Chapter Twenty Four

Gage opened his eyes. He was confused. He was used to waking up in the dark, but he was also used to waking up with a control screen in front of him that displayed his to-do list. When was the last time he’d slept somewhere other than the inside of a cryochamber? He ran a hand over his face painfully. Where did it hurt? Where was he?

One good inhale reminded him he was on Io. The nose and throat plugs didn’t block that much of the sulfur smell. He was on the yellow sands of Io. He had several scrapes up his arms and the acidic sand was in his wounds causing them to burn.

There was a crack of light over him. Gauging the distance to the opening above him, it was too far and the sides of the fissure too steep for him to get up through it.

He tapped his bracelet. It woke up and the pink light from the screen burned his eyes. Looking around, he didn’t see Iona. If she was still above, then the chances that things had worked out for her were good. For him though, things could have gone better.

Using his watch, he could send a distress call, but who did he send it to? He scanned his contacts from Io. There was only one. Tuton from the wreckers. Gage sent a message.

Signal blocked.

Using the light from his watch, he brushed the sand off his arms and shook it from his hair.

He was going to have to find his own way out.

Looking around him, he saw that the cave above him was actually quite large. There was more than enough room to stand up. There were also no bats or other creepy crawlers hanging from stalactites. There weren’t stalactites. The ceiling of the cave was smooth and only visible if Gage used a magnifier on the area. It was a relief that Io only had life that humans brought with them. Most things died on Io.

He was about to become one of them.

He stood up and as he did, he saw something that surprised him. Ahead of him, there was a tunnel with lights hung periodically from the wall.

Did someone live under the surface on Io? Such a thing seemed impossible. The surface of Io was in constant upheaval as the gravity of Jupiter crushed and stretched the moon. The volcanoes erupted constantly and they were in the foothills of the largest volcano on Io, Loki. No one would look for a secret base of any kind here. It was the last place anyone would look.

Gage’s mouth filled with sick saliva. He covered his mouth and swallowed until the feeling passed.

He sighed and wiped his mouth.

It had been many years since he had escaped his underground prison. How the hell had he managed to find another one?

It didn’t matter who they were. It didn’t matter what they were doing. If he walked down that tunnel and was met by a person, they might kill him just for being there–in the wrong place at the wrong time. They might have other plans for someone who just ‘happened’ along. The population of a place like this didn’t go up. It only went down.

He looked up again at the crack above him. It was changing shape. The rocks above were thrashing. Even if he could get back up, he might not be able to get through the cracks. The opening could close with a cave-in. The opening could widen by enough that he could run up and leap out of the crack. Would his helocarrier still be there? Would he be able to send a signal to Tuton from there?

He glanced back at the tunnel. Okay, it mattered who was down here. It mattered what they were doing. He would never be able to sleep again if he turned away from the mouth of hell. The place would haunt his waking nightmares if he didn’t explore it and expose what was happening.

He moved toward the tunnel. He would have loved to hide. He would have loved to be able to use something as cover. As it was, he walked directly under the line of lights believing that if there were cameras, they would be incorporated into the lights to create a simpler design and to save resources. If he walked there, he might escape being seen.

Gage felt his heart hammering in his chest as he slowly covered the distance between lights.

Maybe it went nowhere.

Maybe the tunnel collapsed further down. A thousand scenarios ran through his head.

For a moment, his brain flashed with scenes from when he had been Olivine’s slave. He saw a maid dead on the floor in front of him. Her dead eyes stared at him. The expression was so blank that his brain turned the nothing in her eyes into blame. He saw his hand black from the electric shocks. There were times when he couldn’t make a fist with his hand and other times when he held onto other things so strongly that the thing between his fingers turned blue.

He couldn’t think about any of those old memories anymore. His pace was slacking and making him move oddly. He would put an elbow in the line of sight of a camera because he was walking like a moron.

When the end of the tunnel came into view, all Gage saw was black. He wasn’t sure if there was a room beyond if there was a dropoff, or what could be waiting for him, but he walked to the end.

There was a corner. He would have to turn it if he wanted to see what was hidden in the foothills of Loki.

What he saw took the wind out of him.

It was the same! It was exactly the same! The cave-in, the crevice that had filled with rocks. He had come in through an extra entrance, but there was the door into Olivine’s underground mansion. Had there always been another entrance? Was there one on Mars? Was it hidden so that Olivine and her father could trick their slaves and servants? Were they not really trapped, but Olivine and her father decided to leave their lives above ground to play the sick, bored game they played with their servants? Shocking them? Twisting them? Breaking them? Making them do anything with no hope of escape?

Gage swallowed the vomit a second time. He had to investigate the place, but no matter what, he couldn’t leave evidence that he had been there.

The doors in front of him did not lead all the way to the top of the cavern. They didn’t build all the way to the ceiling on Mars either, but Gage had more limits in his head when he belonged to Olivine.

He took his watch off and put it in his pocket.

Then, with more strength than his scraped forearms wanted, he heaved himself onto the blue clay roof that had been placed on the entrance to hell.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He moved slowly across the tiles until he realized that they weren’t made of clay. They were made of glass and only mottled to look like clay. He took off his boots and tied them together by the laces and hung them around his neck. He needed to find out if anyone was there and if there was another way out.

On the other side, there was a courtyard with a pond. He slid down and felt grass beneath his feet. Grass? On Io? That seemed impossible, but it was slightly damp and a little cold.

That was when he saw a figure on the bridge between a gazebo and the courtyard, He’d recognize himself anywhere.

“Gage, is that you? I already know you fell through the crack. There’s no point in being this secretive about your arrival.”

Gage scoffed and stepped forward. He couldn’t act like a baby in front of Testament. It made him sick. Even after everything he suffered under the hands of Olivine, Testament had suffered more.

“Leviticus said you were dead,” Gage called back.

“Yeah, well, Leviticus is a dick,” Testament spat back. The other version of Gage came into the light and he showed his current look. His head was shaved up one side and the other side of his hair was so long that the ends skimmed his collarbone. It was also white. It was the white of someone who had endured a tremendous amount of pain.

Gage stepped forward. He could stand many things, but the idea of Testament being hurt was one that bothered him immensely. “Are you hurt? Have you been tortured?”

Testament regarded Gage with the air of a monk, serene and composed. “Are you here to save me, Gage? You’ve been trapped yourself.”

“Is this place what I think it is?” Gage asked.

Testament rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Probably… it isn’t that yet. That will come later.”

“What’s going on here? You’re talking to me so I assume you know what’s happening here and you’re going to tell me?”

“I’m not your spirit guide,” Testament chuckled. He adjusted his robe, which at first Gage mistook for priests’ robes. Close up, he saw that he was wearing a white satin robe cut very similarly to the one Iona owned. “I’m just also trapped here. Heretic is somewhere around as well.”

“You’re not sure where?”

“No. He’s really annoying. If you’d like me to explain what is happening, I will, but first, answer a question for me. Have you ever been possessed by the feeling that you’d like to kill all of us and be the only one left?”

Gage didn’t attempt to hide his feelings. “I have wanted to kill Leviticus quite a few times.”

“That’s natural,” Testament said with a nod. “What about the rest of us?”

“I saw Benediction on the surface. It was just for a moment, but I did kind of want to kill him. If I’m honest, the only one of us I haven’t wanted to kill is probably you.”

“You did try to kill anyone who placed a hand on me, which was why you were sold off as a form of martial entertainment. When you left, I saw that you were sold with Leviticus and that they were going to make you fight him. I didn’t like to place bets, but I thought he might kill you, but only because,” Testament put up a finger to ask Gage to wait until he explained why. “You might mistake him for you. I never felt in danger when I was with you, neither the urge to kill nor the feeling that you might kill me. But… I don’t have the same relationship with Heretic.”

“What’s going on?”

“At the moment, we’ve segregated ourselves. He has to stay in mansion C while I stay in mansion B. Otherwise, I think we might be quite serious about killing each other.”

“How did you get here?” Gage asked, the desperation raw in his voice.

“Oh, same old, same old. I was working as a model. No runway work, you understand, but as an example of the perfect body ratio for hire. I can’t tell you how many times my face and body have been scanned, or how many times I’ve posed naked.”

“You got used to it?”

Testament gave him an odd look. “Everyone has to give something away. You give away your time.”

“You know about me?” Gage asked in suspicion.

“Of course, I know about you. You’ve been falling asleep in the arms of the stars. I wondered why, so I did some reading. You’re not exactly famous, except to people who are interested in true crime. Your old owner, Olivine, can’t show her face on the inner side of the asteroid belt. She can’t escape the looks, the fear, the hatred, and everything else that comes from being a minor when you commit atrocities. They put her father in a gas chamber for what he did to you and the others. Her, they let off.” Testament turned to Gage. “What’s with that look?”

Gage willed his blood to return to his face as Testament had obviously noticed how pale he had suddenly become. “I didn’t know that.”

“You didn’t?”

“I just wanted to get away. I didn’t know what happened to Olivine either except that she was still around.”

“I owe you an apology. I don’t know if Leviticus would have been able to find you if I hadn’t told him you were going by the name Gage. You always told me you were going to change your name and I fell for Leviticus’ act so hard.”

“I told him that I was going to change my name too. Don’t sweat it. How did he get you? Did you get poisoned? Drugs in the food?” Gage asked.

“Yeah. He acted so friendly and I… felt lonely, wanted home, wanted a home that never existed, wanted you, missed you, spoke about you and I’m so sorry. We’re both trapped now.” Testament wiped the fear and remorse out of his eyes. “Did you fall for the poison too?”

Gage placed a hand on Testament’s shoulder. “Nah. I thought he was going to be picked up by Olivine’s bodyguards that were waiting outside my ship. I thought that if I left him there, Olivine would find him, buy him, do what she did to me to him, and I invited him aboard. But I’m not down here because I followed him down a rabbit hole.”

“No?”

“No. I was trying to rescue a beautiful woman who was enduring a gravity trial administered by the Church of Voynich on the Breastplate of Loki. It’s just above here. It was because she owned me,’ Gage explained.

“That explains why you were at odds with Benediction. They’re against slavery, aren’t they? They may be our only hope of rescue from this place.”

Gage shook his head. “I don’t think that’s our only hope. The crack I fell through may widen under the influence of his holiness.”

“Jupiter?”

Gage nodded. “This whole place could get ripped to shreds by the tectonic tides. Or we could have a lava bath.”

“I don’t know about either of those things,” Testament confessed. “I’m neither a scientist nor a religious enthusiast. What I know is about the ten of us and how we feel about each other. None of us like what was done to us, how we were made, or that we’re all identical. We all want to distinguish ourselves from each other. Leviticus has red hair. Benediction has black skin and green hair. Heretic has tattoos on his whole body, all the way to his jawline. I am almost in mint condition because I haven’t done much to my body, but my hair went white on its own. You changed your name. I don’t know what everyone else has done, but we all want to be given our individuality. Except, I think it goes a step further than that. Something inside us knows this is wrong: the way we were born, the way we were kept identical for so long, the annoyance of someone with your face and body acting in a way we never would, and more. We all want to kill each other.”

“Leviticus said Apostate was the one who was responsible for you and Heretic. He told me Apostate killed you both.”

Testament laughed. “Okay, I was wrong. What I just said about us all wanting to kill each other. That was wrong because Apostate would never want to kill anyone. He was as gentle as a goldfish swimming between your fingers. Though I would rate myself as the next least threatening. What do you think is going to happen here? Leviticus trapped us. Is he going to kill us all after he’s gathered us? Sell us again? Make us fight for sport? Something worse?”

Gage crossed his arms. “Why does he have to choose? Surely, he can think of a solution that hits all those bases.”

“Is this place very much like the place you were trapped in on Mars?”

“It is exactly like it,” Gage admitted. “Obviously, it was built by the same wacko.”

Now it was Testament’s turn to go pale. “He’s going to sell us to Olivine and she’s going to relive everything she did with you, except with all the rest of us.”

“Not that it is much comfort, but Leviticus won’t be going free. She’ll find a way to trap him too. Who knows why he’s doing all this? He may have a reason that makes sense to him.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“It isn’t,” Gage said sternly.

He had done things that took away his ability to condemn Leviticus without simultaneously condemning himself. He didn’t know what knife was at Leviticus’ throat.

Gage clapped his hands together. “Let’s go meet Heretic and then I’ll show you both the hole I fell down. Perhaps the three of us can think of a way to use the hole to get out if we can keep from killing each other.”