#
Three days later I saw a chance to prove my words.
I noticed Thale 86 had a problem with its right eye – some kind of cataract or something. Mech-orgs had the eyes of cattle because although the Elite could clone flesh a-plenty, they had trouble with the complex optical organ. They just couldn’t make them work. So, the mech-orgs got beef cattle eyes, which would otherwise have gone to waste in the meat production facilities. They looked weird enough with their stretched skin and their boxy heads, but the cow eyes made them look particularly creepy, like hornless minotaurs.
With Thale 86 having a blind spot, I decided to take advantage.
At the end of the shift, I took my time clearing up my area. The only ones left in the small cavern in which I was working were Thale 86, another mech-org, Jorgenson, and me.
“Move,” said Thale 86.
“All right, I’m coming,” I said. Then I dropped my sonic extractor. “Oh, sorry.” I bent to pick it up as Thale 86 stepped toward me. I ducked low to the floor and turned to his right, then quickly jumped up behind him and grabbed his shoulder cannon before he could turn his head to track me.
The cannon didn’t detach.
But I had my finger on the trigger, and I fired.
It hit the wall.
The other mech-org turned and fired, just as Thale 86 spun around with me hanging on its back.
Thale 86 was hit.
It froze in place, forming a shield for me as I continued to piggyback it and fire its cannon at the other mech-org. I hit it, and it froze. I jumped down and moved toward the doorway out of the cavern.
Jorgenson leapt in front of me and blocked my path.
“What are you doing?” I asked, panting. “Don’t you want to be free?”
“Oh yes, I do. That’s why you’re not going anywhere.”
“Are you crazy? We can get out of here right now.”
“No.”
With that, he decked me with a right hook that came out of nowhere, crashing into my chin.
“What is the matter with you?” I yelled, scrambling back to my feet and squaring off with the large man.
“I’m securing my freedom.”
“By staying here?”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“I’m under contract.”
“For what?”
He stared at me coldly. “Twenty-three races. I had twenty-three more races to go – and freedom never felt farther away. I just didn’t believe I could win them all. I’d been barely placing in the top half my last fifteen races. So when one of the Elite approached me with an offer, I couldn’t refuse.”
“Offer?”
“They took me out of the races – put me here. I’m on a six-month deal. I work for the mech-orgs. They are programmed to not injure me or harm me in any way. I’m here to help with security, as a spy and an enforcer. I talk people out of escaping, infiltrate escape conspiracies, quell breakout rebellions. And I – ”
I charged him, enraged. “Traitor!”
He lunged at me at the same time, and tackled me to the ground, pinning me.
“I guess they feed you pretty well, too,” I grunted, noting his strength, and noticing for the first time that his face was ruddier than the rest of us pale, frail rock chippers.
“Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone?” he said through gritted teeth. “You couldn’t just let it be and die here peacefully, could you?”
“You make me sick,” I spat. Summoning my strength, I pushed him off me and tried to stand.
He’d somehow managed to get to his feet faster than me, and kicked me in the ribs. I heard a cracking sound and fell to the floor in agony.
He kicked me again.
Repeatedly.
“I *kick* just *kick* want *kick* to kick* be *kick* free!” he grunted with each sickening blow.
I could feel my insides turning to jelly under the force of his work boot. I saw stars. I vomited.
And then he lifted my sonic extractor from the floor, came and stood over me where I lay helpless. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’d do the same thing in my shoes.”
And then he brought it down on my skull with all his might.
Blackness.
I was dead.
#
I was dead.
Yet I dreamed a strange dream as my body was put back together by ~dart technology.
My dream consisted of a recurring image of Jorgenson smashing in my skull, cast behind a visual of Roxy Jones accepting her freedom race winnings. She stood before an Elite race organizer. The Elite waved an instrument across her forehead, deactivating her constraining cell-codes. He asked her what she wanted as her one material takeaway. She pointed to her ~dart.
The nanomedics swarmed over and through my crushed body, a coursing wave of energy and intelligence. They raced to repair tissue, using preset triage criteria as well as making logic-based decisions as they went.
First, they reactivated my autonomic system: brain, heart, lungs. They kept my consciousness suppressed and activated the dream sequence I was now experiencing. They also left the pain receptors in my brain disengaged while they methodically rebuilt the rest of my body at a frantic pace.
The whole process took less than ninety seconds.
I opened my eyes to find myself cradled in Roxy’s arms.
“I beat you,” she said, smiling down at me.
“Not as bad as Jorgenson did,” I said. “How did you find me?”
“Your body was tossed into a waste heap on the mining moon. David helped me track you down – we got to you two days after you were killed.”
“My brother? He’s dead.”
“Clearly not,” said David, stepping into the ~dart’s cockpit area from the aft area.
“But I collected your atoms,” I said, confused.
“It was a set-up,” said David. “The Elite wanted to make that race the biggest betting opportunity in history. So they staged my death. The rouse was intended to pit two freedom racers against each other – to make you choose between death and love. It made major headlines in the entertainment world.”
“And you took part in this rouse?” I said, getting angry.
“They offered me my freedom. They also threatened to dock me twenty race wins if I didn’t cooperate.”
I frowned. But then I started to smile as I contemplated the fact that my brother, my love and I were all alive – and all free people.
“Well,” said Roxy. “How do you feel?”
“As good as new.”
“And you’re only a couple months late for your freedom,” said David.
“Well, race slaves never really die,” I said. “We just get . . . delayed.”
THE END
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