Defiant, She Advanced: Legends of Future Resistance Read online

  “Like you said, for people like you, restitution is garbage. The roughest thing about the game I’m in is just that. People who need it are the ones who can’t get it. Someone will never be whole again.”

  I try to rise from the floor and fall backward on my ass.

  He continues, “The only restitution left is Biblical: ‘an eye for an eye’.”

  I make it to my feet this time and cross to the kitchen table on which I carefully lay the address and the new gun. I stand staring at the wall for a long moment before turning back to Murray. “It’s an Old Town address. I’ll need travel papers, bribe money…”

  “Sophia’ll get you fixed up and I’ll be sure you’re traveling to Old Town on real business so it’ll be legit if anyone checks. But you’ll need a lot more than paperwork, sweetie.” He inclined his head toward the table and the scrap of paper. “The guy is a decorated cop and the bloodhounds of Old Town will hunt down his killer and tear her apart. You need a big shiny plan.”

  I have one. “I’m going to—”

  “Don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know.”

  Night falls on Old Town. The city consumes itself, like a fan, in closing. Lights extinguish, noises soften, pedestrians enter the comparative safety of home. The pavement is quiet. Lights blaze only in bars and strip clubs, the only motion is from stray cars and alley dwellers — the drug dealers, sex-sellers and homeless.

  I press against the wall of an alley that’s across from the cop depot. I see him walk down the entrance stairs and onto street duty. He struts with an arrogant presumption of impunity. After checking again for the gun in my purse, I slink through the shadows after him.

  I am the skin of darkness on walls. A cat in silent dance, I glide between shadows through the thick black night. Tonight a man’s brain cells will leave his skull. The blood and grey matter will not bring back my husband or son. But I may meet MaryAnn.

  * * *

  Wendy McElroy is an individualist anarchist and individualist feminist who has published twelve nonfiction books and anthologies as well as hundreds of articles in publications ranging from Penthouse to Penn State. Her e-home is WendyMcElroy.com. She has scripted and edited several dozen documentaries and written for a syndicated television show, as well as working as a contributor at FOX News for five years. An aspiring science fiction writer, McElroy is turning The Slow Suicide of Living Again into a full-length novel.

  2

  Thompson’s Stand

  Jake Antares

  Thompson threw his hands up a moment too late. A half-brick caught the right side of his face, shattering his glasses. He felt himself involuntarily drop to one knee. Rocks and sticks continue to fall in a hail around him. Despite his throbbing right eye and the sticky blood cooling on his cheek, this was the first moment of rest he’d had all day.

  He took the glasses off and held them out at arm’s length. He watched the mob approach hesitantly through a projected blue screen that read “No Connection.” Thompson tossed the now useless frames to the dirt.

  “You—” he started. His voice was cracked and dry but he resisted the urge to cough. “You can’t scare me.” He made a show of wiping his forehead and then flicking the blood from his fingers. “I am not afraid of you.”

  He’d been followed by the horde for blocks, at first trying to show composure, then walking more briskly. Now he found himself in this park with his back to the river and no way to run. The crowd should have been more afraid of him than he was of them. They had good reason to be, or would have just a few days ago.

  Thompson looked up, squinting at the sun with naked eyes for the first time in years. Drones filled the sky making deliveries, analyzing traffic, filming, photographing, transmitting hundreds of petabytes of information to data centers that no longer even existed. It was only a small surprise to him that none of them carried the star-eyed eagle logo of the national security forces.

  As if reading his mind, a man stepped out in front of the mob and spoke. “Nobody comes.” The man had an accent and gestured toward the sky. “You look up there, but they don’t come.”

  The man waited for Thompson to respond, frowning. “Give up,” he added. He was short and stocky with a wide nose on a wide face. He looked almost kind except for the thick cudgel that swung loosely in his left hand.

  Thompson rose to his feet again. The swelling around his eye throbbed as he brought his face up to meet the other man’s. “I won’t let you degrade me, if that’s what you are thinking of. You can’t bring me down to your level.” Thompson paused, “You’ll have to kill me first.” Thompson wasn’t sure he meant it, but just saying it made him feel as if he’d thrown a punch.

  A new flurry of sticks, bricks, and shouts flew from behind the stocky man. Thompson turned his back to them, a few hit him, but most bounced on the grass or crumbled on the cement path beside him. The attack ended suddenly, and Thompson turned back around to see the stocky man holding up a hand, quieting the crowd behind him.

  “My name is Len. What is your name?” The man said calmly as if they were meeting in a bar, a job interview, or a car charging station.

  “It’s Thompson.” He held his chin up and glared as he said it. He thought he saw some recognition in the man’s eyes.

  “Nice to meet you, Thompson.”

  “Mr. Thompson,” he asserted, feeling bolder and determined not to be.

  “OK, Mr. Thompson,” Len continued, “you do what we say now, OK? No drones, no police is coming.”

  Thompson would not let himself be threatened. When someone came up behind Len and spoke into his ear, Thompson took a chance and pulled out the comm-stick he had in his pocket. He held it low and projected in the silent only-me mode.

  Len must have noticed his eyes glaze as they focused on the comm-stick’s holographic projection. He stepped toward Thompson slowly. Len was holding his hands up as if Thompson were the one holding a weapon. Len was showing an empty right hand and a thick piece of wood in the other. Thompson thought of the stunner he’d left in a drawer in his office, never imagining he’d need a greater weapon than his name and ID card.

  “Please see news if comm-stick working.” After a beat he added, “Mr. Thompson.”

  Thompson switched the comm-stick to the news feed and the words of the synthesized voice hit him like no brick or bullet could have.

  “…tional Security Corporation CEO and CFO Brandt have agreed to what is being called Second Abolition. All citizen indentureship contracts have been suspended in the wake of the violence. All so-called slaver contracts, leases, debts, and bills of sale are declared null and v…”

  “You are not slaves,” Thompson shouted first at Len and then at the others with him. “You should be thankful you have food to eat. What are you going to do now? You signed the contracts and now you want out. This won’t stand, no way. You’re fucked. You’re homeless.”

  “We are free,” Len said quietly, and not without a bit of sadness.

  “…looting and fires reported at locations in several cities including the offices of human resources megacorp, Thompson People and Energy. Several executives of TPE have been found dead of apparent suicide, all others have been asked to report to th…”

  “So fuck you then.” Thompson was looking around as he spoke, searching for an escape route. “You’re free now, kill me, I don’t care, fuck you. Be poor. Let your kids get sick and die. I’ll go get a pardon, get some money. I’ll be on the beach and you’ll be picking up my trash.”

  Len took another step toward him. Thompson threw the comm-stick, and it bounced off Len’s chest and fell to the ground. Len picked it up and continued to approach. Thompson backed away. His shoe slipped on the broken, discarded glasses, and he fell backward. He found himself looking up at Len. Len held the comm-stick out to him.

  Thompson slapped the hand away and scrambled to his feet.

  “Unlock, please.” Len pushed the small black cylinder into Thompson’s hand.

  Thompson eyed the cudg
el Len was holding and threw the comm-stick as far away as he could.

  A few seconds later, a boy came running to Len’s side carrying Thompson’s comm-stick.

  “Unlock, please,” Len said offering it to Thompson again.

  “There’s no one you can call,” said Thompson. “If you think you can steal my money with this, you’re out of your mind. I’ll be fine. I’ve got friends, even if I turn myself in. You’re just a piece of shit, and I won’t let you degrade me.” He made a show of holding his thumbprint to one end of the cylinder while scanning his retina with the other side to unlock it. “All yours chief, amigo, comrade, a lot of good it’ll do you. We still own you no matter what the news says. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Len looked weary as he took the now unlocked comm-stick, held it up to the side of his neck and waved it in a tight circle. The lock on the metallic collar around his neck snapped open and dropped to the ground.

  Len rubbed the pale skin on his neck where the collar had been before turning his back on Thompson and leaning down to unlock the collar of a small boy. When the boy’s collar dropped he raised to fists in the air and smiled up at Len. Len passed the comm-stick to the next person in line.

  He turned again, pointing his thick bludgeon in Thompson’s direction. “You free, Thompson,” he said. “You free and…” he pointed the stick at Thompson again, then at the boy, then at himself. “Now, three free men.” Len put a heavy arm around his son’s shoulders, looked back one last time at Thompson, and started walking home.

  * * *

  Jake Antares is a writer and translator who grew up in Philadelphia and lived most of his adult life in Japan. He is currently completing his first novel. Connect with him at JakeAntares.com

  3

  Under the Heel of the Aether Imperium

  J.P. Medved

  “I thought human brood mothers were confined to raise offspring, not given aetherships.”

  Arla wriggled her fingers underneath her nose, a gesture that, on the alien’s home world, would have been interpreted as rude surprise and contempt.

  “Maybe Hasani brood mothers.” She spat the word out. “But I am not Hasani.”

  “Yet this world is controlled by their Imperium. And you are human, like they, are you not? What are you, then, if not Hasani?”

  “I am a daughter of the Merchant’s Compact, a free woman. And I wasn’t given my ship, I earned it, like every other honest trader.” She’d paid more for her tradeship than this alien would ever know.

  “You are bold to admit such a relationship openly. There aren’t many merchants left who would, after the crackdown.”

  “The alleged crackdown. Free trading’s not outlawed yet. And even the Imperium can’t be everywhere at once.” She brushed a stray lock of shoulder-length brown hair from her face.

  The alien’s nose tentacles wriggled in a way that could have been either pitying condescension, or polite worry. Arla couldn’t tell.

  It continued, in that rolling voice peculiar to the Carth, its words of accented tradespeak sounding like the clatter of pebbles swirling around the bottom of a stream, “And what if I were an Imperium agent, sent to spy out and report on Compact members?”

  Arla’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t know if the Carth could read human facial expressions, but if it couldn’t understand her scowl, the two slow pats on the butt of her revolver, riding comfortably down in a holster at her thigh, were unmistakable.

  “That’s what my Ellis is for.”

  “And against a squadron of Imperium dragoons?”

  Arla glanced around the large, crowded room. Other than a diminutive Weeg at the bar looking at her just a little too intently with its wide, watery eyes, and a pair of Malicks arguing by the door, everything at Manrac’s Spice and Intoxicant Tavern was as it should be. As it had been the other times she’d visited looking for work after a run to Eutheri. The other times we visited, she reminded herself with a pang.

  The low light of paraffin lamps cast much of the room and its maze of squat tables, booths, and sunken acid baths in shadow. It was the kind of lighting most of the patrons preferred for the type of business that occurred at Manrac’s. Her father hadn’t liked it, and only started coming here after more legitimate work became hard to find for Compact traders. After the arrests.

  Seeing no immediate threats in her quick survey, she fixed her eyes back on the Carth, “You got a point to all these hypotheticals, or you simply wasting my time?”

  The tentacles wriggled slight amusement, “I knew you were Compact before I even sought you out.”

  Arla shifted her weight.

  “The signs were obvious, for one who knew where to look: ship docked at a very specific repair shop, to avoid export taxes, no record in the planetary trade papers of the arrival of such a ship, but discreet inquiries, through certain middlemen, into local cargo or transport needs. And the ship itself, heavily armed, a modern design of brass and steel, hardly any wood, with aetherium wings larger than many luxury aether yachts. Not something private individuals on most worlds are even allowed to own.”

  Arla’s trigger finger twitched. The Carth had described the Profit and Luck perfectly.

  Perhaps sensing her agitation the alien rumbled on. “I prefer to do business with you precisely because you are of the Galactic Merchants’ Compact. I value the honesty of a free trader over the convenience of a licensed one, and I have a desire, as you do, to keep my business to myself, and not see it recorded in Imperium ledger books.”

  “And what business is that?”

  “Transport for me and various of my personal belongings to the city of Thu’tachc on New Aureliun.”

  Arla sucked in a breath, “That’s too far.”

  “I can pay a fair price.”

  “Look uh—”

  The alien seemed to draw itself up, “I am apellated Ry’th, Thousandth and Eleven of the Homemaker Brood.”

  “Look, Rahith—”

  “Ry’th.”

  “Right, that’s what I said. Look Rahith, even if I could find someone willing to share the berth with you, or someone looking to send any kind of cargo from here all the way to that rock, it still wouldn’t be worth the time and trouble to me. That’s almost a month’s travel, not counting stop-offs for air and food. And there’s precious little on New Aureliun to pay for the return journey.”

  “Two thousand capitals. And not in Imperium paper. Borean minted gold.”

  Arla had been trained by her father to be wary of deals that appeared too good to be true. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” he always said.

  “You kill somebody?”

  Ry’th’s undernose twitched distress, “Nothing quite so pedestrian. I am a writer, and the things I write are not much loved by the Imperator and his government. Various of my colleagues have… disappeared.”

  So. A fugitive then. His high fee was to compensate for the high risk of taking on his business.

  She crossed her arms, “Twenty-five hundred.”

  “Twenty-two hundred, and I’ll restock your ship with food and air when we arrive.”

  A pause.

  “Deal.” Arla wriggled her fingers to indicate agreement. “You already seem to know where my ship is, when would you like to—”

  “Immediately. This evening if possible.”

  She nodded. “You will, of course, sign the standard contract.” The Imperium had recently declared Compact contracts unenforceable on the worlds it controlled. Planetary governments which had once happily competed for Compact arbitration customers now turned them away where they did not report or arrest them. Still, enforceable or not, a contract was a contract, and she made all her customers sign them, as had her father. The Compact’s blacklist still held some power, even though printing it without a license was illegal, and obtaining a printing license these days was functionally impossible without being a vocal Imperium supporter.

  The alien’s nose tentacles waved assent, and Arla stood. “I’ll
see you at duskenhour then. Bring payment in full.” She dropped a two-decame coin on the table before leaving. The Weeg at the bar, she noticed, was gone.

  The Profit and Luck took off less than fifteen minutes after Ry’th’s arrival that night, at the Carth’s nervous insistence.

  True to his word the alien brought only himself and a few personal effects, including a small but deceptively heavy valise, and two and a fifth gold cubes, bearing the stamp of the Borean Metal Conglomerate. These last he passed over to Arla, handling them as if they were worth no more than tharn meat. The young aethership captain bit into them, testing the soft give of the rare metal, before secreting them away in one of the many hidden compartments aboard the Profit and Luck and unrolling a contract for the alien to sign.

  The owner of the repair shop where she’d docked the ship was Mar Tornald, an old retired Compact trader. A friend of her father’s who didn’t ask questions and didn’t give a quald’s shit for the new Imperium trading regulations and taxes. His spacious warehouse on the edge of one of the smaller towns on Eutheri played host at any time to a number of tradeships, mostly Compact, but some Guild, and even a few Unaffiliated. Arla knew most of them — veterans of the aetherlanes like her father — though there were fewer than ever nowadays.

  One ship docked nearby had caught her eye. She didn’t recognize it as either Compact or Guild, but it had a curious, oblong design and, more importantly, a particularly clean and shiny section near its nose, roughly in the shape of a Compact Affiliation Sigil. As the Imperator’s fist closed on the Compact, more and more traders were abandoning it, it seemed.

  With the alien safely ensconced in the passenger quarters, Arla turned the crank to open the aetherwings. She extended three segments, just enough for the Profit and Luck to lift slowly off the packed dirt of the warehouse floor but not enough to send her rocketing into the roof. With a practiced ease she pushed the yoke to angle the wings and the ship glided forward, passing several others before exiting neatly through the open warehouse doors.