The descent was undertaken in earnest. From darkness to darkness they went, Queen She first, then Betelgeuse and the rest of the crew behind. She'd given him a bitter look about halfway down, and Betelgeuse could feel a grave and pathological resentment bubble beneath the surface of her mind.

  And as he wondered why it was he kept poking around in dark places, he felt the fragments of a memory surface. A memory of school when the sun was orange past high-noon—he remembered the Elder Yulin Du who'd been charged with teaching Edom-Zeta's children a subject called 'Theory of Mind-Mapping'. He'd been in her class.

  Humanity is oriented toward the womb; Humanity seeks dark places, Elder Du had said, giving him a look which, now that he thought about it, rivaled Queen She's expression in bitterness. It was a phrase that seemed to take the Elder beyond the bounds of simply making boxes and connecting them to one another. It was a new and interesting concept, very different from the standard rote-learning that characterized public education in Edom-Zeta.

  Now that Betelgeuse remembered her, he remembered that she figured greatly in his young imagination—perhaps not so greatly as the older girl Tabitha, but greatly nonetheless.

  Elder Du hated much and hated gravely and hated far more than Elder Bennett did. Her face, once beautiful, had long ago become haggard and crone-like. Lines of age that were the sublimation of the rebellion against a system. Elder Du taught Betelgeuse by the lines in her face that women hated submission, hated it with a passion but could not live without it because that was the way God made men and women, so the Church said. Elder Du made Betelgeuse suspect that women loved submission, loved it with a passion but could not live with it because that was merely the way God made men and women.

  As with women, so with men, the insidious thought occurred. Submission and domination are means of acquiring resources. Man's universe has moved past the old dichotomy… but who has seized control of the means of reproduction?

  The domineering aspect was silent, for once. No answer, no pronouncement on its power of possession, no grandstanding about the length and width of its dominion, no insight, no wisdom.

  He continued down the ladder.

  Betelgeuse heard the Ujung before he saw them. They had left several people behind to guard the extraction point, something he would sooner expect from a disciplined force than one that bore all the trappings of a criminal organization. It was clear that the Ujung had had some training in standard tactics.

  "Gron? Walla chaz?" one of them called, looking up at them and squinting in the darkness.

  Betelgeuse gauged the distance, unsheathed his combat knife, and released his hold on the thin metal beams. He plummeted past Queen She, hitting the ground hard, his enhanced thigh muscles taking the impact easily and then flexing powerfully, sending his body hurtling forward in one swift motion.

  Before the Ujung guards could react, he punched upward, the blade of his knife stabbing through the bottom of a chin and tearing upward into brain. Withdrawing the knife, Betelgeuse wheeled around with preternatural speed and lunged, catching the other man across his neck.

  Two lithe figures gurgled wide-eyed, their masks filling with blood. Their eyes were the eyes of men who were little more than boys.

  Betelgeuse let them drop lifelessly to the ground, their flashlights scything up in the air, his eyes already turned forward.

  It took him a moment to realize that he was in a narrow corridor made entirely of concrete. It was a subterranean complex—most definitely not the Mining Tunnels.

  What is this place?

  He looked up—the sky was a long way away. Betelgeuse picked up a flashlight to see that a longitudinal crack ran through the entire length of this corridor, splitting the floor into two like a broken waffle. The way right of the ladders was blocked by rubble, so the only way forward was left.

  The others reached the bottom several seconds later. As his men searched the bodies for loot, Betelgeuse gripped Queen She's shoulder and forcibly kept her in front of him. He didn't want to risk her breaking out of his control.

  "What is this place?" Betelgeuse asked.

  "I... I don't know," the Queen replied, glancing at the dead bodies and frowning, contemplating the speed and efficiency with which this man had dispatched them. He definitely wasn't normal.

  They went down the corridor under the gash of smoggy sky, then followed the bend rightward into another corridor. The darkness pressed ominously upon their bodies. They increased their pace.

  "Stop pushing," Queen She groused, chafing against Betelgeuse' intentionality.

  "Keep moving," Betelgeuse shot back, pushing her forward even more brusquely, as if to clarify who was in charge.

  Somebody sniggered behind him, probably Private Fuller.

  They continued on, passing through the tall and dark tunnel-way, fording tracks gouged out of the ruined floor by drill-rigs that had gored great staring holes in the walls. They turned and turned again, travelling slowly upward, with Betelgeuse contemplating all the while why such a subterranean complex even existed, what its purpose was, what had drawn him here.

  The sound of gunfire echoed from somewhere distant.

  Betelgeuse moved forward cautiously, bracing the barrel on Queen She's right shoulder. He focused his mind, letting the disturbances and flaring intentionalities recede. He searched for an intentionality-signature, that specific one, flitting at the periphery of his senses. He probed, mega-curious.

  Sounds, drifting down the corridor. The rattle of carbines and tell-tale zwang of railguns.

  He didn't really care about the danger—he wanted to know what that intentionality-signature was.

  They came to a fork, and Betelgeuse took the right corridor, toward the mysterious intentionality-signature, finding that this led them further away from the din of gunfire. Light streamed out from an opening at the end of the tunnel. Betelgeuse quickened his pace, forcing a grumbling Queen She onward.

  The intentionality-signature blinked out of existence as they stepped out into a large rectangular space. The room was filled with blinding light streaming down from a high ceiling.

  Queen She's intentionality flared. Betelgeuse' eyes widened. His crew began choking on their saliva.

  The room was lined with rows upon rows of clear cylindrical tanks, more than a hundred of them all told. The tanks themselves were illuminated from the inside by powerful off-white lanterns, and each of them was filled with a murky fluid. Suspended in that fluid were naked women whose bellies was distended to hideous degrees.

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  Every tank had them.

  Betelgeuse stepped forward to the nearest tank and scrutinized the creature in it. A woman. Her eyelids were closed and their breasts looked like socks stretched to bursting with potatoes. Betelgeuse stepped around the tank, observing that the woman was missing most of her head. In place of where he expected her cranium (and gray matter) to be was a clear plastic bag through which thin cables were threaded. The cables appeared to connect the tip of the spinal cord to the top of the amniotic tanks.

  'Some kind of breeding facility,' thought Betelgeuse, leaning to his right and peering down the aisle.

  Rows upon rows of tanks. Pregnant bodies of all shapes, sizes and skin-color, turning slowly in their watery cages. Wombs too large for normal babies, stomachs being kicked and pushed outward. Bellies waiting to be disgorged, umbilicuses bleeding dirty fluid that dissipated into murkiness.

  "... Why did you bring me here?" Queen She asked, clenching her jaw tightly. Betelgeuse glanced at her, finding the bitterness replaced with something raw. The mask was there, the mind-cathexes clarified over and over again by her artificial face, but…

  Null.

  Betelgeuse recoiled. The recursion of ego had broken. Real emotion, animal emotion, leering through. It wasn't good to believe in it, but then again, what was good except whatever he created?

  "Come over. Stay in front of me," Betelgeuse commanded, glancing away. Queen She struggled against herself, but stepped jerkily to where he indicated. His men fell in step, squeezing closer to each other than was tactically necessary.

  The room was cold and silent, save for a mechanical hum that seemed to emanate from somewhere underneath their feet.

  Rat-tat-tat. The dull echo of carbine fire. They crouched reflexively, covering behind the edgewise tanks.

  Private Alterk stepped forward and tapped Betelgeuse on his shoulder. Betelgeuse turned.

  Enemies? Alterk asked with his brown eyes.

  Likely, Betelgeuse nodded curtly.

  They resumed the advance with their weapons raised, reaching about halfway across the room when suddenly, a group of figures spilled into the space from the entrance at the far end.

  They came in unexpectedly, jogging forward in formation. Betelgeuse reacted immediately, raising the barrel of his gun and firing off a single shot without wasting time trying to identify the new entrants.

  Zwang!

  The bolt of orange lanced across the space, traveling between the tanks to find its mark, punching a hole into the chest of a suited figure. The figures scattered, shouting wildly.

  Exosuits. TAF? No, they look Desertian.

  Betelgeuse' crew took their cue from him and fired as one, their shots piercing through the tanks and tearing up the bodies suspended within. Murky fluid splashed half-viscous across the floor; bedlam, confusion, return fire spangling off the wall behind Betelgeuse.

  A pained grunt. Betelgeuse turned to see Private Fuller on the ground, clutching at his arm. The enemy had clipped him.

  Carbines. Modded bullets. Military?

  They don't look like Ujung.

  Betelgeuse reached out and sensed their fraying intentionalities. Tendrils of power stabbed across the room.

  "Lay down your weapons!" he bellowed, screaming dark compulsion into the mix. Confusion mixed in with confusion.

  More exosuits streamed through the entrance, only to have their heads blasted off their shoulders. The enemy was killed to a man, and as the last body thumped to the ground, Betelgeuse sprinted forward, slamming sideways into the far wall with a loud thunk.

  Dead bodies were strewn about the entrance just meters from Betelgeuse. Symbols were spray-painted across their torsos, so sloppily that it took Betelgeuse to realize that they were Common letters.

  RABID

  Betelgeuse' eye twitched.

  Did Rolf cause the subsidence? Something smells fishy.

  Intentionalities pierced through the wall, fraying with the battle-stress. Shouts drifted in from the outside corridor; more of Rabid's soldiers, but none of them dared to come into the room.

  No system, no resonance, no synergy. Individuals thinking as individuals. Very unlike Queen She's and the Sand-Marshal's bands.

  Which meant they were easy pickings. The tips of Betelgeuse' mouth twisted upwards in a macabre smile.

  Alterk came down the side, then Fuller, fumbling with a bandage, then Nahdi, pushing an irate-looking Queen She along. Betelgeuse indicated for them to hold position, before creeping up the side of the wall towards the tangle of corpses. Blood and viscera mixed in with the amniotic fluid spewing from the ruined tanks, turning it dark-red and lumpy.

  Dead flesh staring at him.

  Betelgeuse' boots squelched into the pool of blood. He was right next to the entrance now, and he could hear Rabid's men conversing amongst themselves in accented Common.

  "Get in, coward!"

  "Kak it fuckface, you go if you want to!"

  'Recruiting locals. They sound Saltillan,' thought Betelgeuse, holding his railgun before him. 'Maybe refugees? Saltillans that managed to escape the Chimerae siege?'

  Betelgeuse was close enough. He could feel the frayed intentionalities chafe against each other. Ash grades, maybe one White grade.

  "Step out! All of you!" Betelgeuse commanded, lacing his voice with the compulsion. Rabid's men choked and fell silent.

  It was an easy task to bend their minds to his will. Betelgeuse' affinity for the compulsion had reached a point where average minds could not hope to withstand his will, not unless they were under the control of either ideology or a more powerful person's compulsion.

  Of course, there were those like the Sand-Marshal and Queen She—but such minds required a level of psychosis which was beyond most common minds. And even in such cases, their ability to withstand Betelgeuse' compulsion varied. The Sand-Marshal, for example, was literally too crazy to compel, and although Betelgeuse had successfully brought Queen She to heel, she maintained a level of personal autonomy that Betelgeuse could not stamp out without completely breaking her mind.

  One by one, Rabid's men stepped out into the open. There were 5 of them remaining, the only survivors of this contingent, it appeared.

  Betelgeuse observed their features through the visor's of their helmets—dark-skinned Saltillans, staring glassily at him, their carbines* held against their chests.

  *[NW-FAPERs, Betelgeuse recognized.]

  "Rabid," Queen She breathed, coming up beside him and glancing from the corpses at Betelgeuse' feet to the men he had so easily put under his control.

  Then she looked straight at Betelgeuse, as if finally realizing the kind of man she was dealing with—dangerous, powerful, not at all what he seemed like at first glance. She was beginning to suspect that 'Anton' might in fact be more than just Dog Balls' minion.

  Ah, the sum of their intentionalities. Fragile enough to snuff out. Why do you spare the Queen's mind? Nothing but a liability, the domineering thought occurred.

  Betelgeuse restrained himself.

  "You could... ask them what… what Rabid wants," Queen She said, her voice wavering slightly. Her rebelliousness had turned to something approaching fear and obedience. Betelgeuse' affinity for the compulsion was absolutely unnatural, and the last thing she wanted was to get on the wrong side of it.

  "Fool! It's not your place," Private Alterk rasped, shooting the Queen a dirty look. "He will ask what he wants."

  Betelgeuse held up an open palm to silence Alterk. Then, he stepped forward and looked over the helmet of the middle Saltillan.

  A filtration vent had been fitted into the side of the exosuit helmet.

  Betelgeuse remembered well how the original exosuits prevented communication with people outside of it. The filtration vent was an illegal mod which allowed the exosuit wearers to communicate with each other.

  "Why has General Rabid come here?" Betelgeuse asked, stepping backward and addressing the middle Saltillan, who had a star tattooed upon his forehead.

  "Interception and attack," he replied.

  "Clarify," Betelgeuse snapped.

  "Intercept cargo delivery. Capture targets. Kill everything else," another of the Saltillans said, his scarred cheeks twitching.

  "Clarify cargo. Clarify targets," Betelgeuse said, glancing sideways.

  "Cargo. Flesh for Polyaria Buldang. Organs for the Iron Market," Scarred-Cheeks replied.

  "We were supposed to kill the Gehennites and the Delta* bandits," Forehead-Tat said, frowning at Queen She as if he had forgotten something.

  *[Referring to the Craggy Delta, the area which the Queen usually terrorized.]

  Queen She stepped backward, narrowing her eyes and reflexively assuming a combat stance.

  Betelgeuse cut off the man's probing intentionalities, causing him to jerk involuntarily.

  "Clarify Delta bandits," Betelgeuse said.

  "Queen She Who Castrates…" Forehead-Tat mumbled.

  Betelgeuse pursed his lips.

  "Damn... that's crazy," Betelgeuse heard Fuller whisper behind him.

  "Jeez-o," Alterk whistled softly.

  "You were specifically instructed to kill Queen She? How is that possible?" Betelgeuse pressed, his mind racing through a million possibilities.

  A constellation of plans within plans.

  "We were… briefed by the General," Scarred-Cheeks was the one who replied, his tone a low drone. "The Delta bandits were supposed to have attacked. We knew the Queen would be here for the interception. We needed to capture her and use her against the encampment. Kill the rest."

  "The encampment outside Gehen," Forehead-Tat finished.

  Betelgeuse glanced at Queen She, then back at Forehead-Tat.

  "How many of you are here?" he asked.

  "This operation is commanded by Colonel Nympho," Forehead-Tat returned.