Gears of War: The Slab (Gears of War 5)

  Merino was still in overall charge down here. It was a gangland environment. Reeve felt comfortable with the familiarity, but still wondered if things might have been better under Marcus.

  But he doesn’t want to play. He wants to die. He’s stuck here and he’s shut himself in his own world.

  So where’s Alva? Maybe he’s got some seriously bad shit they don’t want us catching.

  And I ask again … why keep us alive here? What’s the fucking point? Habit?

  “Reeve, for fuck’s sake, we’re starving here,” Leuchars yelled. The voices echoed for everyone to hear, but privacy in the Slab was a thing you created in your own mind. “Get a move on.”

  “You brewing?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ll tell you where I stashed the potato peelings …”

  “Okay, asshole, one liter. But no more.”

  “Deal.”

  That was binding. Everyone had heard him agree on a price. Liquor stills had to be kept hidden from the screws in the old days, but they were an open secret now because nobody gave a damn and the staff didn’t venture down here very often. They were as reliant on an uninterrupted supply of hooch as anyone else. It was currency. Reeve glanced up at the gantry and checked out Jarvi and Gallego. Normally they’d stand side by side, but they were at opposite ends of the walkway now like they’d had a bust-up. Jarvi gave Reeve an almost-invisible nod—I want to see you later—and looked away. He’d want his cut of that liter.

  “Hey, Reeve? You frigging wanked yourself deaf?” That was Vance. “He said dish out the chow already.”

  It was just noise to reassure themselves. Reeve moved at his own pace because he could afford to. Like Merino, nobody was really going to risk fucking with him. “You better clear your plates, or I’m going to force-feed you the painful way.”

  “Yeah. Just get the fuck on with it.”

  Some guys ate in their cells and some preferred the table. Edouain, the Indie whose folks came from Pelles, still kept to himself in his cell at the south end of the floor. He’d sabotaged a munitions supply train in the Pendulum Wars and taken out half of Dormera with seven hundred civilians in the explosion, which put him in the same league as either a really prolific serial killer or a half-hearted grub. Reeve wasn’t sure if that made Edouain a terrorist or a successful enemy agent. He didn’t fit in here any better than Fenix did.

  He was the last to get fed, always. There was no reason for it except for the position of his cell. Reeve leaned on the rusting iron door frame. Edouain was poring over a piece of paper laid out on his bunk, or at least a patchwork of paper scraps that had been stuck together somehow like some kind of quilt.

  “The choice is casserole, casserole, or casserole,” Reeve said. “What’s that?”

  “Map.” Edouain turned it carefully so that he could see, holding it up by the corners like a delicate piece of lace. “My worry map.”

  Reeve filled the bowl and placed it on the small rickety table in the cell. Edouain needed keeping sweet, because he had skills that would be useful in an emergency—if he could blow up a train, he could do plenty. There weren’t many technically minded killers left in here.

  “You want to worry me too,” Reeve said. “Is that it?”

  Edouain indicated lines drawn on the map. Pieces of it were actually torn out of the copy of the Jacinto Daily that had been doing the rounds, the map graphic that showed how far the grubs had advanced. Edouain must have thought the detail was pretty important to forgo wiping his ass on it.

  “This is how far they’ve come in the last five years.” He indicated another very old scrap of newsprint right on the edge of the map. “If they carry on at this rate, then we’ll be overrun.”

  Reeve stared at the paper. Damn, the guy must have saved odds and ends from the newspaper over the years and stashed them away. But he was an agent, a guy who was trained to operate behind enemy lines: this was the way he thought and worked, always keeping an eye out, always assessing the risk.

  “Surrounded, maybe. This place is solid granite.”

  “But the sky isn’t.” Edouain rolled up the map with slow care, like it was some ancient parchment in the National Museum of Ephyra. “They have Reavers. And Brumaks almost as tall as the walls. And on that day, we’ll be fish in a barrel. We’re trapped here.”

  He looked up at Reeve for a few moments, almost smiling, as if he enjoyed seeing the penny drop so slowly. They’d had ten years to obsess about this, but somehow Reeve, like everyone else here, thought in terms of grubs being beneath them, the literal monster under the bed. They didn’t really do air raids. They didn’t have paratroopers.

  They didn’t need to. Not yet.

  “Well, shit,” Reeve said. “If they haven’t done it yet …”

  “They have a very long list of targets, I imagine. You want to wait to find out?”

  “You suggesting we do something?”

  “Oh yes. I am.”

  “Over or under?”

  “I think we can tunnel.”

  “Come on, that’s the whole reason this place was built where it is. You can’t.”

  “We can. It’s just going to take a long time.” Edouain stood and picked up the bowl of casserole. “I’m getting out, even if the rest of you want to wait for those things to come and get you. A prison where people are too scared to try to escape. Only the COG could be so blindly obedient.”

  But the government would move us out before then. Surely. And this place is …

  … shit, maybe nowhere near as safe as we thought.

  No, they might not, and they might not even be able to when the time came. Blindly obedient: Edouain had a point. Reeve realized that he was getting just as dumb and soft after so many years in here. “Okay,” he said. “Are you telling me to be conversational, or telling me because I can get resources?”

  Edouain just raised one eyebrow and dug into the brown slurry, jabbing his fork around to find solid lumps. “When did any of you COG ever have a conversation with me?”

  “Okay. I’m in.” Reeve leaned out of the cell door to check the rusting tin-faced clock on the wall at the far end of the floor. Niko Jarvi was still leaning on the gantry rail, ignoring Gallego, but he stared in Reeve’s direction and tapped one finger discreetly on his wrist. “Got to go. I’ll be back later.”

  Jarvi was probably going to go apeshit at him for letting Marcus run into trouble. Reeve parked the cart in the passage outside the kitchens and headed back to the latrines. If the Slab had the equivalent of a DMZ, of a no-man’s land, of a diplomatic neutral zone, then the latrine block was it, a place where scores were settled, deals were done, and the unwary or weak discovered in the hardest way of all what it meant to be the bottom of the pile in a men’s prison.

  Jarvi was waiting for him, arms folded, ass resting on one of the washbasins. Somewhere in the building, the dogs started barking again. Sound traveled through conduits and vents and emerged in misleading places.

  “Okay, what did you expect me to do?” Reeve said, deciding to get his shot in first. “You were the assholes who pulled him out and beat him up.”

  “I was off shift,” Jarvi said quietly.

  “Is it my fault your buddies can’t read the memo?”

  “Didn’t say it was.”

  “He started it with Merino. Okay, he was defending Chunky, but he should have known better.”

  Jarvi was still very quiet, almost preoccupied. He had his keys in his hand and was staring at them as if one was missing and staring would bring it back somehow. “Well, he’s pissing blood now. Campbell busted his kidneys. When he comes back onto the wing, you’re going to look after him like he was your virgin little sister, you understand?”

  “That means protecting him from himself, basically.”

  “Whatever it takes. I can’t be here twenty-six hours a day. You want the smokes—you play sheepdog. That’s the deal.”

  “You want the liquor, though.”

  “Y’know, I
think I’d prefer Fenix in one piece.”

  “I get it.” Jarvi had to be on some kind of payola to look after him. “You’re getting a lot more than smokes for this.”

  Jarvi looked at his keys again and shook his head. That frown wouldn’t go away, the kind of frown you got when you were looking at something that upset and disgusted you. “No, you wouldn’t get it. Just keep him alive. The man’s not well. And go get him something to eat. Come and knock on the security door when you’re ready.”

  The trouble with the Slab was that there was nothing to do in here but obsess over a small amount of information. Reeve tried to keep things in proportion but the place was cut off from reality and the rest of the human race, and for all he knew the rest of Ephyra might have been charcoal by now except for a charade maintained by the warders. He fished around in the vat of casserole with a ladle to find as many decent chunks of vegetable and protein as he could, then headed for the security door that would let him into the next block.

  If Marcus is that important, just ship him out of here. Simple.

  Reeve rapped the door and listened for the long sequence of jangling keys and sliding bolts. The door swung open and Jarvi gestured him through. As he followed the warder up the passage to the infirmary, he looked up through the grating that formed the gantry level walkway and saw Gallego and Campbell staring down at him.

  It was hard to imagine Campbell belting anybody. Of all the staff here, he was about the mildest. Reeve thought that all the way down the passage until Jarvi opened the infirmary door and he caught sight of Marcus standing at one of the basins with his back to the door. For a moment, Reeve thought he was wearing some discolored purplish tank top. Then it all suddenly made sense: he wasn’t. That was his skin, for fuck’s sake, and the color was one vast bruise. No … it was a mass of overlapping welts and bruises. Reeve felt his stomach starting to churn.

  How the hell was Marcus even standing up?

  “Fenix, bed,” Jarvi barked. “Bed rest. Orders.”

  Marcus half turned, hands still in the sink. Reeve, transfixed by that terrible bruising, could see what he was doing now. Marcus was washing his singlet. A couple of wrung-out pieces of fabric, socks or briefs maybe, sat in the soap holder. Seeing a guy like that—and in that state—doing his laundry just stopped Reeve in his tracks. But he was a soldier. They had their routine, Reeve knew, and they had to keep their kit clean and tidy.

  “I’m fine,” Marcus said. His face didn’t look too bad, apart from a swollen lip and a black eye, but the rest of him was another matter. He was breathing like it hurt. Shit, it had to. “I’m done here.”

  “You’re not fine.”

  “Urine’s clear.” Marcus wrung out the singlet, whipcord muscles knotting in his forearms. “Can’t stay here forever.”

  He shook out the singlet and frowned at it for a few seconds as if he was trying to work out which way was up. Then he started to try to put it on over his head, but as soon as he raised his arms Reeve saw him flinch. He couldn’t manage it.

  “Hey, leave that, we got some work shirts that do up at the front,” Jarvi said, holding out his hand for the wet singlet. He walked up to Marcus and looked up at him like a worried dad. “Reeve’s brought food. Sit down and eat it.”

  Marcus took a few moments to think about it, then sat down on the edge of the bed with elbows braced on his knees. He hung his head and ran his hands over his face for a moment like a guy waking up after a heavy night’s drinking.

  Jarvi squatted to look him in the eye. “Look, Fenix, I’ve told Reeve here that if you get so much as a splinter in your ass in the future, I’ll have his guts for garters.” He gestured to Reeve to bring the bowl of food, then took something out of his inner jacket pocket, a few sheets of folded paper that he placed on the bed cover. “It’s his job to look out for you. Now damn well read this letter, eat the sodding food, and write back to your girl. I’ve even got the paper for you. Understand? I’m going to get that shirt.”

  Marcus’s jaw was set but Reeve could see embarrassment getting the better of him. He blinked a few times. “Okay.”

  Jarvi gave Reeve a scowl as he left. Get on with it, or else. Reeve handed Marcus the casserole and a spoon. Marcus tried a mouthful or two, but gave up pretty fast and put the bowl down on the cabinet next to the bed. Reeve waited to see if he was going to open the letter but he just stared at it, through it, expressionless. Reeve had never felt a damn thing for any stranger and made sure he kept things that way. But this unlucky bastard wasn’t a stranger now, and Reeve struggled to work out why.

  “Just read it,” Reeve said. “Write back. I know it’s tough, but you’ve got to survive somehow. You’ve got to hang on to something. Maybe she’ll visit.”

  Marcus looked up at him, now completely unreadable. “If she came in here,” he said slowly, “it’d break her heart. And if any of you assholes looked at her, I’d know what you were thinking, and then I’d have to fucking kill you.”

  He said it very quietly, very matter of fact, as if it was some necessary thing he really didn’t want to do but would have to. It wasn’t even a threat. It was a prediction. Reeve wasn’t easily intimidated in his line of work, but Marcus was something far outside his daily experience. It took Reeve some time to work out what was bothering him. Damn it, he felt wrong. It was wrong to upset Marcus, not because he was perfectly capable of snapping someone’s neck if they pissed him off, but because he radiated some kind of unshakeable decency.

  Holy fuck. Am I finally going nuts in here? What the hell’s that all about?

  Reeve could switch off guilt and remorse with a single thought. He’d never given a rat’s ass about what his targets felt, because that didn’t do anybody any good and it didn’t change what he had to do. But this was like tormenting a caged lion in some rundown zoo, pointless and demeaning because the creature just didn’t belong there and couldn’t use its lethal power. Marcus radiated a kind of battered nobility. There was no other word for it. Reeve didn’t need to know he had the Embry Star to see he was a hero.

  “Okay,” Reeve said. “You get in any more fights, I get stomped. Do we have an agreement? Think of my ass even if you don’t care about your own.”

  Marcus had shut down again. There wasn’t a flicker on his face now and that odd light had gone out of his eyes. “Hoffman.”

  “You keep saying Hoffman. Who’s Hoffman?”

  “Colonel.”

  “Oh. Right. You think he’s asked for special treatment for you. Actually, this came from the Chairman’s office.”

  “Yeah. Hoffman.” Marcus stood up and cast a shadow, a sure indication that the conversation was over. But he had that letter and the blank paper clutched in one hand, which Reeve took as a good sign. “Okay, I’m done. Where’s that shirt?”

  He walked to the infirmary door and rapped on it. Jarvi came back a few moments later and thrust a threadbare gray shirt at him. Reeve helped him put it on and he shoved the letter and paper inside before straightening up and doing a credible impression of someone who wasn’t in pain at all as he walked back down the passage toward D Wing.

  Jarvi selected a key from the bunch chained to his belt and caught Reeve’s arm as Marcus walked ahead.

  Not one scratch, he mouthed. Not one fucking scratch, okay?

  Reeve nodded. Yeah, he got it. Marcus paused at the next set of locked doors and Jarvi opened and re-locked them behind him one at a time. Maybe it was an army thing, but Marcus never moved his head when he walked into any space, just raised his eyes or stared straight ahead. When the inner doors to the main floor opened, it took maybe twenty seconds for the buzz to run along the cells and get the inmates to come out and watch.

  Merino was standing there too, leaning against the wall at the far end and just telegraphing unfinished business. Reeve’s heart sank. Marcus was going to be bounced back to solitary in seconds. The silence was awful, and the dogs had started up again. Whatever the hell was making them bark was suddenly irrelevant.
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  “Here we go,” Reeve sighed.

  Then Merino pushed away from the wall and ambled back to his cell. Leuchars, still staring at Marcus, started clapping, then Vance picked it up, and then Chunky, and in seconds Marcus was getting an ovation like some goddamn concert pianist. From the look on his face, he would probably rather have taken a punch in the mouth. Reeve could only describe it as baffled dismay.

  And Merino … is he biding his time?

  “Shit,” Marcus grunted, then nodded and headed for his cell, walking a little stiffly, but walking at all was a massive show of strength. In Slab terms he’d acquired a battle honor. Everyone knew by now what had happened to him, even if Reeve would still have to update them on just how bad a beating Marcus had taken. Whether he liked it or not, he was a goddamn hero all over again.

  Reeve got the feeling that was the last thing Marcus would ever accept that he was.

  CHAPTER 8

  I insist that you check on Fenix personally at least once every three months, and I want a phone update every week. I know how easily the Slab loses inmates. And if you can’t manage it, I’ll do it myself.

  (Chairman Richard Prescott to Dr. Jay Assandris, senior MHO, COG DoH.)

  COG RESEARCH STATION AZURA: LATE GALE, 11.A.E.

  Adam realized how few pictures of Marcus he’d salvaged when he tried to arrange them on the wall by his workstation in the main laboratory.

  He had eight: Marcus aged four with Elain, Marcus at ten when he’d started at Olafson Intermediate School—damn, he came home with a black eye the very first day—and then six of Marcus from enlistment to the day he’d received his Embry Star. Adam tended to think of those as Marcus the man, but he’d been an unsettlingly adult little boy from the time he’d turned five, when Adam had returned from deployment to Kashkur. He’d become a little adult while Adam’s back was turned. Marcus decided he had to be the man of the household because Daddy was away fighting the war and saving people. He’d asked why Daddy had to go to war, and Adam had told him he couldn’t let the other Gears down.