“I can’t look at zer,” Theresa said between gulping breaths. “I can’t.”
“It’s OK, Esa.” Benson squeezed his wife’s shoulders. “You don’t have to.”
“Ah, Chief? Coach?” Korolev knelt by the body and held up a corner of the sheet. “You need to look at this.”
“We’ll ID zer later, Pavel!” Benson barked.
“No,” Korolev shook his head. “You won’t.” With a flutter of fabric, he stripped off the sheet to reveal the body underneath. Benson physically recoiled at the sight of the bruised and lacerated corpse. But beyond the bloodstains and the torn flesh, something else was wrong. Ze was too thick, for one thing. Too well-muscled. Still clutching Theresa protectively, Benson leaned in and looked deeply into the unfortunate victim’s face and dull, lifeless eyes.
“That’s not Benexx,” Benson said.
“Yeah, no shit,” Korolev said. “You think I’d make you look at your own dead kid?”
Benson broke his grip on Theresa. “It’s not zer.” He fell to his hands and knees to get a better look at the unidentified body. Gently, Benson held out his hand and rested the back of it on the corpse’s chest. “Ze’s still warm.” He grabbed underneath the victim’s arm just below the shoulder and squeezed the flesh against the cartilage that made up an Atlantian skeleton, one of the few places on their bodies one could reliably search for–
“Pulse!” Benson shouted. “I’ve got a pulse, but it’s weak as shit. Get Doc Russell, now!”
“Bryan,” Theresa said quietly, “what about the chip?”
“Right.” Benson activated his tablet’s ultrasonic scanning feature and passed it over the victim.
“There’s some jagged-looking shrapnel in some of these wounds, probably bomb fragments. Wait…” Benson tossed the tablet aside and ran his fingers along the outside of the poor Atlantian’s left thigh. His fingertips found what they were looking for: a hard-plastic RFID chip hardly bigger than a rice grain. Less than two centimeters away, a fresh puncture wound insulted the victim’s skin. It had barely had enough time to seal up and scab over. Pinching the chip between his fingers, Benson quickly squeezed it back out the channel it had entered through and held it up in front of the light on the end of Korolev’s rifle.
“How the hell did they know to look for that?” Theresa asked.
“No idea,” Benson answered. “But I intend to ask them.” The chip shattered, drawing a small bead of blood from between his fingertips.
“Personally.”
Thirteen
Benexx flirted with consciousness.
Briefly, at first, like a hesitant blind date. Awkwardly, like the same. But along with the discomfort came momentary flashes of light and sound that zer mind struggled to interpret. Zer addled awareness tried to stitch the glimpses of lucidity together into something discernable. And failed, for the most part.
Ze slept.
After an unknowable length of time, zer mind came back around and found itself. Wounded, bandaged, and utterly alone, Benexx sat against a dank, damp corner in the dark. The last thing ze clearly remembered was standing on the parade float looking up at zer father hanging off the spindly fake trident like a gorilla hanging from a fishing pole. Then, a flash and a wave of heat, the sensation of tumbling, then nothing. Judging by zer headache and the wrap around zer skull, Benexx guessed ze’d landed badly. Someone had picked zer up, tended to zer wounds, and then dumped zer in this… wherever this was.
“Hello?” ze called into the dark. Zer echo answered. Ze called out again in Atlantian this time with identical results. As a child raised by humans, Benexx didn’t have much patience for the dark. The enemies from the oldest stories all concealed themselves within it. But, as a child of Atlantis, ze had an answer for it.
Even after spending the last half-dozen summers vacationing among zer own kind in G’tel, Benexx still hadn’t mastered the subtleties of communicating with zer skinglow. But, alone in the dark, refinement hardly mattered. Ze forced open all of zer bioluminescent chromatophores in one big contraction, throwing out zer body’s natural blue-green light like ze hadn’t done since the first terrifyingly quiet nights ze’d been left alone in zer own private room as an infant.
The rock surfaces around zer held none of zer old nursery’s warmth. No mobiles of shuttles and ulik packs spun gently overhead. No haphazardly, yet colorfully painted depictions of dux’ah herds and football games lined the walls.
Everywhere zer body’s light reached was met with cold, damp, gray, unyielding stone. And ze meant everywhere. The cavern was warm and damp, which could mean it was either really close to the surface where the caves closely matched the outside temperature, or much further underground where the heat from Gaia’s core started to take hold again. There was no good way to tell until ze escaped the chamber and scouted zer surroundings. Certain types of fungus and bacterial colonies only lived at one depth or the other, but the walls around zer looked as though they’d been scraped bare.
Fungal mats weren’t all that was missing from the walls. They were also devoid of any doorways or passages into the rest of the cave system. Benexx’s pulse quickened and ze felt a tension grow across zer abdomen. Unsurprisingly in a race that spent entire generations at a time living in caves to hide from asteroid impacts, claustrophobia was basically unheard of among Atlantians. Before the humans had arrived, they didn’t even have a word for the concept, it was so foreign. But the simple fact was nobody liked being locked inside a stone room with no exit. That wasn’t a phobia, it was just basic survival instinct.
But if there were no doors, it did beg the question of how in Xis’s name Benexx had gotten into the chamber in the first place. There had been a way in, so it only stood to reason that there had to be a way back out.
Benexx’s eyes had fully adjusted to the light pouring out of zer body by then. Ze meticulously scanned the walls a second time, looking for imperfections that might be hiding a door, patches of mudstone sealing an opening, trapdoors in the floor, or…
Ze looked up at the ceiling. There it was. A shaft, scarcely wider than zer shoulders, but it reached up deeper into the rock regardless. It had to be the entry point. It was also fifteen meters above zer at the apex of severely sloping baffles of rock. Benexx was a fair climber of trees and buildings, but ze was not experienced with spelunking. But, really, how hard could it be?
Benexx stood, testing zer legs and balance. It was obvious by now that ze’d been kidnapped and dumped down here, wherever here was. Zer muscles were stiff, and ze winced more than once as ze probed at the bruises along zer right side. But, while tender, nothing seemed torn or frayed. Not for the first time, ze was grateful ze did not share zer parents’ rigid, yet brittle bones.
Ze lined up against a promising strip of wall that appeared to afford zer a few more hand and foot holds than the rest of the chamber. Benexx flexed zer fingers, then interlocked them and pulled, loosening the digits in preparation. Ze pressed zer palms flat against the damp stone. If ze were human, the moisture would make the rock slippery and treacherous. But the thousands of tiny suction cups covering the skin on the inside of zer hands meant zer grip was even stronger than if the rock-face had been bone dry.
Benexx climbed a meter, then another, careful to always maintain three points of contact with the rock, moving only one hand or one foot at a time. Another meter. Two more. The ceiling began to angle inward, testing the strength of zer grip. It held, but zer fingers felt the strain. Ze pressed upwards, until ze finally pressed zer luck. One of the fingers on zer right hand peeled free from the rock without warning while ze was reaching for the next hold with zer left. Benexx scrambled to regain zer hold, but it was useless. Ze clung fast to the rock for a moment, hanging upside down by zer feet, just long enough to orient zerself for the coming fall.
Benexx crashed into the floor like a sack full of pudding. Ze rolled with the impact as best ze could, but misjudged zer direction in the dark and slammed into a stalagmite that had been wait
ing patiently for tens of thousands of years for the opportunity.
It hurt. Bad.
Ze broke down, then. Benexx didn’t cry, exactly. Atlantians had tear ducts, but they weren’t triggered by anything except dry eyes. Instead, zer skinglow dimmed without zer conscious control and zer muscles started to pulse gently. It was a leftover of evolution, a way to get blood flowing to zer arms and legs faster through zer heartless circulatory system in preparation to fight or run. But ze couldn’t do either. There was no sign of whomever had dumped zer down here to fight, and unless ze wanted to run in place, the stone chamber didn’t offer a great deal of space for exercise.
The situation’s true gravity hit zer for the first time. Lying on the ground, bruised and alone in the dark, ze let go to the shivers as zer skin went almost completely black. Ze’d believed zerself isolated and lonely in the warmth and comfort of zer parents’ home in Shambhala. What an utter fool ze’d been. A child. A spoiled child in need of a reality check. Ze’d give anything to be sitting on the couch in their living room listening to zer father tell zer how lucky ze was.
Benexx could taste the fake leather of the couch on zer fingers. The nylon and other polymers mixed with the musk of years of stale human sweat. Zer parents tried very hard to keep a clean house, but they didn’t have taste buds on their fingertips. Still, in that moment, ze couldn’t imagine anything tasting sweeter. Benexx looked up at the hole directly overhead. Zer only chance at getting home lay on the other side of it.
Shaken, but rejuvenated, Benexx rose unsteadily to zer feet, resting a hand on the stone cone for balance, and resumed zer path to the exit. Through a force of will, ze calmed the vibrations running through zer muscles and pried open zer chromatophores, letting the bluegreen of zer bioluminescence fill the chamber and guide zer way once more. A couple of small but promising handholds that ze’d overlooked further up the wall stood out this time.
Ignoring the soreness in zer arms, Benexx aggressively tackled the rock wall, digging zer fingers into the craggy face with renewed purpose. Ze could taste the rock, feel the slick layer of bacteria that clung to it, used them to get a better seal with zer suction cups. In no time, ze reached, then passed by the spot ze’d fallen from on the last attempt. The soreness in zer muscles turned to heat, then to fire. The slope of the roof was almost parallel to the floor now. Benexx crept across the surface as quickly as ze dared, moving only one arm or leg at a time until ze’d reestablished three points of grip. The screaming in zer limbs urged zer onward faster, to get it over with. But too fast meant falling, ze’d already learned that much tonight. Or today. Whenever it was. Didn’t matter. Peel off one hand, set it into the rock. Peel off the other. Ignore the pain. Just another meter to go.
With a final stretch of zer arm, Benexx laid a finger on the lip of the hole in the ceiling. Ze took a moment to expel zer airsacks and bring in fresh oxygen to fuel zer protesting muscles. Or as close to fresh as ze’d get in this dank cave, in any case. The ninety-degree transition from the ceiling to the inside of the hole was going to be tricky, even with the extreme flexibility zer malleable Atlantian physique afforded.
One more meter, Benexx told zerself. Just one more. Ze reached up inside the hole with one hand and explored, careful to find the best little crags and folds in the rock to anchor zer fingers. Once zer fingers were wedged in as far as they would go, ze let go with zer other hand and grabbed the inside surface of the hole as fast as ze could before zer hold gave way.
Ze was committed now. A small quake of fear trembled zer body as Benexx let zer feet come free of the ceiling and swing down into open air. All of zer body weight bore down on the tenuous grip zer eight fingers held on the rock. This was the hard part. Dangling by just zer arms, Benexx had to pull zerself up enough to get a toe on the inside of the hole. For what was certainly the first and perhaps only time in zer life, ze wished ze’d participated in one of zer father’s workout programs.
Already nearing the point of exhaustion, Benexx commanded zer arms to pull zer up. They flatly refused. Drawing a deep breath, ze dug deep into whatever reserves ze had left and pulled. The strain was enormous. Zer muscles felt like hot coals knotting up under zer skin. Losing zerself for a moment, Benexx called out in pain, frustration, and anger, sending a primal scream echoing through the cavern and into the unseen spaces beyond. But ze didn’t care.
Miraculously, mercifully, Benexx’s arms started to move. Quaking with effort, ze willed zerself upward, centimeter by tortuous centimeter. When zer chest touched the cool surface of the rock, ze risked all and threw an arm higher up the face of the short tunnel. It found purchase. Like a pendulum, ze swung zer lower body back and forth until zer legs were almost parallel with the lip of the hole. With one last surge that ze was pretty certain tore one of zer smaller stabilizer muscles in zer right leg, Benexx got a toe on the rock and used it to get a three-point hold once again. With zer foot anchored, ze pushed up and took the weight off zer arms. Zer other foot followed, and in a moment ze was bounding up the last short distance to the top. Benexx pulled in zer color cells and let zer skinglow burn as bright as the billions of symbiotic bacteria in zer dermis would shine, flooding the small tunnel and the space beyond with their light.
Ze was less than an arm’s length from the top. Ze had enough in the tank to go that far. Ze was going to make it. Ze was defying whoever’d dumped zer down here and was going to escape the cell they’d intended for zer.
The next floor was within arm’s reach. With a surge of excitement, Benexx slapped zer left hand on the next level, only to have a foot come crashing down on zer raw fingers.
An Atlantian face leered over the aperture, dark and smirking with malice. “And where do you think you’re flying off to, little injri?”
“Ow!” Benexx cried out. “You’re hurting me!”
“That’s the general idea.” Ze ground zer foot into Benexx’s fingers to emphasize the point, then leveled the barrel of a rifle at zer face. “Now, crawl back down into your hole, or I’ll drill a hole into your pretty face, bearer.”
Benexx froze at the sight of the weapon. Ze had no illusions about what would happen if ze was shot at this range. Ze’d practiced with one with zer father at the range once, and had seen them used against some of the more assertive types of wildlife in and around Shambhala, and of course had seen the footage zer father’s plant had captured at the battles of G’tel and the Black Bridge fifteen years ago.
But the gun brought up an even bigger concern, beyond its immediate and lethal threat. How the hell had a kidnapper gotten zer hands on one, especially an Atlantian? They were supposed to be biometrically locked to a specific user, not just floating around for anyone to use.
“You’re bluffing,” Benexx spat, blocking out the pain in zer fingertips. “You may have stolen that gun from the armory, but there’s no way you hacked the safeties.”
Zer prison guard smirked in the Atlantian way. “Who said I needed to hack it?” Ze moved the muzzle of the rifle a fraction away from Benexx’s face… and fired.
The muzzle flash blinded zer dark-soaked eyes in the same instant the shockwave from the shot slapped into zer ears like a thunderclap. Zer vision bleached in white and zer ears ringing, Benexx lost zer grip under the relentless grinding of zer captor’s foot against zer fingers.
With a scream ze couldn’t hear, Benexx peeled away from the rock and slipped back into the shadows.
Fourteen
Jian sat curled up in the corner of his shower and let the nearly-scalding water batter against his skin until his nerves went numb and the knots in his muscles loosened.
Everything hurt. Tomorrow, it would be worse. Spending several hours tightly strapped into a crash couch in an uncontrolled four gee spin will do that to a body, no matter how fit. Jian watched as the last of his weekly water allocation spiraled down the drain between his feet. It was Tuesday. He didn’t care. What were they going to do, shut off his water?
“You can bill me,” he muttered to
no one.
His plant chimed, alerting him to someone waiting at the door.
The connection dropped, and Jian heard the door to his apartment swing open. Damned command overrides. The bathroom door slid open. Jian didn’t ever care enough to object.
“Jesus, son. You look like a raisin. How long have you been in there?”
“There’s still hot water, so not long enough.”
Chao reached over to the shower’s control panel and shut down the flow, then threw open the glass door as the fog rolled across the floor. He threw a towel at Jian.
“Honestly, Jian. If your mother could see you like this, it would break her heart.”
“Yeah, well she can’t, now can she?”
Chao ignored the barb. “Dry yourself off and get dressed. I’ll be waiting for you in the living room.”
“Why?”
“Because your captain just ordered you to. Now move, kiddo.”
“That’s cheating.”
“Yeah, well I cheated my way into the position. Five minutes, then I’m dragging you out of here, dressed or not.”
His father left the bathroom and shut the door behind him, leaving Jian alone, wet, and naked on the floor. He sat there for a long minute until the steam disappeared up into the exhaust fan and the air chilled his damp skin. He briefly considered turning the water back on, but although he didn’t mind telling his father to stuff it, he wasn’t so far gone that he felt like committing insubordination against his commanding officer.
Damn them both for being the same person.
Jian stood on sore, wobbly legs and steadied himself against the sink basin. The bare metal felt cool against his thigh. Jian toweled himself dry, then wrapped his body in an embarrassingly luxurious bath robe. It was old, threadbare in several places, but made of genuine wool grown by a centuries-dead sheep. It had been passed down through many generations of his family. Just one of the myriad little perks of being a Feng that had passed beneath his notice as a child. But as an adult, he saw them all too clearly.
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