Berto, to his credit, did his best to convince me that I was mistaken about all of this.
Also to his credit, Berto felt bad about what his win had cost me. He had a suggestion for how he could make it up to me. He wanted me to sign on to the Drakkar.
He had some vague idea that he could get me in as a Security goon. He was famous, after all, and he’d always gotten whatever he wanted up until that point in his life. Why wouldn’t he be able to get this?
Gwen Johansen pretty much summed up the answer to that question for me during our interview. There were a lot of people who wanted Security berths, and there were only eighteen slots available. Most of them went to people with both some sort of qualification—experience in law enforcement, weapons training, etc.—and political connections. I didn’t have any of those things, because having read extensively about the Battle of Midway does not count as military experience, and as it turned out Berto didn’t have nearly as much pull as he thought he did.
I did put in a request to interview for a Security position. A rejection bounced back to me less than a second later.
The next afternoon I met Berto for coffee at Shaky Joe’s. I showed him the rejection notice on my tablet.
“Ouch,” he said. “That sucks.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It was kind of a dumb idea, anyway. I owe some money. You don’t flee the planet over something like that.”
Berto shook his head. “You owe a lot of money, Mickey, and guys like Darius Blank don’t forgive and forget. What is it, a hundred thousand credits? How are you planning on paying that back?”
I shrugged. “Installment plan?”
“You didn’t just buy a used flitter, buddy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.” I dropped my head into my hands. “I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I didn’t just tell you to throw the freaking match.”
He stared at me for a long moment, then laughed. “You could have asked,” he said, “but I wouldn’t have done it. This tournament was the last thing the yahoos on this planet will ever hear from me, Mickey. There’s no way I wasn’t going to win.”
That’s the thing about Berto. Friendship with him only ever went so far, and no farther.
On the way home from the coffee shop, I remember thinking that this really wasn’t going to be so bad. Yeah, Blank would take a chunk of my subsidy, but he’d have to leave me enough to stay alive, right? If I starved to death, he’d never get his money back. And maybe being his valet wouldn’t be so bad? It would give me a reason to get out of the apartment, anyway.
I got home. I took the lift tube up to my floor. I let myself into my apartment. The door was still swinging shut behind me when my legs stopped working and I fell flat on my face.
“Hello, Mickey,” a voice said. I tried to answer, but my mouth wasn’t working either, and all that came out was a low moan. “Just relax,” the voice said. “This won’t take long.” Something pressed against the back of my neck.
I spent the next thirty seconds in hell.
I later learned that the thing that had been pressed against my neck was in fact a neural inducer. It was tuned to tap directly into my pain centers. It didn’t do any physical damage, but if you’re curious about what I experienced, try skinning yourself alive while a friend works you over with a blowtorch.
That might get you about ten percent of the way there.
When it was over, I was astonished to find that I was still alive. I was sobbing and paralyzed and I’d soiled myself, but I was still alive. A hand patted my shoulder.
“This was fun,” the voice said. “We’ll be working together, you and I, until you’re all square with Mr. Blank. See you tomorrow, Mickey.”
He didn’t close the door behind himself on the way out.
It was about an hour before I could move again. I got to my feet, staggered into the bathroom, and cleaned myself up. That taken care of, I sat down and had a good cry.
That night, I logged on to the recruitment page for the Drakkar. It listed the various sections and positions, and who had been selected for each so far.
Every slot was full.
Every one but one.
I pinged Berto.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s an Expendable?”
“That,” Berto said, “is the one berth on the Drakkar that you do not want.”
“It’s the only one that’s still open. I want it.”
He was silent for a while. When he spoke again, his voice had the tone you take when you’re explaining to someone that you want them to come down off the ledge.
“Look,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong about this. I would really love to have you with me on this trip. This is a one-way, and it would be great to have a friend along. But Mickey—”
“Can you put in a word for me?”
“I mean—”
“Berto,” I said. “I’m asking for your help here. You kind of did this to me, you know.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t tell you to bet against me. If you’d asked, I would have told you to bet on me. I knew I was going to win.”
“Will you help me?”
He sighed. “Honestly, Mickey? I don’t think you’re gonna need my help.”
He cut the connection. I went back to the recruitment page and scheduled an interview for the next afternoon.
Twelve hours later, when Gwen ran down her list of all the horrible things that might happen to me during my tenure as an Expendable, all I could think was, That doesn’t sound so bad, actually. They put some effort into training me not to fear the reaper once I’d boosted up to the Drakkar and couldn’t change my mind about signing on, but honestly none of that made too much of an impression on me. I’d gotten all the training anyone ever needed on that front in that one afternoon.
005
I DON’T GET shoved into the cycler at this time. The disassembler field doesn’t get me.
I’m explaining this now because you looked nervous.
I’m on my hands and knees, looking down at the hole. Swear to God, I’m gonna do it. I lower my face down, right next to the interface. I can feel the field pulling at me, a tingle along my cheeks and across the bridge of my nose as it strokes my skin, and I’m trying to figure out a way to do this that will be something less than agonizing, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
“Give me a minute!” I bark, picturing Eight shoving me down the hole face-first.
“No,” Eight says. He pulls me back onto my heels and offers me a hand up. “This isn’t right. I can’t just stand here and watch you do this.”
I let him haul me to my feet. I’m shaking so badly that I can barely stand.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m with you on that.”
I take a deep breath, then another. For some reason, staring down into that black disk was much, much worse than staring down the gullet of that thing in the tunnel last night.
“So, ah … what do you suggest?”
“Let’s go back upstairs,” he says. “I can drown you in the toilet, then chop you up in the chem shower and feed you through the cycler a piece at a time.”