Page 14

While sucking on a hydro-gel, she jumped into leggings, a sports bra, and sneakers and headed out the door.

Beyond the apartment block was Endis Gardens with massive sol trees that filtered the dome’s sunlight to the real fauna and flora beneath them.

She crossed the busy intersection, paying attention to non-autodrive vehicles.

Manually driven cars were more unpredictable.

While warming up, she drew in long breaths.

The air tasted sweeter. She smiled, settling her gaze on children playing nearby. Mothers chatted, their gazes vigilant.

Vic broke into a run, keeping to the dedicated paths.

She relished the energy powering her limbs, more alive in every inch of her well-toned body.

At the Ring, exercise was done indoors until the nineth year.

Gladiators were considered trustworthy in their ‘final’ year, under the assumption they wouldn’t jeopardize their chance at freedom.

Ande had been living on Earth for the last two years. After he lost his deca-match.

She darted between the sol trees. The shifting shadows from their manmade branches reminded her of Millie’s, of home. Despite Pa selling her to the Ring, Vic still had fond memories of her time alone, working the butterfly plates in the pre-dawn light.

The warmth of the sun burned her upturned cheeks, but she didn’t mind when a breeze cooled her flushed face.

She found a café and ordered a cup of Ganymede coffee.

Time passed while she surveyed the folks going about their business.

Ten years in a cocoon had meant a culture adjustment was needed.

Fashion hadn’t been a factor pre-Carne, so what people wore didn’t surprise her.

Technology had progressed, of that she didn’t doubt.

She’d love to learn how better to harvest sol, perhaps roll out those changes on Millie’s.

The farm was hers, of course. She’d planned to sell it and throw Pa out into the sand. Now, she was having doubts.

She needed something to do with her time. Paying for the coffee with the swipe of her wrist, she turned for home, planning on joining Ande for dinner, then perhaps a sparring session before bedtime.

While waiting to cross the intersection, an odd whirring caught her attention.

As if in slow motion, an autodrive swerved off its programmed route, something unheard of.

She blinked at it, then swept her gaze to what lay in its path.

A little girl swung her legs where she sat on the bus stop’s bench.

Ice drenched Vic, shooting shivers to the tips of her fingers.

Without hesitation, she bolted across the street, dodging vehicles, courier drones, and pedestrians.

Had she been augmented, stopping the autodrive with a rocket might have worked.

She managed to pick up the child, but twisting to leap aside only half-worked.

The little girl tumbled free when the autodrive clipped Vic.

The pain was indescribable but also unreal.

Her mind struggled to latch onto what was happening.

Her left arm, torn from her body, flew to the side, landing with a squelch on the heated walkway.

At the same time, something smacked her hip, spinning her.

She hit the walkway and bounced, coming to a standstill on her right side.

Dazed, she lay there, unable to understand what her body was telling her.

Pain beyond anything she’d ever experienced.

Fire, and in strange places, like her throat, as if she couldn’t breathe.

People crowded her. The traffic stopped.

A man knelt before her, yelling in a garbled voice.

As if time had caught up, everything slammed into her—the agony, screams, and unbearable noise. She whimpered, and when the man touched her, she fainted.

A deafening roar awoke her. Nausea and dulled pain came next followed by the sensation that something was…odd.

She blinked unfocused eyes at the muted white walls and sea-green lights.

Her mind blurred, phasing memories on the back of her eyelids like flicking through archaic prints of photographs.

Similar to the one she used to keep in her locker at the Ring—a faded full-color glossy of her ma Erv had returned to Vic after her first victory.

“How do you feel?”

Recognizing that sibilant voice, she whipped her head and smothered a shudder born of revulsion.

Why was a Carne representative in her room?

How long had he been watching her? His gray suit was impeccable, his ebony hair coiffed to perfection against the backdrop of his olive skin and plastic-white smile.

She closed her eyes, willing his presence to be a nightmare.

“What do you want?” She clipped the words, not wanting to waste her breath on the obsequious man.

“So ungrateful after what Carne did for you.”

Heat burned along her nerve endings, churning nausea in the pit of her stomach.

She didn’t want to look, couldn’t bring herself to.

Lying still, she focused on her legs first. They were heavy, as if weighted by the blankets, but she could wriggle her toes.

Lifting her arms, she studied them, testing their mobility by touching each finger to her thumbs.

“A new liver?” She grimaced at her hopeful tone, then shook her head. Her internal organs were healthy, not like Pa’s, who’d no doubt drunk himself into a stupor with the tokens the Ring had given him. She cupped her breasts and sighed. Their familiar shape calmed the palpitation of her heart.

“Do you remember what happened, Ms. Harper?”

“Of course I do,” she said, throwing him an irritated look, but his expression didn’t change—self-assured and oozing patience.

Images flashed in her mind along with morphed sounds as if in slow motion. The out-of-control autodrive aiming for that little girl. Vic saving the child but watching her arm fly past her.

Losing a limb makes no sound. The senses merge until Vic smelled the fiery agony and felt the stench of burned skin. Her mind switched off reality, and the subconscious kicked into survival mode but didn’t make the right connections.

She sat up. A cry escaped her lips. Her body was hers, no one else’s, and for farg’s sake, not Carne’s.

She shoved her left arm in front of her, studying the skin, the shape, the tension and release of her muscles.

There was no pain now, but a burning wrenching lingered on the edges of her subconscious.

What did they do to me? Visions of her dismembered arm snapped across her mind.

The memory was incongruent with what she could see—her left arm intact and still attached to her body.

No, no, anything but augmentation. Sweeping over her was that same helplessness from the day Carne imprisoned her.

Her vow to never experience that again had driven her to work hard, to survive.

“What the fuck did you do? It was a no then and a no now.” She flicked the blankets off, uncaring that she exposed her bare legs to his avid gaze.

“We did what we could to save you,” he said, his voice calm with a hint of eagerness. He watched her with bated breath as if expecting a moment of revelation.

“ You had the autodrive hacked. They never malfunction. That girl could’ve died.

” She shoved her finger in his face; his wince hit her with a spike of dopamine.

“You did what you did for your stakeholders, and advertising the champion as having your cybernetics is good for business.” She clambered off the bed but grabbed the railing to ward off dizziness.

It was the last sign of weakness she would afford him.

“Yet you violated international autodrive-protocol and clipped me. For what? A stronger, faster me when you no longer own me?”

She strode toward him, clenching and unfurling her left fist. Her mind reeled at what shouldn’t have been there—her fingers.

He scrambled back, a bright smile warring with the fear darkening his eyes.

Snatching the chair he hid behind, she tossed it across the room, testing her new strength and the dexterity of her fingers.

Then, with righteousness filling every pore and empowering her decisions and actions, she gripped his jaw to lift him off the floor.

That infernal grin still splayed across his face so she punched him, pain burning across her right knuckles.

That was good; it meant they hadn’t converted all her limbs while they were at it.

His blood dribbled from his deformed nose, splashing over her splayed hand.

Outside the hospital, the setting sun cast shadows on the bustling city of New Westlands far below.

No one could survive a fall from this height.

He was no exception. Spinning, she dragged him through the window, shattering it.

She dangled him over the edge. A jagged piece of glass pierced her new limb, but she didn’t feel it.

He squealed and grasped her forearm, smearing her blood across the torn synthetic skin and the mechanics beneath.

“I was the Ring’s champion, but that wasn’t enough for you. I’d earned my freedom. What gave you the right to do this?” She shook him, his legs flying out like a puppet’s. He screamed, his smile, for once, absent.

“The Ring is down as next of kin,” he said. With the fear contorting his face and her grip crushing his larynx, she could forgive him for strangling his words.

Cool wind whipped her hair around her. The fading sunlight dropped the temperatures and brought relief to the baked soil for an hour before chilling it.

The urge to return home twanged through her, and as her room filled with the hospital’s security guards, she studied the representative, the last obstacle to her freedom.

“I no longer belong to Carne. Repeat it.”

He whimpered so she jolted him again, shaking her head at the guards not to come closer. Their mouths moved in slow motion, demanding she pull him inside. She laughed since she had the upper hand. They couldn’t take her down without losing him.

“Say it,” she roared.

“You are free of the Ring and any obligations to Carne. All ownership of Victoria Harper is hereby relinquished,” he said, his eyes pleading with her not to kill him.

“Thank you,” she said and released him.