Broken Heroes

Part One, Lower city: BOTTOM FEEDERS

When they heard the slithering wet sounds, they scattered.

Morn went alone, dashing for the wall, jumping high and stabbing his fingers into cracks in the concrete. Hanging there, he tried to locate his companions.

The chamber was vast. The ceiling had many holes in it and you could never know which one it would be. As three of Morn's tribe were passing beneath one, it opened, releasing its contents, which fell straight down on them, crushing them to the floor, drowning them in reeking sewage. From his position on the wall, Morn could see a twitching arm protruding from the mound.

His seven other companions saw it as well. They began looking for a place on the wall, before the solvents were circulated. Two didn't make it in time. A wave of colourless, odourless acid was released near the foot of the wall, washing over their feet. Screaming, the man and the woman tried to climb the wall. As their feet melted, they collapsed.

The steaming muck on the floor vanished almost as quickly as the people. The solvents were drained, to be distilled and re-cycled. Sewage was stored in holding tanks on each floor of the city above. When the weight in each tank reached a critical point, the effluence was released into a chute, drained into one of the basement chambers.

Morn knew all this but it was impossible to avoid the chambers. All corridors eventually led through them.

As water rinsed the floor, Morn released his hold, landing softly, calling to his companions. Together, they crossed the rest of the chamber at a run. They went to a maintenance door that was opposite the one through which they had entered. Beyond it was a long narrow corridor. Morn entered first. He was the leader and it was his responsibility to head the column.

It was hot beneath the city. All went naked but for loincloths and sandals. Some carried weapons, a sharpened length of metal or a thighbone club. Most of them were unarmed. Such items rarely reached the garbage pits. The upper levels re-cycled most useful and precious materials.

They were a hunting party. Morn had already led them far from their own territory. Construction was going on above their section and their food supply wasn't coming down to them. They were forced to invade the territories of other tribes.

They went warily.

The corridor ran into a circular junction from which eight other paths branched. The tunnels here were all thickly coated in dust. Obviously, no tribe claimed this territory.

Morn stood at the centre of the junction, sniffing the air. Through the smells of dust, must and stagnation, he caught a whiff of something else and led the way. The dust was suddenly much thicker, rising in his nostrils, choking, in his eyes, blinding. He carried his spear by his side, the point preceding him. He removed his loin cloth and tied it over the lower half of his face.

After a quarter of an hour, they came to a door. Morn stood aside, motioning for two men to open it. It wasn't his place to perform that sort of physical labour.

They turned the wheel and the door opened easily and they pulled it inwards. Morn stepped into the doorway. The chamber beyond and below him was much like the sewage chamber where they'd been caught by the drop. But this one wasn't for sewage. You could tell by the lengths of conduit that protruded from the wall, and by the single hole in the ceiling. Again, directly across the chamber was a door. It seemed to be open but Morn couldn't tell for sure from this distance.

He led his companions down to the floor and, backs to the wall, they waited.

There were scraping sounds, then the rush of a great weight falling. Noxious air swirled in the room, forced ahead of the fall. There was a thump deep in the ceiling and the walls shook.

Morn and his warrior/hunters waited expectantly. Then the tube opened and garbage cascaded to the floor. Morn gave a shout of exaltation, leading his hunters to the pile at a run. From the door on the other side, another group emerged, also shouting, but in anger, their food supply threatened.

Morn and company reached the mound first and began digging through it, quickly, burrowing, scraping, kicking, extracting the slightest piece of edible trash.

They had thirty seconds before the mound was sprayed and another fifteen seconds before the spray was ignited to burn off the waste.

In their own section, they would've spent most of the day doing this, taking the food back in the evening to share with the rest of the tribe, the children and the aged. Morn wasn't certain what they would do today. This other tribe wouldn't attack them until they all had as much as they could gather, but when they did attack... Morn and his followers were out-numbered and, for weapons, out-matched.

"Go!" He yelled.

They all sprinted back to the doorway.

The other tribe came right over the top of the garbage after them. Three were incinerated as the mound burst into flame. Morn posted, sacrificed, a man at the bottom of the ladder, to hold the attackers off while he and the rest went up to the corridor. Turning their backs to the enemy didn't bother them. No one would risk losing a spear or a club by throwing it.

When they were up, all but the guard who had been torn from the ladder and speared a score of times, then claimed for food... When they were up, Morn turned to look down. None of them would attempt to climb the ladder and put their faces into his spear. But he couldn't be certain of not being attacked as they retreated down the corridor. He wouldn't be able to lead his people down to the food again unless...

He smiled grimly to himself. Taking food was the important thing. If he were to remain the leader, he had to feed his people. It had been days since they had eaten and there was much desperation.

When the garbage dropped and the other men charged the heap, Morn led his warriors down, thinking how stupid the other tribe was. Morn attacked, spearing and clubbing them from behind, dragging the bodies away from the mound. They killed six men, leaving the other tribe with five, who were driven back into the flaming garbage where they burned, which was a waste of meat. But the battle was won.

They had captured eight bodies. He set his men to the task of butchering them into the best cuts.

"We'll feast," he said.

Part Two, Middle City: GLAD GREEN LEAVES

The grass was wonderfully green. It felt so soft to lie in, roll in, sit in, yet each blade itself was hard, delicate but hard. And it was real. All of it. All three hundred square metres of it. Every single piece was incredibly, impossibly real.

Jarek reached out to pluck a blade, hastily drew back his hand. It was against the law to pick the grass.

Instead, he pushed his face into it, breathing all those scents of earth and life, drawing in each breath as deeply as he could. His nose tingled, twitched, itched. He sneezed into his hand. An ant landed in his damp palm. He smiled at it and sent it on its way.

Jarek jumped up and rolled over, somersaulting to a tree. He threw his arms around the trunk and hugged it, placing his face against the rough bark. A "maple tree," the sign said. A beautiful, real maple tree.

Laughing, Jarek left it to scramble up into the branches of an oak tree, snuggling up close to the leaves, studying with awe the highways of veins that ran through each one.

Then he saw the bird.

It had a red breast and a dark back and it sang cheerfully. He reached out to touch it. It chirped and flew to another tree, perching on a branch with its mate, singing to the sun.

Jarek looked up at the sun, quickly looked away. Too bright. He'd never seen a light so bright. It was as if all the lights in the city/house had been poured into one vast and round container. When his vision cleared, when the black spots stopped dancing, he tried to look at it again, that blazing white ball.

Watery eyed, he gave up.

From the oak tree, he went to a pond full of orange and yellow fish where he stared into the water while his reflection stared back. Black clothes and dead white skin. Strange, in all this colour, he thought. He knelt, touching the water. His fingers went right into it. The water bent them but he'd still penetrated it.

With a giggle, he plunged his face into the real and cool water, watching as a graceful sunshine fish swam away.

Bells began to clang.

A siren blared.

"Forbidden! Forbidden! Water is for fish!"

The words were repeated over and over, until an icy metal hand pulled him sputtering to his feet.

"You must go now," the robot said. "You have broken the rules. The remainder of your hour will be forfeit. Please leave the grounds immediately."

Jarek started to object, realised the futility. He vacated the area slowly, head bowed down, feet dragging, face even whiter than before. The pain was unbearable.

One vacation, only one, until he was retired from his job. One vacation until retirement, to be spent, according to law, in the park. And he'd lost it. One hour, cut down to thirty-two minutes because he went mad for an instant and put his head in the fishpond. One vacation, gone.

Since birth, he'd been taught only a few things: How to speak, so he could listen; basic reading; working people were grown to work; the art of inspecting machine parts for flaws; and that, one day, he would visit the park, he would have a holiday that would last him until he had another one on the day he retired, just before they sent him to the vaults.

Until he reached the age of twenty-one, he was to look forward to his hour in the park. Afterwards, he could look back at it fondly, a fine and pleasant memory. It was to be his Experience. Expectation for twenty-one years. Nostalgia for the next twenty-one. It would last a lifetime. And it was gone.

The sidewalk took him away from the park, back to work, weaving in and out of the corridors of the city/house while he scolded himself again for destroying the only real memory he would ever have. That was the purpose of the park: To give every single middle-class citizen something to look forward and back to throughout its forty-two year life. Something to make it happy, content. Jarek had ruined that. The memories would be sad. If the sad memories interfered with his work, he would be retired early.

His eyes were moist as he left the sidewalk for his work cubicle. Attuned to his backside, the machines began the moment he was seated. A hard plastic machine-part fell from a hole above him. He caught it, examined it, then dropped it into a hole in the floor. Again and again and again... Catch. Examine. Drop. Catch. Examine. Drop. No variations, no mistakes.

He never learned how the parts were used. For all he knew, someone else dismantled them and sent them back through the system. But it didn't matter. He did his job. A robot could have done it just as well, if not better, but robots were more expensive to build and maintain. They were saved for the difficult jobs.

A bell rang.

Jarek stood up. The machine parts stopped falling. He stepped from his cubicle and was caught up by the sidewalk, carried through the shift-change crowds and deposited at home, another cubicle. This one had a bed, a food dispenser, a drycleaning stall and a toilet. Those things were no comfort tonight as they had been in the past.

The park. Everpresent.

He had to return. But how? It was illegal for him to leave his cubicle, except for work. Besides, the sidewalks would only take him where he was meant to go. Work and home, nowhere else.

No one could help him. He didn't even know anyone.

Social life was forbidden.

Conversation was forbidden.

A conspiracy might grow from those things, whatever that was. All he knew was that a conspiracy was something evil and he must be protected from it.

He plugged himself into the wall unit and let the dreams swirl away his consciousness.

He was lost. There was no one to help him and he couldn't help himself. He wanted to die but death didn't start until after forty-two years. No one had told him about suicide.

Part Three, Upper City: KILLER GRACES

The sky was almost black and the sea had a greenish tint. It was rolling madly, tossing the cutter about, pounding it with wave after wave.

They headed into the wind, sails down, engines running. A wave that nearly swamped them tore down the main mast. The cutter lurched, coming about, sliding sideways into the trough.

The captain was struck by a spar, swept overboard.

There was crunch as the cutter struck a reef, beginning to break up with waves washing its decks.

Three men were still alive. They went over the side in a lifeboat. It rode the waves well. With the rudder, they kept the wind behind them and let the sea carry them where it would.

Towards midnight, the storm abated. The seas ran on for awhile but swells grew smaller and smaller as the wind died. By two o'clock, the sea was calm. Stars were visible.

"What do we have with us?" One of the men asked.

"Nothing, Tarn. Nothing at all."

"No water even?" Tarn asked.

"Nothing," Shell said again.

"I have a bar of chocolate," the third man said from the prow. "It's wet but it's not too bad."

"Pass it here, Vale. I'll divide it," Shell said.

"Who put you in charge? I'll keep it and divide it up myself."

"I saw Loire get washed overboard," Tarn said. "But what happened to Marte?"

No one knew.

"Well, at least we made it," Shell said. "We're all right."

"True. But it isn't good that they should get it so early. That spoils the adventure," Tarn said, stretching out his legs, leaning back against the gunwale to sleep.

"Not yet," Vale said. "You can't do that yet. We have to bail out all the water."

Tarn didn't open his eyes.

Shell kicked him lightly on the shin. "We have to bail. Now."

"Damn," he said, opening his eyes. "All right."

They used their hands to bail, cupping water with them, throwing it over the side. It took hours. Dawn was near when they finally slept.

Tarn felt his face burning, opened his eyes. He closed them again immediately. He'd looked directly into the sun.

He sat up, opened his eyes again. Vale was still in the prow. The sun was burning him badly. Shell was lying in the bottom of the boat with his shirt over his head. His back was scarlet from sunburn.

Tarn removed his own shirt, put it on his head to shield him. Luckily, he was also wearing an undershirt. It would protect his torso.

"Hey," he said, giving Shell a kick.

"What?" He groaned.

"You're getting fried. You too, Vale. You're burning up. You'll lose your face." He licked his lips with a dry tongue. His lips were starting to crack. "Perhaps we should've tried a different adventure. Maybe a safari."

"I did that last year," Shell said.

"So? I didn't."

"Let's have some of that chocolate now," Shell suggested.

Vale nodded, pulled the chocolate from his shirt pocket. It was melting, dripping from the wrapper.

"Brilliant," Tarn said.

Scraping it up with their fingers, they ate it.

When they were finished, Shell said, "We have to have a leader."

"Why?" Tarn asked. "What decisions are there to make? We go where the sea takes us, we get wet when the water wets us, we get burned when the sun burns us. What decisions are there for a leader to make? Everything is decided."

"Not everything," Vale pointed out.

"True. But that decision is far too personal for one to decide for another. If one wants to quit, he must decide that for himself. Then we vote on it."

The other two agreed with that.

"But if you want to consider yourself the leader, Shell," Tarn continued, "Feel free. I don't give a damn. Just don't try ordering me about or I'll break your neck."

Shell stared at him sourly.

Tarn tried to get moisture into his mouth, failed.

"No more talking," he said, shutting his eyes under his shirt, thinking they could have done something better than this. They could have climbed a mountain in avalanche season for the bet. Or they could have gone on safari when the maneaters were hungry. He'd heard there was an outfit leading real adventures, raiding expeditions to the deep lower levels of the city where tribes of worker drones were said to be hiding. That might have been good. Anything but sailing in hurricane season. This was boring. He glanced at the other two and thought, but I won't ask to be allowed to quit. No way, not me. I'll come through.

He looked across the sea where the sun was glaring. No land in sight. Nothing but blue/green water. Not even a bird. Well, Tarn, you agreed to go to sea and here you are. Make the best of it. Yeah, make the best of it.

"Anyone have a knife?" He asked.

Vale did.

"See if you can cut a thick strip from the gunwale for a spear. We can try fishing."

"Who appointed you the leader?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

Vale was silent.

"Then either do what I suggested or pass me the knife so I can do it."

Vale passed the knife and Tarn started cutting, taking it easy, trying not to work up a sweat. He cut deep into the artificial wood and turned the blade, pushing it along the length of the gunwale, splitting away the wood. It took hours. In the end, he had a thick strip of material two metres long. He sharpened it with the knife, then returned the knife to Vale, fell back exhausted.

"Who said a little hard work never hurt anybody?"

When he regained some energy, he tied the anchor rope to the spear.

"Now what?" Shell asked.

Tarn shrugged his shoulders. "Hope?"

"What about this?" Vale said, producing the shiny wrapper from his chocolate bar. "Maybe it will attract something."

"Throw it over," Tarn said, kneeling by the side of the boat, leaning over. The wrapper hit the water. Tarn watched and waited and thought, this is ridiculous. It'll float away from the boat and that'll be that.

Then he saw the fin. The shark hit the paper and Tarn speared the shark. The spear broke.

"Damn."

"It was a dumb idea anyway," Shell said.

"Got any better ones?"

"Sit down, conserve your energy, and hope for rain or land."

"That's very clever," Tarn said sarcastically.

"No fighting," Vale said.

"Good suggestion," Tarn said. He slept again.

No food.

No water.

No shelter from the sun.

They were burning badly, blistering, skin splitting, sores running.

For three days they drifted aimlessly, hungrily, thirstily, dried out and scorched.

"We have to have food," Vale said, voice rasping.

"What do you suggest?" Shell asked.

Vale did not answer verbally. He cut three slivers of plastic from the gunwale.

The other two knew what he meant.

"Whoever draws the shortest one?" Tarn asked, barely able to speak.

Vale nodded.

"No," Shell said. "I'm not going along with this."

"Then it shall automatically be you," Vale replied. "One dies and two survive."

"This was a dumb bet," Shell said. "I wish I'd trekked the jungles instead."

"Vale," Tarn said weakly, "Before we draw the slivers, put your knife in the middle. If it's you, you shouldn't be armed."

He laid down the knife, held up the three slivers. Shell drew first, kept it hidden in his hand. Then Tarn got his. Vale held the remaining one.

Tarn showed his first. It was the longest and Shell had the second longest.

Tarn picked up the knife.

Vale stared at him wide-eyed, then turned around, kneeling, head bowed, shoulders shaking as he sobbed, awaiting his executioner.

"I can't do it," Tarn said.

"I can," Shell told him. "No problem. Give me the knife."

"I want to quit," Vale said, not facing them.

"You're out-voted," Shell laughed. He cut Vale's jugular from behind. The blood squirted high, arching over the side and into the sea. The flow slowed, stopped. Vale was dead. Shell cut the clothes from him, then cut a chunk of meat from his thigh, eating ravenously. He ate only a few swallows, then lurched to the side of the boat, throwing up into the water.

"You win the bet, Shell. I can't eat unprocessed food," Tarn said.

But Shell didn't answer. He'd fallen to the bottom of the boat. He was gasping, retching, unable to move. While he was on his back, he began to vomit again. He struggled to raise his head, to roll over, anything. But he didn't have the strength. He drowned in his own vomit.

"I won," Tarn declared. "By default."

There was a roar from the home audience.

The sea and the sky vanished. The hot sun was gone.

Tarn removed his headset, looking around the game room. The monitors were black. The room was quiet.

There was the captain of the cutter. There was Marte, asprawl on the floorboards. They were dead. Vale and Shell's corpses were beside them.

The home audience treated him to another ovation through the speakers.

Tarn smiled through cracked lips, waved weakly to a crowd he couldn't see.

He was helped from the boat by two game-aides.

He'd won the game and the bet, the only survivor, one million the prize.

As they helped him from the room, he glanced back. Robots were removing the headsets from his dead opponents, carrying out the bodies.

Copyright 1997 W. Fraser Sandercombe

W. Fraser Sandercombe makes a living painting for galleries and illustrating for "outdoor" magazines. He also writes articles for those same magazines. He has done some small press fantasy illustration and some big press book covers. Unfortunately, he says, the big press covers aren't fantasy. He sells books on the internet at www.abebooks.com/home/yarrow. On a more personal level, he travels a lot, buying and selling books from town to town. He's worked every godawful job known to man but not lately since the writing and the painting and the books pay all the bills. Fraser has also been published in Aphelion. Check out our links page for a link to Aphelion. Oh yeah, he says he's had enough stories and poems published to make him think he's a writer. You can e-mail Fraser yarrow@idirect.com