Carapace (Aggressor Queen Book 1) Read online

  I clear the screen with a swipe, and leave my quarters, unable to stop imagining the words counsel me to gather my strength from the queen. With a guilt that gnaws at my innards like hunger, I follow my escorts back to the queen. It will be late when I recall my noon meal from the vomitorium and eat it. I hope it will satisfy.

  The escort leaves me standing in the low archway to the queen’s private bedchamber. Like everything else that surrounds the queen, the chamber strikes me a blow. Where I seek out tranquility, serenity, sights-sounds-colors which sing a gracious gentle symphony to the slow rhythm of my soul, the queen seeks disharmony bordering on painful.

  The immense cushioned bed-pit is strewn with food and bright, colorful cushions. The soft pale limbs of at least two humans protrude from crumpled linens. The bed cushions themselves are stained or otherwise splashed with discordant colors. Since my last visit to the chamber, long rapier-like metal stakes have been added to the ceiling above the bed-pit giving me the impression the pit rests in the open maw of some multi-fanged monster.

  The queen is not visible and I do not catch her scent. Without an order to enter, I cannot bring myself to cross the threshold. Knowing I should turn away from the visual cacophony and take advantage of every additional moment to meditate and purge myself before receiving a fresh off-loading, I still cannot stop myself from watching the two brothers moving to and fro in the far corner of the chamber. With a voyeuristic ache, I watch as – between bending to clean some mess and turning to shove debris into the chute – they find an excuse to touch each other. Just a brush, mandible to mandible, as one passes the other. A tender tap of antenna against the throat of the other. Wrist locking for a moment with wrist.

  Sharing. Sharing as I have never done with another. Yes, I take the queen’s Shame. I “share” more intensely – and with the queen! – than these two share. But it is not true sharing. It is duty: I receive the damaging chemical concoction from within the queen that might cause her precious mind or body to weaken. I perform the job for which I was bred. And in so doing, I am forbidden by the queen to share.

  Ah, to share, as part of an unspoken discourse, small brushes of feeling and sight with someone I can call friend… I ache with the sight of it, and yet cannot turn away.

  I weaken myself, coveting what can never be mine. And now, do I also mix my own shame with that of my queen.

  I turn from the brothers to discover the queen behind me, mandibles pinched into a cruel smile. Only now does her color/scent register. The distraction provided by the brothers was almost absolute.

  “Majesty…” I bend my head backward, antennae curling in subservience back and downward, hoping to cover the effulgence of fear that runs through me and knowing the queen smells it, regardless.

  The queen brushes past me and addresses the brothers. “Clear the room. Quickly, curse you,” and turning to me, “Almost altogether worthless, wouldn’t you say?” Again the cruel smile.

  One brother begins moving a drugged human from the bed, and ushering it through the door at the back of the chamber. The other brother continues cleaning the shapeless debris from the back of the room. The queen sweeps the near side of the bed cushions free of food and beckons to me.

  “Would you like them?” the queen asks, black cruelty sharpening her words. “These brothers?”

  My ache intensifies as the queen toys with me. The queen has sensed my interest, and without knowing why I might be interested, she pokes and prods, hoping to find a wound. I cannot imagine how to answer.

  “Of course, you don’t. You have no need of worthless brothers, no more than I. I’ll do them a kindness and have them destroyed when they’ve finished here.”

  I look again to the brother cleaning the back of the room. With a sickening jolt, I recognize the messy debris being thrown into the chute as numerous small human body parts. The stain on the far side of the bed cushions is human blood.

  You overestimate me. You cannot keep raising the threshold without destroying me, as well.

  I turn to the queen, who watches me with her large glittering eyes.

  “Majesty,” I say with a slow deep breath, “shall we begin?” I am pleased the words are spoken without the waver of emotion.

  The queen studies me a moment longer before breaking into a rich thrumming laugh. Then sweetly: “Come dear, strong Nestra. Come lay beside me.”

  The incongruity of her kind tone almost breaks me.

  “Sweet, sweet, calm, good Nestra.” The queen pats the bed cushions. Her voice is silken, her features wicked and amused. “Don’t worry about the mess. My workers will have this cleared long before you rise again to consciousness, I promise you. Come dearest.” She pats the bed cushions again. “I need you.” The queen’s mandibles pinch again into a cold, cruel smile.

  Shivering in an attempt to maintain my control, I sit beside the queen.

  “There, there.” The queen brushes my mandible. She speaks with a tenderness that slices like a razor on human flesh: it cuts deeply and, at first, it seems there is no pain. “There, there. Open to me dearest.”

  I fall with gratitude into the comfort of routine and open myself to the kiss that will begin the off-loading. I begin the mental exercises that will help separate my mind from the damaging influx of chemicals. One last thought bubbles to the surface as I sink into the dark trance that comes with the chemical transfer – a thought I refuse to claim as my own.

  Save me.

  CHAPTER 3

  SAMUEL

  The meeting with my ant contact is on for tonight and I’m meeting my man at Refugio’s to learn the time and place. I go early hoping to see Khara. I search the semi-darkness of the bar – darkness pierced by flashes of blue light – but Khara is not there. Still, I must wait. I order a drink and settle myself.

  Sitting at a round, roughly varnished table, I rub my finger into the deepest of the gouges – until I become conscious of the tic and control myself. I sip chilled vodka. More often, I pour vodka down the drain in the floor under my table. After making a show of drinking down the last bit in my glass, I rise and purchase my fourth drink, slurring my request.

  I return to my table by a circuitous shuffling route. Without even a sip of my drink, I drop my head on the table with a loud thunk and perform my snore and drool. I attempt looking relaxed out cold while tensing and releasing the major muscle groups. Nowadays, I take every opportunity to maintain my stamina and strength; it’s too easy in these times for us to physically wither away in hopelessness. I refuse to do that. I’ll fight until I have no fight left in me, until I die.

  It’s not bravery that’s propelled me to lead this rebellion – it’s my faith in humankind. I believe we can overcome our current overlords. It’s sad, but despite this faith in my species and how few of us are left, I trust few individuals. Too many – out of fear or self-interest – would betray us. And so I act as I am tonight to keep suspicious eyes away.

  While I wait, I listen to the conversations around me for anything useful to the cause. I have often, under the cover of supposed incoherency, heard of a planned ant raid on one of our cells or discovered that a certain person had joined the ant corps. I hear nothing of use tonight.

  Spittle tickles my cheek. After a time, I jerk my head off the table, wipe my slobber on the back of one hand, and sip my drink, now warm as spit.

  Two skinny women at a nearby table laugh at me, gray faces smeared upward into wry smiles. We all try to find small reasons to laugh, to keep going. But, if the rumors are true, ours is the last continent on which humans survive. I’ve even heard of human purges in cities not far from here. Maybe it’s just my own brand of pessimism but I think before long we humans will be gone, exterminated for the crime of no longer being useful. I believe when enough larvae ripen, the only living sound in our cities will be the rasping and clicking of ants. I want to laugh with the women, just to remember what it feels like. I can’t.

  My chin is almost touching my chest, head bent over my newest
drink when Khara slouches in and collapses onto a barstool. Over the weeks I’ve been observing her, Khara’s routine has become predictable. I watch her without raising my head, sneaking sidelong glances which I hope will go unnoticed. Certainly unnoticed by her, but one can never tell who else is watching. Rodriguez, another of my men, is here, but he doesn’t watch her in particular, as I’m drawn to. Unobtrusive in his guise of sleeping – chair leaned back against a wall, mouth open, arms folded across his barrel chest – he watches everyone through dark eyelashes, learning patterns, watching for alliances or betrayals.

  Khara runs long fingers through her curly, dirty blonde hair, and pulls herself upright on the stool. Her eyes are closed. She is whipcord thin, but not small boned. She looks young – maybe twenty – except in her face, which has lost any mark of soft youth. Her cheeks are hollows below pronounced cheekbones, her lips thin. Without being summoned, the ant/tender brings her a drink – whiskey, no ice. Not a small glass either.

  The tender grabs her thumb and swipes her credit ring. She doesn’t respond. It’s as though she doesn’t even know the ant has touched her. She makes no effort to confirm the amount he charges. Her hand falls to the bar where the tender drops it, palm up, fingers curled. Her other hand closes around the drink. After a moment, her head rocks back, off balance, before she catches it and jerks it forward to hang over the drink. Stoned again.

  My impression of Khara is of someone bleeding internally. Whole on the outside, yet broken inside, dying unobserved.

  My lieutenant, Michael Bellamy, enters the bar. A tall rubber band of a man, he glides with his customary elegance to the bar near Khara. Blue neon shines on his taut ebony arms and shoulders as he lifts two beers and heads for my table.

  “I don’t want a beer,” I say as he reaches the table.

  “Just my effort to be hospitable, Mate, but I take no offense at your rejection.” He checks his original motion and puts both beers down on his side of the table. “I shall simply have to finish them myself.” He laughs with his usual good nature and holds his palm to my back for a moment of comradeship.

  Leaning toward me and making a close examination of my face, he says, “The whites of your eyes have achieved a rather remarkable crimson. How many of those bloody things have you had?” Bloody. It is the closest thing to a curse word Bell ever uses – and never in front of “the ladies” – perhaps making this one exception in deference to its British origin. He always utters it with relish, prolonging the “l” sound. I can’t help but smile. I’m sure my eyes aren’t red. He’s supporting my act.

  “A couple,” I say, answering his question. I smile, blink with a slow dip of my lids, keep my eyes at half-mast. The beauty of my caricature is that it’s easy. My play-acting extends to the physical, which is a realm I’m comfortable with. I don’t have to be witty, or charming, of which I am neither. I’m not like Bell.

  He smells of beer already. And cigarettes. I can’t help wondering what new connections he’s made to come up with the cigarettes. The ants don’t like them – the smoke irritates their eyes or their pores – so they’ve become next to impossible to come by. But, Bell has connections everywhere.

  He’s the rebellion’s number one answer man. If we need information, he gets it. Everyone likes him. Everyone trusts him. He doesn’t have to play the careful charade I play because no one would dream of suspecting or distrusting this man. Me included. In my case, not because I’m seduced by his likeability but because he’s proven himself time and again.

  “You’re not going to have any luck with the ladies in your state, Mate.” His chiseled features are painted with sincere concern, one eyebrow raised in emphasis.

  “Damn,” I say.

  “Look around, lovelies all around us.” He motions with both arms, a ringmaster, tantalizing. The gray-faced women watch him, drooping faces around eyes gone coy, wishful, inviting. Bell is an attractive man. His dark skin stretches over tight muscle, and leaves his teeth and eyes almost glowing. Fine-boned features show his Somali lineage. His British accent charms old and young.

  Bell smiles at the gray-faced women. In this, he’s not acting. His appreciation of women is genuine and, perhaps for this reason, his ability to woo, legendary. One of the women arches her back, and her body is like her face. Gray, tired, dried out. Bell pushes himself back from the table and glides over to her. He talks to her around his broad, glittering smile. Then, after a chivalrous bow, he excuses himself, goes to the bar and returns with three glasses of vodka. The women move their chairs closer to his and one reaches under the table to put a hand on his thigh. He raises his drink and the clinking sound of their three glasses mixes with their laughter.

  I suppress my annoyance at having to wait for the information I need. Bell’s a good man. He won’t make me late.

  Khara hasn’t moved from her place at the bar. I rise from the table, drink in hand, and stumble across the floor. I trip over the back leg of her barstool, elbowing her in the kidney as I fall to the floor. She grunts as I bump her, but the noise is more exhalation than indication of pain. My fall is choreographed well enough to look spastic and unplanned, but to leave me with no bruises. I can’t have bruises. I have my own ant master to which I must account.

  I pull myself to my feet, retrieve my glass from the floor, and drag myself three seats down on the bar, glancing sidelong at Khara. I don’t understand my attraction to her. She’s an addict, barely surviving. Perhaps it is her powerful tenacity I need, that the rebellion needs.

  I first noticed Khara because of her complete and almost corporeal aloneness, because of the space she clutched around herself, even in the constant crowd. I took her solitude to be a façade at first, or a cover, or a mood, but the darkness of the hole she had dug for herself seemed too rich not to be genuine. I followed her and waited for her alliances to surface.

  This is what I’ve discovered: She is a bodyslave, used by the ants as they choose, the perfect submissive. Yet, she hasn’t sworn allegiance to the ants. She has no human acquaintances. She sleeps in the downtown dorms – not even returning to the same space or the same dorm night after night – rather than with the other slaves in their pet hotels. She is either completely inside herself, or completely empty. She needs no one. The perfection of her solitude intrigues me.

  One of Bell’s women laughs – it’s a shrill titter – gaining my attention. Bell has his arm around both, and they are headed toward the back of the bar. Bell smiles at me and holds up two fingers.

  Two minutes? Both women? Either meaning would fit.

  Khara finishes her second – maybe third? – whiskey and drops her head to the bar.

  Yes, she is hemorrhaging. Is this strength, or the weakness of someone unable to fulfill her own death wish, someone who’s chiseling away at a life she’s too impotent to just crush?

  Soon, I think, not sure whether this means I’ll approach her again soon, or that soon her body will just give up and die.

  Bile rises to my throat as she slaps another drug patch to her jugular. I watch her, trying to learn her, as tears drip down her face. She scratches her cheek with long thin fingers, as though the tears make it itch, but without any apparent knowledge she is crying.

  I rest my head on the bar. Eyes open, I watch the dull blue flash-flash on the counter top and listen to the space around me. I wait for Bell. I wish I could sleep but I can’t afford to be less than vigilant.

  Bell soon scoops his beers from the round table and joins me at the bar. His women are gone.

  “Made some new friends, I see,” I say.

  “I have had the good fortune to persuade them to join me for a meal a bit later, Mate.” He doesn’t gloat. He seems surprised at his “good fortune,” though I’m not.

  “What about Charlotte?” Charlotte is the code word. “Aren’t you meeting her later?” I lift my head, glance past Bell to Khara. She is looking at me. The intense focus of her green eyes strikes a jolt, and I find it difficult not to react.

&nb
sp; “Oh, my word.” Bell opens his eyes wide, as if caught in a real-life dilemma. Khara struggles to maintain focus but can’t. She’s looking through me, and then away.

  “You are correct. How could I have forgotten?” he says.

  “Maybe I can help?” I ask.

  “Would you? I was supposed to meet her at 2100, but it seems I have now double engaged myself.”

  2100.

  “Where?”

  “She wanted to meet me on Decatur, but I told her the back alley of the Comfort Inn was more convenient."

  In the Comfort Inn back alley. Too open for comfort, but also non-negotiable. I check my watch. Almost time to go.

  “I’ll go and make some excuse for you. Do you suppose Charlotte will believe me?” I’m just finishing the conversation.

  “Of course, Mate. She trusts me.” A smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. He stands, suddenly solemn, takes my hand and shakes it. With that gesture, I feel he has wished me luck and safety in my coming rendezvous.

  I glance at Khara as I shuffle from Refugio’s. What makes us trust the people we do?

  I want Khara to trust me.

  CHAPTER 4

  KHARA

  Emptiness and fullness at the same time.

  Emptiness. My stomach is empty of sweetmead, or anything. Hunger gnaws at me with dull teeth, coring me. My throat aches from repeated brushes with palpi, but there is no palpus in my throat now.

  Yet I’m full. My left leg twitches every few seconds – maybe my body’s unconscious effort to fight where I’ve given all conscious effort away – and with each twitch I feel myself still anchored to the table, feel something still within me, between my legs.

  No.

  The thought drifts behind my eyes, red, angry, neon wrapped in cotton.