious balance he'd struggled years to achieve. She'd interfered with that balance and, even if he could arrest her now, there was only one response he could make. Only one.

If he failed to strike this deal with her now, she would kill him. The threat was quite real, even still. On the other hand, if he managed to emerge from this confrontation with his life, and time, he could probably find a way to rectify the situation further down the line.

"Alright," he said at last. "You may consider yourself liberated."

"It's not that simple."

"I assumed it wouldn't be."

"You'll be taking my word for a lot tonight."

"Your word is sufficient," he said.

"I have nothing else to give you, but for me there must be proof. Physical proof of the contract we draw here tonight."

"I'm listening."

She'd been monitoring him very closely, but now she gave a slow nod and finally turned to the lower platform where she set down the empty crossbow.

She began migrating around the chamber again, but now there was definition to the movement despite the limp, which was more pronounced. She kept talking all the while as she picked up this, dropped off that. She stepped on to the low platform and tipped back the lid of the trunk. She brought over the box and a pair of metal cutters. Set them on the floor near him. She moved with a relaxed, understated method that was unfamiliar to him, and she appeared to know precisely what she was after and where to find it. He looked on in repressed amazement, distracted by the sound of her voice.

"So long as that mark on my rump stays the same I'll never be considered anything but Trade. Without Grace and Possession I'm Trade and remain forever accountable to you."

"Who told you that?"

Carlen just shook her head.

"You want me to change the mark," he assumed.

"It's more complicated than that."

"I see."

Oh yeah. He saw alright. She knew he was still trying to game her.

"Only Trade wear their marks on their hindquarters," she said irritably. "I notice you don't have to drop your pants to be recognized anywhere in town. The last thing in the world I'm going to do is drop my pants for you again. I let you tamper with that, it might come off looking like hasty changes made on the run. Now that would be a nasty problem.

"We'll leave the old mark as is, in the past, where it belongs. What I want is a new mark in a new position, and this mark will guarantee right of passage but will not label me as an employee of yours."

"I'll have to get someone in," he said.

"There's no time for that." She was in the trunk again.

"I'm not a tattooist."

"No. You're the brander. You'll use an iron. Burn it on."

"I don't have such an iron."

Carlen sauntered over and released a fistful of irons onto the floor. "Improvise something."

Everything was there. She'd even walked the iron stand over and now she placed a book of matches on the edge of it with a look at him.

He hesitated then slowly descended to the bottom step, wishing some unnamed wish. He picked up the matches. Lit the fire.

"You'll have to come closer."

Carlen approached slowly, wearing the nearest thing to a genuine smile he'd seen all night. She took the precaution of transferring the boot knife to her right boot as she seated herself.

"This first," she said, hooking the chain of the collar out with her thumb.

He took the gold key out of the box and held it out.

"No. You do it," she said and sat forward slightly.

He leaned toward her, keyed the lock and took possession of the gold linklock. Carlen caught the end of the chain as it dropped and he assisted further by twisting the loops of the collar apart. Carlen wrenched it off her neck and dropped it to the floor. She quickly unwrapped the chain from her waist and dropped it also.

And there they sat, side by side, but not as equals, for he was enrounded by the chain that had bound her to his rule for four months and the chain he'd sent her away in now lay in a scrambled heap on the floor. It was a strange reversal, uncomfortable for them both.

Although he was tense, he assumed a relaxed pose, legs separated, his elbows rested on his knees, the same way she sat - whereas her head was bowed in exhaustion, his was raised and turned to her in open and welcoming interest.

She was so near he could smell the blood. He could see it, dried in around the cuticles of her fingernails; on the handle of a grip dagger in her belt; a spot of it tainting the glow of one of the tiny panes in the vest. So close.

Carlen was rubbing her neck. She took no notice of the interest in his eyes but, as she turned her head, something in her range of sight became immediately apparent to her. Her hand dropped.

"My God. You still want me!"

"You want admissions now?"

"The strain in your pants is your admission."

"Stimulating the interest to lay you down was never a problem."

"So I noticed," she said and looked away. "Well, you can just put the monster back to sleep. You're all through fucking me. You and any other son-of-a-bitch who gets it in mind."

"I see," he said, restraining a smile.

"Anyway," she murmured. "I don't imagine you'd be interested in me anymore."

"That doesn't appear to be the case, does it?"

"You'd feel differently if you knew the whole story."

"The whole story?" He felt suddenly cold.

"Look-" she began strongly, then faltered. "I'm not perfect anymore. Get it?"

"You seem alright."

"Oh yeah. Yeah..." The spark of antagonism vanished. "The Dealer marked me," she said softly. Her head turned again. "The Hook and the Hypo. I got that tattooed on my ass. Right next to your mark..." Her eyes narrowed. "Did you put that brand on me yourself?"

"Why do you ask?"

Carlen shrugged. Looked away, then after a moment "Who then?"

"Who do you think?"

"...Nolty."

There was a pause.

"When did you find out about that?" he asked.

"There was a mirror at the Penthouse," she said sourly. "I even know when it was done."

There was another pause.

"It wasn't Nolty," he said.

"I know."

"You're angry about it."

"Of course I am! Was. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Doesn't it?"

"No."

After a moment he said, "The Dealer had a right to mark you."

That fuelled the flame again. "What right? Who gave him the right? You? Where'd he get this right to just flat fuck me over, huh? You give him that? Well, that asshole ruined me!"

"Ruined you how?"

He thought she'd say something about the needle tracks so prevalent on her arms. So close.

"Look. Blacktown changes people. Nobody comes out of there the same. Certainly no White woman. Or haven't you figured that out yet? ...But, of course! They don't come out at all, do they?"

"I didn't think he'd-"

"What? What could he have done that would have surprised you? You didn't know the first thing about him. And he called you the lunatic."

"Freddie didn't tell me-"

"I kept things from Freddie."

"Why?"

"I didn't want any misunderstandings." She picked up the bottle. Swigged. Sat picking at the label with her fingernail. "Nothing you could have done. I was his. He damn nearly killed me but, the truth is, he was kinder to me than you were. At least he was honest about his feelings, such as they were. I felt kind of sorry for him."

"That's a peculiar thing to say."

"Is it? Well, it's not the kind of thing I'd expect you to understand." She paused. "I know there were other women. That's how you kept the trades going. Drugs for women. I wonder that you didn't hit him up for some truth serums. Or would that have taken all the fun out of it?"

He was on the verge of reacting to that but Carlen cut him off.

"I know you didn't expect me back. And not because of this-" She kicked the chain on the floor. "You didn't expect me to live." She pulled her foot away from the chain with a sigh. "I wonder how you sleep nights."

He was wondering the same about her.

"Are you still on the jack?" he asked, knowing it was a weak attempt to get the upper hand.

Carlen glanced up slowly, her eyes plainly weird. He'd have sworn she was stoned. Stoned or - crazy. She was no one he knew.

"The wire cutters," she said and it took him a moment to catch up.

The wire cutters were on the floor at his feet. He picked them up, very much aware of the weight of them in his grip. He turned to Carlen and was again enveloped by her gaze. He'd never experienced anything like it.

"The earring," she said.

He reached toward her.

"The charm," she stipulated. "Leave half. That way it isn't really there but it isn't missing, either."

He was intrigued by the intricacy of her logic. She was going to be damned sure she covered the bases. He was beginning to think she was going to pull it off, too. He reached up with the cutters and snapped the charm in two. He held the severed piece in his hand momentarily then dropped it in the box. She was fingering the half that remained to be sure of what he'd done.

When he looked up Carlen's eyes were fixed on his chest, a strange glint in them. "You're going to give me something else," she said. "The key on the chain around your neck."

"Why that?"

"Can't you figure it out?"

"Possession."

"That and a little more. Let's call it the key to Newcity. I've come to collect it."

"Are you claiming a territory?" he asked.

"I'm not claiming any bloody thing! Except my right to live here in peace." She sounded strained. "And if I have to kill every motherfucker in town to get it, then I will."

"Your precious freedom."

"That's right."

"The grandest illusion of them all."

There was a pause.

"Give me the key."

He had the chain over his head and collected in his hand in one fluid movement. He held it out to her. Carlen didn't move.

"This is your Bond," she said.

His hand remained frozen in the space between them.

"You're going to relieve me from the condition of Bond Slave. Relieve me of all responsibility to the Bond we struck previously."

"Alright."

"Absolve me of offenses I may have committed in the service of that Bond which may have gone unaccounted for."

"Offenses?"

Those wild green eyes sparked with sudden urgency. "You must promise this. You must release me now and never - never attempt to involve me in the Trade again. You must swear or there will be no agreement."

She waited but he did not draw back his hand.

"I want right of passage," she went on, as if to test him further. "Immunity. Here, the Men's Sector, Blacktown, too."

"The Men's Sector is no place for a woman," he argued.

"I found that out."

"You know what I mean," he said.

"I know exactly what you mean," Carlen replied.

"Why Blacktown?"

"It's none of your business."

"Things are not stable there."

"Hey, it's up to you to fight that out. Just so long as it comes straight. You can work with Braidshawk."

"What about working with you?" he asked.

"I don't want anything," Carlen said. "I'm not on any rampage. From now on, I won't bother anyone who sticks out of my way. I won't interfere with things so long as things don't interfere with me. You just keep me out of it. You can do that."

"Why don't you stay here?"

"No."

"I'd give you a good position."

"There's nothing you can offer me except-"

"Grace and Possession," he sighed, completing her sentence.

"That's it. The mark will reflect the Bond."

She gave him time but his hand didn't move, so she cupped her hand under his and he poured the chain and key into her palm. She looked at it briefly then hooked it over her head. The key dropped to a point that directed the eyes to the cleft of her breasts.

"The brand."

His eyes flicked up. "Carlen, we could-"

"No. We couldn't. Time is short."

Why was she letting him burn her again?

He sent her back to the trunk for a bottle of lotion and a clean rag. He was going through the irons. He chose three and, as Carlen was seated, he held them together in configuration for her to see. She nodded.

"Where's it going to be?"

Carlen stretched out her left arm and indicated a spot above the elbow joint. Higher than Dalroy's mark, not as high as Nolty's. He set the irons in the fire.

He gave the lotion to Carlen. Made her pour with her left hand into the rag which was held in her right.

"It's going to take three burns," he said.

"I know it."

"You hold the bottle and, when I tell you, wrap the cloth around the arm."

"I can do that," she said in a flat tone.

Her eyes were dead. She didn't want this. No more than he did. But there was no other way. She was intent on it and she did seem to have the most expedient solution to it all. With this mark she'd attain a ranking that should protect her but - as a resident of the city, he would still have control over her, in one way or another. She'd have to watch her step - and he'd be watching, too. There was no telling what she might do. How interesting it would be...

"Let's do it," she said.

The Whipmaster gripped Carlen's arm much the same way the Dealer had for her first taste of the jack. She wasn't watching, but he felt her lock up with tension as he lifted the first iron out and deftly imprinted the circle on her flesh.

Carlen yowled a raw, uninhibited expression of pain and fury. A strange sound, more masculine than feminine. The second caress came only a moment after and Carlen gulped breath for the blood chilling shout which accompanied the third.

"Now, Carlen!"

Carlen's hand snapped to like the spring of a trap, sealing the pain and the mark under the lotion soaked cloth. The pain dissipated almost instantly but Carlen's features remained taut with anxiety. The bottle she'd been holding was turned nearly horizontal to the floor but not a drop of lotion was spilt. He reached for it and Carlen's grip tightened momentarily as if she'd forgotten she'd been holding it.

"Alright?"

"...oh yeah," she gasped.

He took the lotion and she snatched the Chivas Regal off the step. Swigged, gasped, swigged again. The brand had been the last straw. She was near nervous collapse. He was wondering how much further she planned on traveling tonight.

"May I?"

He reached for the liquor. The bottle was almost empty. She seemed to have sobered up. He felt like getting drunk.

"Why did you originally come to the park, Carlen?"

"You still have questions."

"Certainly more than five," he said.

There was a pause.

"You mean, was I aware of the influences at work here?" She huffed slightly. "You don't give Dalroy enough credit. Oh, I knew she was dangerous, but this? I hadn't the vaguest. I'm not saying it would necessarily have made a difference. If I'd been transferred in the morning, I would probably have come here straight, instead of going to the Barracks. Would have changed the logistics, somewhat, if not the outcome..." she said with wry smile. "I came because it was the only thing I wanted to do."

"It couldn't have been the only thing," he said.

"Well, immediately it was. It was the only thing I had to do, if you understand. What I had come to do. It was personal. If it turned out to be the only thing I got to do? Well..."

The dialogue had distracted her from the burn. She took the Scotch and sipped it like she could taste and appreciate it.

"Show me," he said and Carlen lifted the cloth off her arm.

They both stared at the brand, he thinking what an ugly and unnatural picture it made against her pale, fragile skin. The sight of it made him feel like hitting something. Carlen made no comment at all.

"It's going to be sore for a while."

That was what Jaim had said to her after Nolty first laid her out on the floor of the Workroom.

"I'm used to it," she said, although she had to push herself up from the step.

"The mark should protect you," he said to her back.

"I don't expect that to change," she said and turned. "Nor you in your agreement."

"You may rest assured," he said.

Carlen gave a small nod. "I guess that takes care of it," she said and her eyes broke away.

"Do you have someplace to go?" he asked.

"I've got a spot in mind."

"Informative answer."

The corner of Carlen's mouth clenched slightly but she turned away without reply. She crossed to the archway, crouched down briefly at the edge and, when she straightened and turned, he saw there was a cardboard box in her hands. She was walking it over to the platform. To him. She was watching his eyes, and in hers there was a very canny glint.

"I wonder if you've figured out where the other one is..." she said with a teasing smile.

He wanted to believe it was all a ruse, but the sight of that box and the way she was holding it made everything inside him clench.

"You know, I never could figure out why you showed me that horse..."

The same reason you're talking about it now, he thought.

"To distract you," he said and suddenly realized he did know the location of the second bomb. "You're going to take the horse," he said.

"Yes. Just because it's yours."

He thought it might have more to do with the way she was walking. No doubt about it now.

"Her name is Harmony," he said.

Carlen's mouth flexed. "Pretty."

She was concentrated on the box which she carefully deposited on the corner of the second stair. She went immediately then and picked up her crossbow, loaded it, and began moving toward the archway. On her way she paused by the box, took something from her pant leg pocket and left it on the lid.

"You see," she said softly. "There might yet be a world worth living in..."

As she turned he saw she'd left a piece of orange peel. He glanced up quickly. She'd backed halfway to the archway.

"The key to the padlock is in the box - with the bomb. Better deal with that first."

Now in the archway.

"You know how to turn off an alarm clock, don't you?"

Now past the archway.

"Carlen-"

She paused. Yeah, she actually did.

"What will you do?" he asked.

What would she do?

"Find a reason to live that isn't you," she said.

And she was gone.

* * *

He went straight for the box. There was a bomb in there alright. Jesus Christ. She knew her business.

And there was a clock. An ordinary alarm clock. Set for three hours. And there, in his hands, was the thirty minutes less than it took her to get what she wanted.

Certainly not enough time for the thousand things more he wanted to ask her. To say to her. Things to stop her from going because he was afraid to let her go. Some nameless fear he could not pinpoint or do anything about.

* * *

Carlen was surprised on the promenade by Darion. She damn nearly shot him.

"What the hell?"

"Belamy sent me."

"Is that so? What for?"

"To see if you came out or not."

"Bullshit."

Carlen grabbed Darion's collar and danced him along to the stable, shoved him through the door and swung it shut behind them.

She'd released him but Darion continued dancing back as Carlen advanced and snatched him by the forelock, halting his retreat.

"You are an imbecile."

Darion jerked back but she held fast.

"Belamy Lynne is going to skin you alive."

"I can handle Belamy."

A frosty smile split Carlen's blackened features. "Sure you can. Just brimming with wit and grit. You and your pocketknife."

"He doesn't run me."

"Except when it's convenient for you to pretend he does..."

Carlen un-fisted his hair with a dismissive flick and bumped him aside. "Get the hell over, dumbass."

Shouldering the bow strap, she stepped in and crouched down. Darion stared in reverent stillness as the blood stained hands carefully swept away the straw at the base of the beam. He'd backed himself to within inches of the bomb Carlen had set there. He wasn't sure what it was but he knew it was dangerous. Like she was.

She moved something inside the box that clicked, replaced the lid and stood up, leaving the box in the straw.

"Game time's over."

She took the bridle from a peg in the wall and swung the stall gate open. Harmony was calm and quiet as Carlen bridled and then mounted her with the aid of the stall gate. Darion stood motionless, ankle deep in hay as Carlen eased the mare over to the exit.

"Well, you going to open the door, or what?"

Darion hesitated then ran to push the door open and followed her out onto the promenade. Luckily the gates were still open. Carlen reigned in and looked around for the boy. He had followed, but at a distance, his eyes mooned right out in awe of the horse.

"You know, I ought to leave you here for him," she said with a streak of cruelty. "He'd do a chump like you up right."

Darion thought she was just shooting shit, until he looked in her eyes. Then he understood that she meant it, if not precisely what she meant by it. He had to admit he admired her. Her hardness.

"Go ahead, then, if you want," he countered. "I'll find my own way."

"You? You couldn't find your way to the toilet. I can't believe you were stupid enough to follow me here."

"Well, I'm alright, aren't I?"

"Alright, but good for nothing. Come on, then."

She extended a hand down to him. Darion faltered.

"Come on, stupid! If we stay any longer he might not let us leave."

Darion stepped over cautiously and took Carlen's hand. The moment he touched her he felt a current like an electric shock. It scared and excited him and he knew that, from this moment on, he would serve her. Follow her into the fires of hell, if she asked him, as he once thought he might have followed Belamy Lynne.

He didn't know what this transfer of loyalties would mean or that it was irreversible, but only that he had touched her power and would forever want to be near it. A partner to it.

* * *

The Whipmaster watched them leave from the roof of the main cellblock. The boy was a surprise. More surprising, she seemed to know him. Took him with her.

He wondered if she really would stay in the city, this bird of flight. He certainly could not have predicted this outcome. It gave him a lot to think about, but there was one feeling that outweighed all the rest. A feeling he would be seeing her again.

They passed out the gate, Carlen seated atop that horse as proud and stiff-backed as he'd ever seen her. She did look as though she may have discovered a world worth inheriting and he envied her.

He watched them until they disappeared into the mists, leaving him with nothing but questions. Questions about Carlen.

Epilogue:

Carlen did return to Shelta, in time. She ate more and lived better, for a while, and after a while. She even slept a little better.

She spent time with Maena and Athie and with the other children, whom she came to know and spoke to in languages they would never hear and of places they would never see.

Of course Sterling Rainer Mathie was the last of her line, but she worked, and she watched, and learned from those who continued to shape and influence the course of her future. Her "Destiny", as Maena liked to call it.

Yeah, destiny.

Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, I hope you'll recommend it to others and perhaps take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer.

Thanks so much!

Rane Haverton
