CHAPTER 2: THE CULLING OF THE MUD

  ?The black rain didn't wash the blood away; it just thinned it into a pink, translucent glaze over the muck.

  ?Kiri held Rin’s face against her chest, her palms over her sister’s ears. She didn't want Rin to hear the sound of the Processing Pylons. Every few seconds, a heavy thud-hiss echoed through the square as a pneumatic spike was driven through a "Unit" that refused to stand still.

  ?"Don't look, Rin," Kiri whispered, her voice cracking. "Just look at me. Only at me."

  ?But Rin could see. Through the gaps in Kiri’s fingers, she saw the Dregs. These weren't mechanical monsters—they were men. Men like Krow, who wore a necklace made of human finger-bones and carried a jagged, electrified prod.

  ?The Dregs were "Pre-Sorting." Before the Watcher Sleds even landed, the Dregs took their "Commission."

  ?In the center of the square, a group of girls—no older than Rin—had been stripped of their rags. They were being held down in the black muck by three Dregs. There was no passion in the act; it was a clinical, repetitive violation meant to break their "Original Frequency" before they reached the Spires.

  ?"High-yield distress," one of the Dregs grunted, checking a flickering sensor on his wrist. "The Spires are gonna love the data on this one. Keep her screaming."

  ?One of the girls looked at Kiri, her eyes vacant, her mouth a silent 'O' of agony as a Dreg used a rusty industrial stapler to pin her hair to a wooden post, keeping her head upright so the drones could record every flinch.

  ?A shadow fell over the sisters. The smell of cheap rot and ozone hit Kiri’s nose.

  ?"Well, look at these two," a voice rasped. It was Krow. He leaned down, his eyes scanning Kiri’s protective stance. "A bit of fire left in this one. That’s good. The Elites pay extra for 'Friction' that fights back."

  ?Krow reached out with a filthy, calloused hand and grabbed Kiri by the hair, yanking her head back. He pressed the electrified tip of his prod against her throat. The spark hissed, smelling of burnt skin.

  ?"And the little one," Krow sneered, looking at Rin. "She’s soft. Perfect for the Preparation Wings. Lady Nora likes them soft before the skin-peeling starts."

  ?"Leave her alone!" Kiri screamed, clawing at Krow’s wrist.

  ?In response, Krow backhanded her with the heavy handle of the prod. Kiri hit the mud, the world spinning in greys and blacks. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard Rin’s piercing scream.

  ?"KIRI! ZEV! HELP!"

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  ?Rin was being dragged away by her ankles, her fingers digging deep furrows into the black mud. Two other Dregs moved in on Kiri, unbuckling their heavy, oil-stained belts.

  ?"Let's see how much 'Frequency' we can get out of a martyr," one of them laughed, pinning Kiri’s arms into the muck with his boots.

  ?Nearby, hidden behind a stack of rusted shipping containers, Zev watched. His knuckles were white around a piece of sharpened rebar. He loved Rin—everyone knew that—but he was paralyzed. He was one boy against a squad of Dregs and the looming shadow of the Spires.

  ?He saw Krow's hand move toward Rin’s throat. He saw the Dregs over Kiri. He heard the "Talkings" in his head—the Third Way philosophy—telling him that his fear was just another frequency the machine was eating.

  ?This is the raw, heavy reality. No heroes have arrived yet. Only the violation.

  To understand why the Sinks are feared, one must look away from the mud and toward the Processing Pylons. These are the jagged iron needles that rise like thorns from the center of the squares, draped in miles of pulsating, translucent tubing.

  ?This is where the "Resources" are converted into "Data."

  ?The Anatomy of the Pylon

  ?Lei and Tora did not die when they were taken. In Acheron, the Elites consider death a waste of biological potential. Instead, they had been "Mounted."

  ?Lei was suspended ten feet above the ground, held in place by Neural-Hooks that pierced the major nerve clusters of her spine and shoulders. These hooks didn't just hold her weight; they were active electrodes, vibrating at a frequency that kept her nervous system in a state of permanent, white-hot "Alert." She couldn't faint. She couldn't go into shock. The Pylon wouldn't let her.

  ?Beside her, Tora was undergoing the "Desaturation."

  ?A clinical device—a series of rotating, needle-tipped arms—was rhythmically tracing the lines of her muscles. Every time the needles touched her skin, they injected a localized stimulant before making a shallow, precise incision. The goal was not to kill, but to harvest the "Distress-Serum"—a chemical produced by the adrenal glands during prolonged, inescapable terror.

  ?"Tora..." Lei’s voice was a wet rattle. Her eyes were rolled back, flickering under the influence of the Spires.

  ?"Don't... talk," Tora gasped. Every breath she took triggered a sensor on the Pylon that tightened the wire around her chest. "The hum... it feeds on... the words."

  ?A Dreg technician walked along the catwalk, checking the levels in the glass vats attached to the girls' Pylons. He wasn't looking at them as women; he was checking the clarity of the fluid.

  ?"Unit Lei is dropping in frequency," the technician noted into a vox-recorder, bored. "Increase the friction on the lower extremities. Apply the Salt-Wash."

  ?At his command, a spray nozzle above Lei activated, drenching her open incisions in a concentrated saline and chemical solution. Lei didn't scream—her vocal cords had already been "damped" to prevent them from snapping—but her entire body arched in a silent, violent convulsion that lasted for minutes.

  ?The true horror for Lei and Tora was the Neural-Link. Because they were mounted on the same Pylon circuit, they could feel echoes of each other's pain. When Lei was sprayed with the Salt-Wash, Tora felt a phantom burning in her own nerves.

  ?This was the Watchers' masterstroke: Collective Friction. By linking victims together, they could multiply the despair. If one began to hope, the other’s agony would drag them back down.

  ?"I can't... see you anymore," Tora whispered, her vision failing as the Spires began to "Siphon" the electrical impulses from her optic nerves to power the lights in the Golden Music Hall.

  ?Above them, the Echo-Drones circled, recording the harmonic resonance of their shared suffering. This was the "Preparation." Soon, they would be hollowed out completely, their skins preserved to be worn by the Elites, while their "Pneuma" was fed into the Great Hum.