whole world tipped over. Screams ricocheted through the darkness, followed by silence. They werenât being pushed anymore, but they werenât sitting still, either. One voice guessed that perhaps their masters had simply relocated them. Then another voice said he felt like they were floating. Finally, a third voice, farthest from the door, confirmed what Günther had done.
âWater! Thereâs water coming in back here!â
Miriam was crushed against the front door as people pressed forward, bellowing in terror. The sea flooded in through the rusted-out floor at the rear of the container, and their floating coffin tipped onto its back end. Miriam grasped the door handle as her fellows slid and tumbled down to what had been the rear and was now fast becoming the bottom of their tomb. A ferocious battle broke out as everyone tried to stay on top, their hands and feet slashing out in blackness to gain a few extra seconds of life.
The cries and thrashes became weaker and fewer until they finally stopped. Miriam hung from the steel boxâs top, in water up to her chest. She prayed and prepared to die. She took one big breath, then another, and another. The water had stopped rising. The container had come to rest on the harborâs bottom, standing on its end with the top few inches still exposed. Although the door was locked, there were enough holes and cracks that air could still flow inside. Miriam floated among the corpses for seven hours until the next morning, when Günther had his crane operators retrieve the container.
When they found Miriam still alive, Günther transferred her to his cousinâs farm outside of Driffield so he could write off his slaves as a total loss to his insurers. He also didnât want Miriam contradicting the details of his story about being raided by the Circle of Zion. Güntherâs cousin in Driffield, by the way, is the lummox who got his neck sliced open with a plate. Miriam had clearly had enough of slave life.
05:50
. I shift my weight a little and try to stretch my legs out. My drugs have finally balanced out, so my skin has stopped trying to move to another ZIP Code. I mentally review my assignment for the umpteenth time. Itâs a straight-up snatch job, featuring the extra thrill of being deep in enemy territory and surrounded by bad guys. Iâd check in with Brando, but weâre on comm silence. Besides, heâs probably proving some obscure mathematical problem like E = mc to the square root of pluribus unum.
Footsteps echo in the hallway and get louder with each step. A key clicks in the officeâs lock. I look at my fatherâs watch.
06:00
. The door opens beneath me. A plump little man waddles in and shuts the door. He crosses the dimly lit office to the desk. He turns on the desk lamp, and a pool of light pours onto his face. The man wears a suit and tie, and his hair is neatly trimmed. I zoom in with my enhanced vision and compare his face to the picture in my mission briefing. Heâs my target.
Air Traffic Control, this is flight A59 requesting permission to land
.
I pop a sharp dose of Madrenaline and vault across the room. My back scrapes the ceiling for a second until I begin my descent.
Roger, flight A59, you are cleared for approach
.
The pudgy Bürgermeister has just settled in his chair when I cannonball into his lap. The impact reduces his wooden chair to its component boards and fasteners. He crashes to the floor while I roll to my feet. I body-slam him and fire my knee into his groin, which elicits a noisy response. I stifle him with my hand over his mouth. The mayor yells into my palm while Brando slithers out from under the couch. My partner rushes over to us, digs into his X-bag, and plucks out his egg-shaped drug-injector gadget. Its name is Drug Optimization System: Epidermal, or DOSE for short. We used to stab people with plain old hypodermics, but last year we got these high-tech jobbies that speed
âWater! Thereâs water coming in back here!â
Miriam was crushed against the front door as people pressed forward, bellowing in terror. The sea flooded in through the rusted-out floor at the rear of the container, and their floating coffin tipped onto its back end. Miriam grasped the door handle as her fellows slid and tumbled down to what had been the rear and was now fast becoming the bottom of their tomb. A ferocious battle broke out as everyone tried to stay on top, their hands and feet slashing out in blackness to gain a few extra seconds of life.
The cries and thrashes became weaker and fewer until they finally stopped. Miriam hung from the steel boxâs top, in water up to her chest. She prayed and prepared to die. She took one big breath, then another, and another. The water had stopped rising. The container had come to rest on the harborâs bottom, standing on its end with the top few inches still exposed. Although the door was locked, there were enough holes and cracks that air could still flow inside. Miriam floated among the corpses for seven hours until the next morning, when Günther had his crane operators retrieve the container.
When they found Miriam still alive, Günther transferred her to his cousinâs farm outside of Driffield so he could write off his slaves as a total loss to his insurers. He also didnât want Miriam contradicting the details of his story about being raided by the Circle of Zion. Güntherâs cousin in Driffield, by the way, is the lummox who got his neck sliced open with a plate. Miriam had clearly had enough of slave life.
05:50
. I shift my weight a little and try to stretch my legs out. My drugs have finally balanced out, so my skin has stopped trying to move to another ZIP Code. I mentally review my assignment for the umpteenth time. Itâs a straight-up snatch job, featuring the extra thrill of being deep in enemy territory and surrounded by bad guys. Iâd check in with Brando, but weâre on comm silence. Besides, heâs probably proving some obscure mathematical problem like E = mc to the square root of pluribus unum.
Footsteps echo in the hallway and get louder with each step. A key clicks in the officeâs lock. I look at my fatherâs watch.
06:00
. The door opens beneath me. A plump little man waddles in and shuts the door. He crosses the dimly lit office to the desk. He turns on the desk lamp, and a pool of light pours onto his face. The man wears a suit and tie, and his hair is neatly trimmed. I zoom in with my enhanced vision and compare his face to the picture in my mission briefing. Heâs my target.
Air Traffic Control, this is flight A59 requesting permission to land
.
I pop a sharp dose of Madrenaline and vault across the room. My back scrapes the ceiling for a second until I begin my descent.
Roger, flight A59, you are cleared for approach
.
The pudgy Bürgermeister has just settled in his chair when I cannonball into his lap. The impact reduces his wooden chair to its component boards and fasteners. He crashes to the floor while I roll to my feet. I body-slam him and fire my knee into his groin, which elicits a noisy response. I stifle him with my hand over his mouth. The mayor yells into my palm while Brando slithers out from under the couch. My partner rushes over to us, digs into his X-bag, and plucks out his egg-shaped drug-injector gadget. Its name is Drug Optimization System: Epidermal, or DOSE for short. We used to stab people with plain old hypodermics, but last year we got these high-tech jobbies that speed
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