Proper Place

Withhold a key detail or important fact, revealing it only at the very end.

The street was filled with the clatter of boots and the soft whine of cart wheels turning on the stones, the faint odor of burning oil from the nearby chop shop wafting through the morning air. Citizens step out of their dwellings and join the flow of traffic, head coverings tight on their domes and synthetic tees flashing variable brand messages. Slyke feels a gentle tug on the thin blackiron chain connected to his belt and glances back at the creature, its face contorted in rage and hatred, saliva frothing from the muzzle wrapped around its vicious maw. The last 3 weeks spent breaking the beast should have made it safe to transport to market, but the entire species has been getting scrappier and harder to tame over the long winter, probably brought on by food shortages. Most of the brutes in this region live out in the deep forest south of the settlement, but there are a few roving packs that will steal into the outskirts of town at night and attack the unsuspecting citizen.

“You want another taste?” Slyke growls under his breath. The brute’s eyes flash instantly from defiance to fear, followed by shock as a small, hand-length scrap of blackiron slams into its face from the side, thrown by a haughty youth who sidles up to stand over the brute.

“I hope you get sold into the mines as a gas seeker, you miserable shit,” the youth snarls

Slyke swiftly steps between the youth and the brute, and, noting the quality of his head covering and tee, adopts a conciliatory tone, “I caught this one raiding in the slums off the Terrtorca, m’slord. He’s a clever one, probably a sharp or even a mind, I’m hoping to get more than gas seeker funds for him, maybe as a courier or even a dwelling shaper.”

“The faster they die, the better. They have no value to us since the Conflict ended.”

“Can’t disagree, m’slord, just trying to make a living here. This one’s safe, his spinolumbical is connected right to my neural net, all I have to do is think it, and every nerve in his body turns white hot. Helps me train them up fast.”

“There’s no place in the Citizenry for brutes. One like this tore my pater apart last year, the only safe brute is a dead brute.” He aims an ineffectual kick at the brute, who skitters away, yanking at the chain.

“Well, I got to be moving on or I won’t make it to the market, you have a constructive cycle m’slord,” Slyke tugs on the chain, eager to move on before his prize is damaged and the value reduced.

-

Dozens of brutes crouch on the platform, blackiron collars around their necks. Some are catatonic and dewey-eyed, likely to be gas seekers or salt divers. Others strain at the collar, clawing and howling, probably destined for the power mills or chop shops. Slyke’s latest professional work sits calmly and examines his surroundings, just the way a sharp brute would, but without the smarts. Slyke reflects on the past several months and congratulates himself on his innovative methods, using agony to train the brute to act like he can think for months, culminating in this first attempt to pass a green as a sharp. It’s not clear why some brutes are smarter than others. It might have to do with genetic sequencing, but nobody has bothered to study them enough to find out. Slyke had been capturing and selling greens for most of his life, a business he inherited from his father, bringing the idiot creatures to market to be sold for pocket change into suicide vocations or as carbon meat. On occasion, he’d catch a sharp, although he hadn’t seen that kind of funds in a long time. He’d only caught a mind once and it escaped after killing his pater in the night. Slyke didn’t believe in the mythical elders, brutes that could reason and communicate like citizens, he’d never seen one or met anyone who had.

His brute looks calm, eyes bright, no more frothing since Slyke pulled him into a squat and lit him up for a few minutes before market started. Brutes only respond to one thing, and that’s pain, and the more you give them the better they act. A citizen warden pulls him to the auction block and starts the bidding, which quickly surpasses green funding and caps out just below was he could get for a mind.

It worked. It really worked. Slyke suppresses a sly grin as he moves up to unlock the blackiron collar and transfer the brute’s burdenship documents. Slyke is simultaneously planning to spend his funds at the holobrothel and dreaming of future scams as he unlocks the collar, so he doesn’t see the brute twist and slam the blackiron scrap into Slyke’s occiput, the metal punching through the fibrocarbon that covers his neural net. Slyke locks eyes with the brute, willing him to descend into suffering, but the neural net is damaged and Slyke watches in horror as the brute presses his rear claw into Slyke’s central mass, wrapping its foreclaws around his wrist, separating his arm from his body with a pop and a spray of fluid. The brute rolls off the platform and wields Slyke’s arm as a weapon, dropping two wardens before vanishing into a squat nearby. Chaos erupts. Slyke sits heavily and gapes at his life force pumping out of his ruined body before falling into the dark.

-

Supreme Warden Comstock hovers over the slaver’s lifeless shell, listening to the story of the brute attack. The nearby counter explains how the brute seemed to know right where to strike to disable the neural net. This type of savagery and cleverness is becoming more and more common throughout the settlement. They’re getting smarter. More brazen. This one was trained.

There is no greater threat to the Citizenry and the settlement than intelligent brutes. Decades of culling the sharps and minds have left the brutes without the genetic materials to govern themselves, plan for the future, or regulate their urges. This keeps them in their proper place, creatures of the forest and fodder for the Citizenry’s needs. Brutes can do things that citizens can’t. They can smell gas, they can taste salt, and they possess in their bodies most of the carbon left on the planet after the emulsification virus was released to end the Conflict. This single resource scarcity is the reason the High Controller continues to allow them to breed, because citizens crafted from only blackiron are slow, heavy, and stupid, requiring fibrocarbon for the complex neural net that gives them consciousness.

A junior warden rolls over on modified treads, meant for high-speed pursuit of errant citizens or brutes.

“I cannot believe this. No brute has dared attack a citizen in years. The audacity. The disrespect.”

Comstock considers her words. She is young, but she will learn.

“Attacks are more common than you think. The High Signal doesn’t report on attacks on citizens, to avoid disorder and disruption. Better that citizens feel safe and secure.”

She spits back, “Maybe it’s time to go out and exterminate them all. They are a plague upon the Citizenry. Our world would be better without any humans in it.”

Comstock’s optical lenses narrow. “Do not ever call them that. They are brutes. Nothing more.”