“Hmm, all this reminds me, though, of when Dastou put one in me in my freshman year,” said Nes, his stinging bruises jogging a memory.
“You mean... he shot you!?” she said, wide-eyed.
“Yeah, it was my first and only time until today. He does that to all the new boys and girls at the Ornadais Academy sooner or later. The medicine we just took, it’s practically miraculous, and sometimes we don’t have the... well, faith, to use what he gives us without worry when we first start out. It’s a little hard to believe all of the messed up things he’s teaching us or that his inventions will work like they should. Some of the training also changes your brain, how it works, but you have to let it. Newcomers are sometimes too incredulous, and after the first couple of years, agents are sworn to secrecy against members with too little experience. Instructors take that same oath from the start, only teaching us what’s in the lesson plans to make sure we don’t over-exert ourselves. We don’t even get hints of what’s to come.”
Trenna was rapt, and Nes couldn’t help but get into telling the story. He moved his hands around freely, though he was still careful not to bother his shoulder too much.
“So, to help us believe,” he continued, “he shoots us once, unexpectedly, in our first year. No one avoids it. No one can, really.”
“How badly do you get hurt?” Trenna asked.
“Very. Damn near dead. It’s just one of those Saint skills – they know how to kill because they know the body. Dastou shoots you that one time, and you die without his level of treatment. We call it the Fresh-Face Pledge.”
“If you’re almost killed by the attack, how long do you take to heal?”
“It’s based on the injury. Almost no one is out of commission for more than a week or two, but that’s better than being dead like we’d be if we didn’t have the advanced medicine, machines, and Saint-trained personnel to get us better. One really obnoxious rookie got his spine severed by a sniper rifle shot. Paralyzed him from the waist down. It was amazing – guy was walking again in two months, jogging in three. Dastou took the lead for two of the kid’s three surgeries himself, just to give a few ‘maybe now you’ll be more respectful’ looks at him before and after the operations. No shock, the rookie got a new attitude about his training when he came back to class.”
Trenna smiled and laughed lightly, and Nes was glad for the change in her demeanor. After another nice, calm moment of silence, he figured they should get going. He looked down towards his belt, saw the throat mic’s transceiver still on, and turned the volume for his earpiece back up.
“D, you can come out now. If you’re happily exploring, just tell us where to meet you.” Nes said that with no special intonation or change in volume, like he was talking to someone right next to him.
No answer. He tried calling two more times, and again received no responses. Dastou was aloof, sure, but not so much so that he ignores his agents after combat; something was wrong. He switched channels on the transceiver by turning a small dial on the side, and heard no sound from the Caravan’s stand-alone channel. Maybe the device was broken, damaged in the battle? Maybe. Nes shouted, hoping the Saint was in earshot.
“Dastou! Get out here!”
Nothing again. Now he was properly worried. Nes stood up, grabbed his rifle and clipped it to his back again, and started walking towards the pedestrian bridge. Trenna got up from where she sat, albeit slowly, and looked to be ready to join the corporal in searching the area. A gurgling voice nearby, wet and stomach-turning, stopped them both from going anywhere.
“We… have… we have…” said a man’s voice, barely audible.
Nes looked around and saw the last person taken down, the one killed by Trenna’s wild fire – or the one he thought was killed – moving his head slightly and talking to no one. The girl, all of a sudden full of energy, limped fast to get to him. He was not very old, maybe thirty-to-thirty-four, a handful of gray hairs spread about his short unkempt mane.
“Hundre!” exclaimed Trenna when she got close. “Hundre, you’re alive!”
Trenna bent down towards the man she shot earlier, touching his chest and head while ignoring all the blood. He never looked at her, only at the domed ceiling.
“Trenna…?” the man asked.
“Yes, it’s me,” she replied in a hurried voice. “I’m so sorry, I had to… I had to…”
She had tears in her eyes, and Nes walked slowly towards the pair of ragged civilians.
“I know,” said Hundre. “I remember it now. I… understand.”
“Uh, maybe… maybe we can help you. We have medicine and…”
“What little I have won’t help,” interrupted Nes, standing above the two others. “Honestly, he’s beyond anything I’ve seen someone recover from. He’s not going to survive.”
Trenna wept openly now, and touched her forehead to Hundre’s. Any of her tears that fell landed on the man’s face, on the droplets of blood that had landed there from the center mass shots he took minutes before.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” she said again and again.
“No, stop,” Hudre said. “I understand. I… feel myself slipping… but I’m free again. I have to tell you...”
He coughed, and blood escaped his throat, some of it landing on Trenna. She didn’t seem to care.
“I have to tell you,” Hundre continued. “That… we have him. We took him.”
Nes was suddenly deeply interested in what this man and changed his mind about respectfully backing away from the horrible scene.
“What? Have who?” asked Nes.
Hundre, for the first time since speaking and having his name revealed by Trenna, looked somewhere besides the light source above him. He shifted his eyes, focused on Nes.
“Cosamian Dastou. We took him. We were… supposed to.”
“You mean you were told to take him, to attack him? By whom?”
“The Citizen. He took our freedom… made us tools… He wanted the anomalous one. The atypical one.” He coughed again, but Trenna and Nes were so spellbound by this fading man that they said nothing, just waited. Hundre now made eye-contact with Trenna. “The Saint. We took him. I’m sorry, Trenna.”
Hundre closed his eyes again, and this time was sure not to have any more to say. Trenna’s looked up at Nes, tears falling down her cheeks. He must have appeared odd to her, a combination of confusion, anger, worry, and fear was rattling around in him, nothing able to take full control.
Nes decided to focus on just two things to keep his head straight. First, according to the man Trenna called Hundre, Dastou was taken from here by force. Second, he was going to fuck up anything and anyone that stood in the way of finding him.
Afterword
First of all, thanks to anyone who reads this! I’ll be releasing the rest of this adventure slowly over the next year, so I hope my writing gets better and I hope it finds an audience.
Random special thanks to:
BC, TH, Michelle W, Danielle F, Leslie, Lauren F, Paul F, Dina, Quanah, Jordan the Red, Jordan the Pink, Rusty R, Pat C, Bonobo, Ludovico Einaudi, Gary Whitta, Lindsay Buroker, Patrick Rothfuss, The Giant Bomb crew (RIP and thanks Ryan), my family and extended family, and so many others I’ll have to apologize to for not mentioning by name.
*****
I can be reached at [email protected]. Let me know what you think, please!
Peace out and I look forward to doing much more of this writing thing in the near future.
*****
Hints at what’s to come: Dastou gets gut-punched, Saan has a pretty nice gun, Nes takes a backseat, and Trenna continues to be a surprise to everyone.
00%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Saints of the Void: Atypical Page 8
