by JA Huss
Esta shakes her head. "Can you believe the mouth on him, Junco?"
"Esta, what the fuck are you doing? He's a little kid. He's not Aves, he's Psyche. Either teach him something to keep his ass alive or get the fuck out of here."
Esta huffs at me and my vision screen tells me she's projecting her pheromones at me on purpose. Can't fucking control it my ass. The vision screen suggests a stim analog to counter the effects and I give it permission.
I tap my head. "Doesn't work on me anymore, Esta. So you can keep those drugs to yourself. He's not Aves so it doesn't work on him either. You're just pissed off because you can't control him and I don't like how this is playing out one bit."
Ashur is next to Esta now and I feel the heat rise up in my face at him siding against me. Esta huffs and shrugs as she lifts her chin in the air. "He's my pledge, Junco. I'll train him the way I see fit."
I look over at Isec. "Fire her, Isec. I'll train you myself."
Isec looks over at Ashur and gets a wild look in his eyes. "No, that's OK, Junco. It's fine."
I look over at Ashur as well. "What the fuck are you doing, Ashur? I fucking told you I want him alive, what part of that don't you get?"
He walks over, practically chest bumping me like a fucking alpha male, and snarls, "You don't order me around, Junco. I am the XO here. This kid is going to get you killed and I want you to drop it now."
The last bit makes me start and I step back for a second before I can regain my composure. "Maybe I'll fire you too. Then both of you can get the fuck out of here."
He's on top of me in an instant, but I roll sideways and fall hard on my left side, then scramble backward to get out of his reach before he can grab at me again.
"Don't play with me, Junco. I'm not Tier – I won't put up with it."
"Get the fuck out, Ashur. I'm not your nine yet so I don't answer to you."
"Junco–"
"Esta, shut the fuck up!"
Heads all around turn towards us and I feel Ashur's anger rise again as I get to my feet. I look over at Isec and he looks like he's gonna cry. "You're finally gonna get your wish, huh?"
Ashur's lip goes up revealing teeth. "Meaning what, Junco?"
"You said all along you wanted to kill me yourself, let's go then. You think you can just attack me and get away with it? I don't give a fuck who you are, don't you ever fucking touch me. Ever."
"Or what? You'll take out your little bioweapon and slice my head off next?"
The crowd around us has thickened and I hear them gasp. "I don't need that stupid weapon, Ashur. I can kil–"
He attacks and I flip out above him, my wings spreading to take me high above. He responds and has me by the leg, but I kick. His block is there before I can even register what happened. I fall to the ground with a thud and bounce back up in a crouch. He rushes me and we're grappling, I counter with some mixed martial arts. I put a foot in, but he counters and moves back. I wrap my arm around his neck, grabbing for his shirt, he slips out of it before my hand is even past the first shoulder. I kick my legs back, he's out of reach. I roll, he's gone before I get there. I try and wrap him in a guard, but he's always there, a split second before I am. Like we're in fucking practice back on Earth in a coordinated spar and he's been given the cheat sheet for every attack move I have.
Then he's on top of me, about to slam his fist in my face when I feel him ease up. I flip him off and we struggle for a second and then he grabs my hands as I sit on top of him.
"Stop, now."
I do stop, because I'm in shock and breathing heavy.
"What the fuck was that, Ashur?"
"I said, stop, Junco. This is over." He tosses me aside like a doll and I lie on the mat seething up at him. It's the look in his eyes that gives it away, a cross between panic and guilt.
"I know what this is."
He wipes away a small dribble of blood off his lips. "Get up."
I do, but my anger comes with me. "I know what this is, Ashur."
"Yeah, Junco? What is it, then?"
"You fucking piece of shit! Where the fuck did you learn to counter those moves?"
He growls at the crowd and they dissipate. "Where the fuck do you think, Junco?" It comes out as a whisper and I feel my throat constrict and my face gets prickly. I look over at Isec and now he is crying.
I take his hand. "Come on, Isec. We're out of here."
Poor kid is beyond panicked and can barely eat as we sit in the cafeteria. "Isec, please – I have the battle plan in my head here." I do, too. All of a sudden my Aves vision screen spat it out, right after a minor panic attack at not getting the information before stomping out like a baby. "Look, I'll draw it for you, OK?"
He nods, but doesn't look up. His little feet are swinging off the chair and this makes him look more like six or seven than ten.
Shit, Junco. Ten is young enough, he doesn't need to be six or seven.
I let out a deep sigh and draw the spiral pattern on a napkin. "See, it's exactly like the ziggurat, except a spiral. Same rules, same plan, right?" I smile but he doesn't return it.
The rest of the pledges are back now and the noise level kicks up several notches.
"Come on, let's go take a shower, OK? We'll feel better after that."
He nods and we slip around the corner and into the shower area. It's packed, which sucks, but at least I don't have to shower alone with a little kid. I push him over to the man side and take myself over to where the girls have claimed their own area.
I find him in the dressing area later, sitting with Kush. They are both dressed. Kush looks up at me as I approach. "I tried to get him to leave with me, but he wanted to wait."
I nod and set my care packages down. I forgot that Selia's video was still tucked away in my cubbie. I slip on the bed clothes Lucan left and then grab the bags and we all walk out together.
Kush hangs around our bunks for a few minutes and I have almost no desire to be nice. But I do anyway. I could use another friend and he's the only one interested at the moment.
"So, you wanna tell me what that fight was all about?"
I look back over at him as my hand absently fishes around for Lucan's note in the bottom of today's package. "Not especially, Kush. I mean," I add this to appear nice, "if you don't mind, it was kinda personal."
"Well, I heard some of it, and if you want, I'll help you keep him alive."
Isec's face snaps up to study Kush's motives. I just shrug. "Sure, why not. It would be beyond stupid to turn down help, right?" I pull out the nasal spray and dose myself, and stuff the note in the waist of my shorts.
He smiles. "Yeah, besides, we did OK last time."
I look at him for real this time. "Yeah, you're right. Huh, Isec? We did OK last time." I nudge his leg as he sits motionless on his bunk, but he doesn't speak.
Kush takes the hint and says goodnight.
No matter what I say, the kid won't sleep alone. So he climbs into bed with me. I'm just about to doze off when he finally says something. "Ashur is going to kill me."
I smooth his hair down the side of his head. "Stop it, Isec. He's not going to kill you. That's silly."
"Junco?"
"Yeah?"
"What did Lucan's note say?"
I spy the coughing girl peek over her bunk to listen in and I smile. "It said, Take good care of Isec tomorrow because he's special."
We drift off after that, but I snap awake sometime later when the thought burrows up from my subconscious.
I might not be telepathic, but I am precognitive.
Chapter Fifteen
The four of us enter the second battle together, Kush and I taking up the front and the rear, Isec behind me, and the coughing girl behind Isec. The girl wouldn't take no for an answer and Isec's pleading won out in the end. She had a wild look to her the minute we got in line, and by the time we were all situated on the spiral patterns below our feet, she was half-crazed. Now I am wondering if I will need to kill her myself, just to keep focuse
d.
We are not last this time, so we have to wait a little bit, our bare feet cemented in place. We have a modified plan now that Kush wants to play and the coughing girl said she'd make sure she did her part. Although, looking at her now, I'm having second thoughts.
Anyway, the new formation is a square, each of us taking a point, instead of back to back. We face outward, away from each other at all times. I am listening, but not watching the patterns of movement behind me. We are smack in the middle of the spiral, with several circles above and below. Things in the back slow down and finally the anticipated pause in activity that signals the start of just about anything – be it a horse race, or the release of an arrow into the heart of a pronghorn on the prairie, or a fight to the death to prove you are worthy – stretches out far enough for me to know it is the true beginning.
"Now," I whisper.
I feel them all position and then we are accelerated upward and into Fight Two. It takes a fraction for gravity to catch up to the sudden deceleration and I feel my bare feet lift off the ground and know the hold has already been deactivated even before we settle. I kill the guy next to me and then the girl above me who thought she had it made with her superior positioning before anyone else notices we've been released.
The rest of the bodies come alive and I smile as I watch Isec pull his claws out of his lower target and shoot up in the air to sweep his talons across the face of a kid not much older than him on the level above.
What Kush and the coughing girl are doing, I can't see, I just take up my part in the formation and we walk up the spiral, somewhat discombobulated, yet a hell of a lot more organized than anyone else in my view.
I kill the next person up the ramp and then turn as Isec screams.
A small boy has jumped up from above and knocked Isec down the next level.
A girl swoops in to kill him and I rake my foot across her eyes, then kick her in the face and she pops off the spiral like a starling diving through an open barn door.
I pull Isec to his feet and Kush comes in and knocks a big guy down who was about to take my head off. I don't have time to thank him because there's another girl right behind Kush who has a knife aimed at his back. She's in mid-air, knife in full forward motion, when the coughing girl grabs her by the foot and swings her off the platform. I turn to choke out another kid next to me, but I can hear the sound of a skull crashing on the floor below and smile at CG's save.
We form up again and this time we're running up the spiral, almost everyone is off the platform and fighting in the air, so we make it up a good full turn before we stop and start killing again.
The precipice is directly above us now and I wait for Kush and Isec to finish off their targets before whistling the command. We lift up, wings beating and crushing against each other in the confined space until we ascend to the top platform where there is a ferocious battle between the other politicos.
Kush charges in and has a guy down in a fraction, while Isec and CG fight off a very tall girl with dark skin. I crouch down, in position, waiting until someone notices me. My eyes scan the group and I pick the leader. He's too busy to notice a little lump on the floor and I crawl on palms and feet, knees bent and my belly almost scraping the ground – slowly, like I've done a hundred times before in a ghillie suit out on the prairie – until I'm so close I could reach out and trip him.
In those few seconds he's killed off a good number of pledges and I am patient as he looks around for his next target.
My head is bowed, but my eyes are up to keep him in view.
He sweeps around, desperate for another target.
Finds the swirl of glowing colors in my eyes.
And I spring up like a lion going for the wolf.
My hands are around his throat and my knee slams into his chest, knocking all the air out of him as he falls backwards. I choke him until he goes limp and crumbles, then rip my talons across his throat to seal the deal.
Sound returns to my world like the rush of the wind across the tallgrass and I pick out Isec's scream of panic. I whirl around and see him fighting off a girl with razors so long they could belong to Kush.
She swipes at his face twice before I can cover the ground and she's about to draw them across his throat when CG plunges down and lands on her back.
Isec goes reeling down with razor girl and I am just about to clean up when CG snaps the girl's neck, pushing her away with disgust.
Things are getting less chaotic and I know the buzzer is about to blow, but I scan the area once more to make sure. The four of us have acquired the top level of the spiral. I look back at CG and I'm about to congratulate her when one last politico pulls himself up over the ledge behind Isec and grabs him by the throat.
"No!" I scream and everything is silent and in slow motion again as I book it on foot towards Isec. I see Kush on the other side of the platform in my peripheral vision. He turns and begins to react, too late.
Isec reaches up for his throat and wiggles free.
CG hurls herself at the politico as the buzzer wails in my ears.
And I watch as the asshole cheats and slits her throat midair.
Real time catches up and CG is thrown down the spiral and lands in a heap at the bottom, next to a pile of bodies, broken just like hers.
Isec is screaming.
Kush is walking slowly towards me.
And I just stand there and feel a little rush of relief that it's her and not Isec.
The moderator is on the speakers telling us to line up on the spirals to be shunted up to Level Three and life comes back to me.
Until I hear my name.
"Junco, Aves 039, you will remain behind for pickup. Junco, Aves 039, you will remain behind for pickup."
I step off the spiral and have just enough time to see Isec run forward in a panic before they stun me from behind with a bolt of plasma and I fall to the ground, shaking uncontrollably.
I come to in an operating theater, bright lights shining on me from above, my hands and feet strapped down, and the blood from the battle crusting over my ears so I can't hear right. My back flames from the plasma burn as I struggle and my coughing gets out of control. My lungs try to do complicated tasks like inhale and don't seem to be making much progress.
There is chaos and I hear the 039 yelling – at least most of them. Braun is not present. My head bobs around, trying to take things in and get a grip on the situation as quickly as possible, when I spy Tier.
He's strapped to a gurney just like me. Mere inches separate our eyes.
"Tier," I croak.
"Don't trust them, Junco."
I manage a smile between coughs. "Thank you."
"For wha?" he says, slurring his words in a drugged-out stupor.
I whisper between my smile. "For making that real."
Ashur is down in my face then, yelling at me to shut up.
My head bobs around again and I see Isten and Lucan screaming at each other, pushing each other, until razors come out and other Aves step in to break it up.
It all becomes too much.
My eyes close and I am gone.
When I wake Tier has vanished and the room is quiet. Life is clear and the nightmare I witnessed before is over.
"Witness is awake and conscious."
"Witness, can you tell us your name?"
Who the fuck is the witness? The words type out on my vision screen automatically.
Then a reply: You are the witness, Junco.
"I'm the witness?"
"Correct," says the voice in the room.
Do not answer out loud unless I instruct you to, the vision screen types.
"OK."
That was out loud.
I had no idea vision data displays could be testy.
"Witness will say her full name for the court."
Say: Junco Abigail Coot.
I say it.
"Physician will confirm that the drugs have been administered and are working correctly."
&n
bsp; A voice next to my head. "Confirmed. The cortical feedback loop has been enhanced, witness has normal vital signs, and witness is in full complacency and submissive mode as described by Psyche Cluster Protocol 41."
"Witness will recall the evening of November 9, 2152. Does witness recall?"
Say: Yes. "Yes."
"Witness will describe events which occurred from 1830 hours to 1915 hours."
Say: Aren attacked Tier after I agreed to go with him.
Say: Tier attacked Aren.
Say: I burned Tier with a plasma rifle.
Say: Aren and I escaped.
Say: Aren poisoned me so he could take me back and hand me over to the Mountain Republic.
Say: Tier grabbed me and administered first aid to combat paralysis from the wound.
Say: Tier took me back to a cave which he was using as base camp and completed treatment from the poison.
Say no more until instructed.
It's a lie. My thoughts type it out on the display.
Of course it's a lie, Junco. You want to save Tier, correct?
Yes.
Well, one charge at a time. This one we can knock off tonight.
Who is we?
Silence from the data display, but the room is murmuring like cicadas on a summer night.
The murmuring stops and the voice is active again. "Did witness see a treaty exchanged between parties during this time?"
Say: Yes.
"Did witness see Captain Raubtier read the treaty and submit to it?"
Say: Yes.
"Did witness see Captain Raubtier break the treaty?"
Say: No.
The murmuring gets excited and loud until the voice commands silence.
"Did witness hear Captain Raubtier mention that he killed numerous humans without orders?"
Say: No.
"Did witness hear Captain Raubtier mention that he killed children without orders?"
Say: No.
"This witness' question list is completed."
The bright light above me grows dimmer and dimmer until I am left in total darkness.
