Chap 3

The slums is a monster that devours the soul of youth and spits out the gristle.

Somebody must have said so at one time or another, for all the residents of Area 9 knew from experience that it was the honest truth. Yet those who tried to leave the slums were met with a deep-rooted scorn, and an envy more scathing than an ordinary man could imagine.

Rotting on the vine, the aging drifters—for there was nothing left to them but to grow old—had no dreams to consume. This was not necessarily good or bad. The day-to-day reality that was their only inheritance was worse than eating sand.

Yet they poured slanderous abuse upon those trying to destroy that painful reality, a backlash that mercilessly ate away at the soul. It was the dilemma.

A man could not fly without dreams, but a man who never flew never knew the fear of falling. Any hope of progress was abandoned. Although this truth was hidden from no one, these people would clip their wings and throw them away, saying that if they did not, they would surely die.

The reality forming the "walls" of the slums was that thick, the darkness that black.

Consequently, those who dared to challenge those walls, even knowing they would he slapped down, were derisively called "Martians," after the Roman god of war. Drinking themselves into depravity in rages of self-pity, those hiding behind these words knew the shoes of these "Martians" would never fit them.

Riki had once said the same thing over and over, like a pet phrase. He expressed his true thoughts only to Guy, the pairing partner that was his "better half." Someday I'm going to kiss the slums goodbye.

Until then, everybody who'd expressed the same sentiments and left the slums behind had returned with fallen spirits and drooping shoulders after barely a month. Without a touch of fear Riki put conviction into his words and looked forward to the future.

Someday. For sure.

Four years before.

Three months had passed since Bison unexpectedly broke up like a plane disintegrating in mid-air. Late one night, Riki staggered into Guy's hole in the wall.

"Hey, you okay?"

As soon as he opened the door, Guy caught a face full of alcohol-laden breath and had to turn away. Even when he drank, Riki wasn't a guzzler, but right now he smelled to Guy like he'd showered in booze.

Seeing Riki in this state aroused in Guy a high degree of anxiety. Before even inviting him in Guy reflexively knit his brows. "Riki, what's going on?"

Clearly not giving a damn about his own besotted condition, Riki leaned forward, swaying, the corners of his mouth turning up. "A little present," he said, pressing something against Guy's chest.

Guy had heard the rumors, but when it came to a same-label knockoff, not to mention the real thing, this brand of stout sported the astronomical prices that not even God could afford. He swallowed hard. "Where the hell did you get this?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

Riki chuckled with a suppressed a smile. It could be the real thing, or he was strung out on skid row home brew. Looking at Riki's slack lips and sloppy mouth, Guy couldn't begin to comprehend what was on his mind. As if to nip his anxieties in the bud, he spoke carefully. "You certainly seem in a good mood. You strike it rich?"

He probed gently. Riki cast himself on the one good bed like he owned the place and mumbled, "Yeah, something like that." He lifted his heavy, bleary eyes and snorted through his nose. "Still, the Roget Renna Vartan is bloody impressive, too."

"This some kind of joke?"

Huh? I just happened to come into a rare vintage you wouldn't think of praying for and wanted to share the joy. Shit, you're not saying I pinched it, are you?"

With that, Riki twisted his body and laughed, his voice approaching a screech. Guy was uncertain whether the loud laughter could be attributed to the drink, or a kink of stone-cold sober self-derision, and he couldn't quell a growing sense of foreboding.

If his memory was not mistaken, this was probably the first time in a long time that Riki made a killing cruising the Midas night. That's what accounted for his sudden change in appearance.

Guy plunged his hands into Riki's pockets and found them bulging with a prepaid credit cards. "You've got more than enough, right? Let's bug out of here before you roll snake eyes."

Riki had responded with a playful kick to Guy's ass. "Lady luck is loving me long and hard tonight. At a time like this, it's only good manners to love her back the same way. You take off, Guy. Myself, I'm up for another round."

Riki laughed fearlessly and disappeared into the crowds. That was the last Guy had seen of him that day.

At the time, Guy hadn't been particularly worried. Though edging himself pretty far out on the limb, the unusually jittery Riki still struck him as the last person to try pulling some dumb stunt. Guy was sure he'd head off in high spirits and find some dive to drink the night away in.

But when Guy thought about it now, that night had been the start of something—something had happened out there, but Riki showed not the slightest inclination of saying what.

A month later Riki dropped the bombshell: "Guy, I'm quitting Bison."

Back in the day, beforemaking itself king of the mountain in the slums, Bison had been formed to protect a bunch of newcomers who enjoyed nopatronage and had no connections in the colonies from getting eaten alive bythe wily old rogues.

The powerful feasted on the weak. They fought, therefore they were. That was the painfully transparent logic of power in the slums. The strong inherited the earth—how could they not?

Those who prevailed and advanced to the next round in the struggle for existence earned the right to loudly proclaim their own righteousness. Fawners and whiners need not apply. Trust no one. For good or ill, those who couldn't carve out their own place in the world would be plucked raw.

Best to become strong and avoid getting screwed over. That was the rule of the slums. Even if weak individually, great power arose from combining the many as one. If those who individually would be left destitute pooled their resources and worked in union, they could clean house. Riki had become the catalyst, the linchpin that made it happen.

"Lying low and playing it safe guarantees nothing." That had been Riki's ironclad policy since his days at the Guardian foster center.

But Riki also said, "That doesn't mean I've got the slightest inclination to catch flack for complete strangers." Aside from finally deciding to become—out of sheer necessity—the de facto leader of Bison, he did not have any particular desire for the position nor any attachment to it.

He simply couldn't tolerate people trying to twist his arm, people wearing kid gloves that concealed mailed fists. Or the cajoling, bothersome buttinskies. Or the grifters who bought their salvation on the backs of others.

The affection Riki's acolytes had for him burned with a white hot flame, but with the sole exception of Guy, Riki's black eyes never blazed with an equal devotion towards them. In spite of this, Riki's presence was enchanting, and it excited in them a kind of euphoria.

And so Guy, and then Sid, and then Luke, because of him, Norris, hitched their fortunes to Riki and formed the pillars shouldering the throne of his charisma. They had their own desires. They dreamed their own dreams. And they aspired to dispatch the opposition and become top dog in the slums as well.

But once Riki abdicated, for whatever reason, no one had the desire to become his successor, and that's why Bison disintegrated. As outsiders looked on in amazement, it faded away into that good night with nary a struggle.

Isn't he the one rushing in where angels fear to tread? The slums were talking, and the way the envious rumors were flying about, it was believed he must've really been in the money. A short while later, just when everyone was beginning to doubt they'd see his face again, he suddenly showed up with a crate of expensive spirits the likes of which the slums had never seen before.

While greeting all the commotion with a big smile, he was not intoxicated in the slightest by the looks of envy and jealousy he received. Far from it. Guy and the others thought they detected something unfathomable in Riki's black eyes, the intensity of a swollen and insatiable hunger.

Not only Guy and the others, but everybody in the slums wanted to know the source of his riches.

"Yo, Riki. You're not eating at the trough of one of those new money types, are you?"

"No way. You think there's anybody who could put a muzzle on a wild stallion like Riki?"

"So, what's the real story, then?"

Cross-examining him, tossing around the needling sarcasm and barbed jokes, Riki made no effort to respond other than with vague, noncommittal answers.

They didn't press him any further than this. Even when they were no longer hanging out together 24/7, Riki was still the same old Riki, and so provoked no more than his expected share of antipathy and jealousy.

No, that wasn't it.

His conspicuous jet black hair and obsidian eyes, along with the vivid aura sealed within his supple limbs, had become more intense. Riki was free from the shackles that Bison had become, and people even thought that he had reclaimed some of the brilliance of his true nature.

Nobody put these thoughts into words, but they had come to realize that the disparity between themselves and Riki had become stark. They half-unconsciously kept themselves in check so that all their chickenshit envy wouldn't end up warping their outlook on life, wouldn't rend in two the chains binding themselves and Riki together.

Guy couldn't help but worry. Not as a member of Bison but as Riki's pairing partner, constantly at his side.

"Hey, Riki. Seriously, you don't want to be sticking your head out like this."

What the hell are you looking at me like that for, all of a sudden?"

"Don't try to pull the wool over my eyes. Gimme an answer!"

Guy fretted because he wished to be Riki's emotional cornerstone. That's what he wanted, and that's how he hoped things would continue to be. But then where did this strange sense of irritation come from? Or the illusion that the bonds connecting Riki and himself were unraveling bit by bit? Or that Riki was not even aware of his growing unease?

Riki sighed deeply and spoke in a subdued voice. "You know, Guy, there aren't opportunities just lying around everywhere. Especially chances for guys like us to see the light of day." He narrowed his black eyes slightly, eyes steeped with alcohol. "That stout I snuck in here, I was going to stretch it out and make it last longer but I got tired of the crappy buzz it got me."

He quietly spoke his mind about things he'd been storing up inside him.

"If I'm going to see the same old dreams, I want to see a damned good show. Just sitting around with my thumb in my mouth and a wistful look on my face till the end of time is a waste. We both know tons of blokes like that. You know?"

He knew what he was asking.

"Guy, I hate it here. If I stay like this forever, I'm going to rot from the inside out. It's enough to give me the fucking willies."

He knew the weight of reality.

He knew everything inside and out.

"I'm going to crawl out of here and see for myself," he said aloud, as if to demonstrate the strength of his unwavering will.

Guy didn't know what had spurred Riki to these extremes. Riki had discovered something about his place in the world, but Guy never pressed him about it, perhaps because he was afraid that doing so would rupture the link that they shared. So he simply gave a laconic nod. "Yeah, sure—"

His lips curled slightly as the sharp spines of some invisible thorn stuck in his throat.

Midas. Area 9. Ceres. These backstreets have had a past once, but they possessed no future.

Nothing geographical separated Ceres and Midas. Even though Ceres and Midas shared the same earth and the same sky, it so happened that Ceres "mongrels" didn't share the same identity card held by the citizens of Midas. And it was that difference alone that made the Ceres slums and Midas galaxies apart.

It wasn't the flocking together of criminals and drifters that birthed that characteristic heap of refuse in the slums. The lot known as Area 9 did not exist on any map or any registration card of any resident of Midas, and that's the way it had been, for as long as anyone could remember.

What was uncharted bred discord that was out of sight, but not out of mind. Ceres served as a constant reminder to the citizens of Midas, throbbing away in the corners of their eyes, disciplining their actions like threat of the branding iron.

Bound in both body and spirit, the lives of the residents of the Pleasure Quarters were far from agreeable. Shackled by inheritance to the class system known as "Zein," they were not free to choose occupations in disregard to class differences. They were also not free to love whom they chose to love.

Nevertheless, rather than causing trouble or bucking the establishment and losing their ID cards, they all knew that the far better course was to follow the rules and keep their mouths shut. The despised trash of Ceres were right there in from of them, scraping by in the slums, too low to the ground to reach up and grasp their own bootstraps, let alone pull themselves up by them.

The existence of the lower depths perpetually hovering at the peripheries of their vision served as a ready confirmation of their own feelings of superiority and revulsion.

To the citizens of Midas, their greatest humiliation was not the invasive restrictions on their speech and conduct, nor was their indignation directed towards any flagrant abuse of their human rights. It the thought of being stripped bare and dumped in Ceres.

To live in Ceres was to no longer be a human being.

The fact was imprinted on the basal ganglia of their brains and permeated every cell of their bodies. It was the warning of Midas itself laid bare, so that they would not make the same mistake twice.

A revolt had once broken out in Midas that threatened to overturn the established order. The chains of control and servility imposed by the digital overlord were severed. The revolutionaries seeking to bring about a new order based on the pursuit of liberty and human dignity occupied Area 9 with the goal of achieving independence.

"This is not a revolution but a reformation," they declared. "The era when men serve and submit to machines is over."

But when, from where, and how they would provision themselves with the capital and materials necessarily for the venture, along with the data and intel necessary to challenge Midas, no, Tanagura, directly? In Area 9 they only had access to those human and material resources belonging to a people accustomed to a besieged existence.

The revolutionaries believed that nobody would be compelled. There would be no distinctions between high and low. The expectation was that everyone would be treated equally as individuals. Ceres was going to become that kind of utopia.

"Cast off your shackles! Demand true freedom!" was the battle cry they raised. Promising a rebirth of human rights and budging not an inch in their convictions, their power and passion were astounding.

Like a raging bonfire, the sparks flying up from Area 9 touched off conflagrations in other areas. The long-repressed, smoldering emotions burst into flames. The grudges and resentments stored up until this moment were expressed with wide-ranging acts of sabotage. Every nook and cranny seethed with open criticism of the "system."

From the outset Midas government officials downplayed the severity of the crises. "They won't last ten days." But eventually they fell victim to the effects of the revolution as customer traffic dried up, and they were at last forced to come to terms with the seriousness of the situation.

Perhaps they were dimly aware of the flickering shadows of Commonwealth allies lurking behind the ringleaders who had dared bare their teeth to the "system." Even though their hearts were roiling in a tempest of indignation, at least on the surface they did not attempt to force the issue.

The end result was that instead of countering through brute-force and eradicating Area 9, Midas simply announced that their residential records would be deleted. That day the echoing cries of joy reverberated through Ceres. Victory! They had done it!

It was almost a letdown that the announcement from Midas was so magnanimous, and some did exchange doubtful looks. But such doubts were lost in the cries of victory, the back-slapping and drunken exuberance. Without a single sacrifice—without a single loss of life—they had won their rights, their freedom, and their independence. That was something they could be proud of.

However, in the end they were left to wonder: What did we really win? And: Why was Midas so quick to recognize the independence Ceres?

The excitement of victory soon abated, and the revolutionaries counted the days and months and began to think things through. They had escaped the rule of Midas but now came face to face with the demands of their own existence. The harshness of a reality that up until now was not even a figment in their imagination began to sink in.

No one who comes here will be rejected. That was their article of faith.

Together with their oppressed and downtrodden compatriots, together with like-minded people, they would build the future together. Yes, they were that naive. The Commonwealth's surreptitious assistance had been necessary for their independence, and perhaps they had not completely realized what it meant to stand without it.

Of course they were grateful for the freely-offered help of their Commonwealth supporters in raising the banner of human rights. But it never occurred to them that their very purpose, of breaking the stranglehold of Tanagura, the "metallic city" stained by the corrupting poison of Midas, was being subverted by the Commonwealth's flattering actions and agitating words.

As a result, before they could even establish their "ideal system," they were overrun by those bewitched with the idea of Ceres being "free." The vast majority of them arrived with no firm convictions backing their beliefs. Just the hope that by going to Ceres "something" would change, that "something" would happen.

If one wanted to lead, one had to understand how profoundly young they were. Ignorant. Running off with a picture of perfection held in their heads, they were blind to the cold, hard reality at their feet. Their fatal flaw was the lack of a leader who could make decision firmly, without second thoughts, without getting lost in his emotions.

The first reality released upon Ceres was chaos. Next came: "That's not what you promised!"

And: "What's in it for me?"

And: "I'm not doing a shitty job like that!"

And so the individual discontent and grumbling continued. Eventually, impatience with things not being as imagined was replaced by irritation with things not turning out as they expected.

"Unshackled freedom" did not mean doing whatever a person felt like without outside interference. To take up the reins of freedom, it was necessary to respect the rule of law and to cooperate. Otherwise, a person could cry "freedom" until he was blue in the face and his ideals would remain idle visions.

The independence of an unpredictable mob rule was independence without meaning. For hard-won freedom to take root, time and patience were necessary. They were a simple bunch and should have learned the most important of these lessons through their experiences. If they had, circumstances may have changed for the better.

But while the so-called "professional" activists from the Commonwealth were supporting the cause of freedom, in Ceres, where its tempests were stilling and fevers rapidly abating, they still remained strangers and foreigners to each other. They had been given independence from Midas, but carrying out their original plan met with a number of roadblocks, leaving Ceres in a state of deep distress.

Nevertheless, as bad as things got there, their thoughts were no doubt soothed by the fact that they at least had a place to go home to.

Midas began chipping away at such loftiness and the people of Ceres began to learn the true cost of freedom. Midas raised no objections to those who wished to resettle in Ceres, and now Midas refused their repatriation on the grounds that their residency records had been destroyed and no longer existed.

The door was not closed completely on them, though there was always the threat that they would attempt to tear the system down a second time. For those who wished it, Midas made no bones of employing such brainwashing techniques as "memory adjustment" and the like.

The main point was to save face vis-à-vis the Commonwealth as the satellite city of Tanagura. Midas did not spare the rod or spare the child. Area 9 was ringed with sensors and isolated, such that not even a rat could cross over undetected from Ceres.

These measures served as additional warnings to the citizens of Midas.

The dreams of the revolution broken, the shoulders of the revolutionaries sagged and their hearts grew heavy. There was no way around, over, or through this wall of massive rejection. They wasted away in Ceres, dragging their feet, staggering under the weight of regret and despair.

Right under their noses was Midas, clad in its gaudy neon robes day and night. The harlot teased at their hearts but would never invite them back inside the citadel.

Eventually, the tides of lethargy eroded the remnants of the collective soul like a terminal disease worming its way through the marrow of Ceres brick by brick. Even when the eras changed and the sensor fences were removed, it showed no signs of stopping. Over the years, the sickness had burrowed into the degenerating slums.

Riki set off fully aware of the past, but with his eyes set firmly on the future. When he'd left Guy he'd made a vow. "Only a loser stops to look back."

But then one night, three years to the day since Riki left the slums (or rather, vanished from Guy's presence), he suddenly returned. Guy was caught totally off guard, and could only stand there, eyes wide, stammering, unable to put two words together.

"Well, you seem to be doing well."

Riki flashed his familiar grin. He'd put on a few inches, matured enough to look almost like a completely different person. His once raw intensity was remarkably subdued and his slender limbs were smart and trim. But it was his eyes that Guy was struck by, which were sober to the point of being cold.

"Riki... it's really you?" Guy asked, despite himself. He had to know for certain.

His former mates were energized in ways both good and bad about Riki's return to the slums. To one degree or another, everyone wanted a peek into the vacuum of those three missing years. Needless to say, it wasn't long before the attention of all the eyes in the slums focused like laser beams on him.

The word went forth that the "Charisma" of the slums had returned a beaten dog. All manner of abuse was spoken behind his back.

"Serves him right!"

"Didn't return with honor, that's for sure."

"A bloody shame, him living in disgrace like that."

They all pointed fingers and laughed him to scorn. Back when the name "Bison" took the world by storm, Riki was the rare, unattainable flower who'd entrusted his heart to a single partner. Even after falling from grace, this flower that bloomed in the swamp of the slums was still a lotus.

The flower had unexpectedly fallen to the ground at their feet. Rather than picking it up and loving it, they would rather trample it into the mud. Countless numbers had become slaves to that kind of perverse pleasure.

And yet Riki held his tongue and didn't answer back, despite how much derision he was showed with. No matter how blatantly he was provoked. Like water off a duck's back.

The members of Bison were not immune to this frustrating sense of serenity, this turning of the cheek to all assaults without wincing. The man slinking back to the slums with his broken dreams had at least dragged all their shared, smoldering feelings somewhere else for a while.

Such were the unpalatable fruits of hopelessness, the painful spasms of self-contempt, and on top of that, the dark clouds of madness gathering in the lower depths of despair. Common practice was to drown themselves in drugs and alcohol, seal themselves within the shell of the self, and flee the visions of the past by briefly escaping into that waking dream.

But Riki had changed. Gone was the white-hot intensity that once scorched whatever it touched. Far from it. Now, his eyes only seemed to look down at the rest of them. And there was the manner in which he drained his glass, as if perpetually lost in his thoughts. There was something about that relaxed quietude.

There was no way for Guy to discern the heart of the tight-lipped Riki. Yet to the commonplace assertion that "It's all for the best," Riki's transfiguration had brought about so many profound and radical changes that he could only reflexively nod his head in agreement.