An Elegy of Fate

by S. R. Laubrea

  "Expect to fail," Mokallai said.

  This apathy made chills ripple through the marrow of Fylus's bones and rise to the surface of his skin; his hearts strained. "Why should I believe you?" he asked, and the line went dead. An image of the kyusoa appeared on in the hologram, and he looked at it intently. His hand edged towards the release button, but he curled his fingers and shook his head, rescinding the idea. This is crazy, too crazy to be real, he assured himself, a fleeting assurance as the alarms came to life with a shrill shriek.

  And in the hologram a sub-chamber glowed red-yellow: the containment warehouse was breeched.

  The warehouse was sealed from wall to wall, no doors, or windows, just some vents that connected to a complex network of filters, fans and air conditioners to preserve viable air, but that was it. And its operation room was immaculate, sterile, and looking out over the clusters of tanks. An underwhelming, heated nausea rumbled in Rollond's stomach as he stepped to the console. Its numbered, green lights were gradually changing color, from ones that were yellow-green, to red-orange, and finally a deep, solemn red that glowed intensely. They changed color in relation to the health of the creatures, and most of them were already dead, if not dying. He searched the console for a release button, pressing on the dark orange light labeled '2649', but it did nothing.

  Static sounded over the speakers, then a ring, and finally, laughter. "Ha-ah! I'm shocked you discovered my secret —"

  "Cut the crap, Fylus," Rollond said. "How do I release whatever's in twenty-six-forty-nine?"

  "I'm not telling you!" Fylus hissed. "Not that it matters, you'll never get that animal out of the tank. Haa haa."

  Rollond rolled his eyes and searched the console again. If ever he had met a cheeky bastard, Fylus would have to take second place. He grinned smugly at the thought, that no one topped him in cheeky bastardlyness. At least, not yet. He deduced that the buttons had nothing to do with releasing things. But one of them had something to do with lifting things, and he pushed it. A ramp reached up from the containment floor to the command overhead. A sealed door hissed, and quietly slid open as a platform came to a halt at the top of the conveyor.

  He stepped onto the platform, glancing down to make sure the girl was with him when he pressed the down button. The lift hissed and started its steady descent. She jumped down before the lift stopped. When it did and the guard rails lowered, Rollond strode patiently after So'yi, who veered ahead of him in the maze of dark, bubbling tanks.

  The opacity of the goop made the silent, pale visages of the creatures within no less haunting: their heads bowed and their lips stuck in a listless, twisted frown. The eeriest thing was the positions of their arms and legs as Rollond passed by. Most of the creatures were vapid, except for the occasional dull scraping sound of talons against the thick glass, and the muffled plap of a flattened palm, as, with head bowed, the creature moved towards Rollond, and pressed against the tank.

  He stopped and watched one do it: creeping forward with no visible motion until its face pressed flat. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, as he watched the creature's hand crawl up level with his face, and its fingers curl, raking against the glass.

  What would it do if it got loose?

  He shook his head, shivering, and shuffled past it. Deep into the clusters, two thousand six hundred forty-nine was filled with thick, bright blue goop. Rollond could barely make out Ashenzsi's stringy black hair as So'yi tapped on the tank. His eyelids fluttered and his gaze struggled to stay still, focused on her. His eyes flickered the color of jade, and he jolted, sluggishly cocking his head to the side.

  'Give me a second to find how to get you out of here.' Rollond searched the top of the tank, thinking that the release button must have been somewhere on it since it was absent at the warehouse command. His fingers bumped into nothing, the top and all of its sides were smooth, and the tubes and cables were well secured to its top, there was no way to release Ashenzsi at the tank.

  Rollond's hearts began to lag, and the tardy thumps of Ashenzsi's pulse banged in his ears.

  'Let it be over,' Ashenzsi said.

  'What? — No.' Rollond checked the tank a second time, pausing as his vision blurred and dimmed. He shook his head. 'You made me a promise — '

  'That I would live until you came. Now you have come, I have held my promise.'

  A deep sense of helplessness and gripping listlessness surged through Rollond's body, forcing him to his knees. 'This isn't fair!' Rollond thundered within his mind. He staggered to his feet, steadying himself against a nearby tank. 'You want to die, you can do it on your own. But for the love of all things true, stop draining me!' He gritted his teeth and scowled at Ashenzsi's listless, floating form. He formed his fist, drew in a deep breath and held it, until his fist broke through the thick glass. He watched it happen as if in slow motion: the tank rippled and cracked, the goop bowed inward before the glass went white and scattered on the floor like spilled sugar.

  The goop rushed down, and Ashenzsi slipped off of the feeding tube, sprawling limply over bits of glass, his eyes fluttering until Rollond took the circlet off of his head.

  Ashenzsi looked up into the abysmally deep, cobalt eyes of the white-haired man, his broad palm and thick fingers stretched out, offered to help him up. "Why do you help me?" He asked.

  "Because I choose to," Rollond said. "I figure the sooner you get out of here, the faster my life goes back to being what it was."

  Ashenzsi shoved Rollond's hand away. He flipped over and pushed up from the floor, the glass crunching under his palms. He wiped goop and shards from his naked body. "I don't want your help," he growled, flattening back his ears and bearing his keen teeth when Rollond took a step towards him.

  "Fine, you go your way, I go mine," Rollond said.

  Ashenzsi watched Rollond disappear into the control room. "So'yi," he grunted, starting in the opposite direction Rollond had went.

  "Su'u batzuh," she murmured, loping up to him on all fours. "Why did you send him off?"

  "Because he is Humankind," he said. "All of their gains are by selfish means." He stopped on the other end of the containment room, prying a loose vent off of its hinges and motioning to So'yi. His eyes narrowed as she stopped and rubbed one hand over the other. He knew her silent expression of concern, and it bothered him. "My sweet goji, why are you irritated?"

  "I don't think this is good," she said. "He helped me. I have nothing, but he helped me, and so you." She looked up at him, her frowning lips magnifying her big, white eyes. There was something liquid about them, something stirring, inciting, that as he returned her gaze he could not help being swallowed by a sense of compassion and urgency.

  He blinked and shook his head, then picked her up, and put her in the vent. "Fake pity, I promise you." He crawled into the vent after her. He had to keep himself low to the floor, but it was spacious enough for her to stand up in, and she sluggishly skipped ahead.

  She went as far as the vertical section, where he hoped she would go up, but she turned, and sat down lacing her toes together.

  He grimaced. "So'yi —"

  "I am not going without him," she said frankly. "This is wrong, and I want to know that we returned his good."

  He rolled his eyes. "Little goji, I am not going to tell you a third time that —"

  "No. At his base he was kind —"

  "So'yi!" he snarled. "You mind your place when you speak with me."

  She lowered her head and straightened herself, pressing her stomach to the floor. "Do'u, schasznaht'ha," she murmured, "the disrespect of my maw bears guilt for me. Yet," she dared to raise her tone, even a little bit. "I cannot ignore my rou'u."

  He drew in a deep breath and sighed, knowing how difficult she could be when the pangs of her conscious got to her. "Your heart is too sweet." He could not stay mad at her heartwarming face, her smile and her waggling tail, but he kept his frown and his irritated gaze on her as he backed out of the vent.

  The command room w
as empty. Ashenzsi stopped and serpentined his fingers in the consoles light, taking his hand back when a loud cry and a thump sounded through a narrow hall that lead to a stairwell. Someone yelped and banged against a rail as they fell five floors to the bottom. He ducked into the stairwell and looked up.

  "For the last time, where is the release switch?" Rollond said, his tone flat and grave.

  "I—I don't k-know," stammered the man whom had his throat clutched tightly in Rollond's grip.

  Rollond leaned his victim over the rail, pushing him until all but his knees and calves were on the other side. "One," he said, his tone sinister.

  "I swear, I swear, I don't know!"

  "Two," Rollond said, his fingers loosening from around the man's neck, who froze, unable to sputter a word through his gas mask. "Three." Rollond opened his hand, and the man dropped from his grasp.

  Ashenzsi leapt into the center of the stairwell, barely snaring the masked man with his hand-like foot and swinging him onto the platform. The man flopped over on his side, panting furiously, as Ashenzsi stepped over him. "What is your problem?" He glared up at Rollond. "That is no way to treat your fellows."

  "I got a little angry." Rollond shrugged. "Besides, he's from He'Don."

  Ashenzsi blinked, furrowing his brows. "What does that have to do with it?"

  Rollond scoffed and headed up the stairwell.

  "Really," Ashenzsi said, jumping from rail to rail, ascending the stairwell faster than Rollond and dropping down in front of him. "What does that have to do with it?"

  Rollond squared his shoulders and put his fist to his chest. "That strong thing you feel about humans, that's how Alekzandrans feel about Hedonites. Cut-throat and sleazy, ill-gotten mylfheik." He spat.

  Ashenzsi flicked his ear. It was a sense of repulsion and loathing that all Kyusoakin harbored towards Humankind for being presumptuous beings — striding about with their heads in the clouds, ignorant, self-concerned, unable to comprehend the impact of their actions; disunited cesspool of undeserving flesh. "They are Uunani, just like you. If he is worth cursing and spitting at, how much more so you are," he said.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Rollond said.

  "You are all ill-gotten offspring," Ashenzsi said, matter-of-factly. Satisfaction warmed his stomach as he stretched and yawned to keep his visage from forming a smug smirk, just as he watched Rollond's face go from cocky to a furrow-browed expression of insult.

  "I'll have you know that I am…"

  "You are?" Ashenzsi asked.

  "Going to get out of here," Rollond said.

  'That wasn't it, was it?' Ashenzsi raised his brows.

  Rollond pushed past him and started up the stairs. 'What does it matter to you what I was going to say?'

  'It just seemed so important to you…' Ashenzsi kept his distance behind Rollond, ascending the stairs like he did, like a man, on the palms of his feet, despite how often he bumped his toes, and how awkward stepping up was on the springy joints of his legs.

  'Getting out of here is important.'

  'What about releasing my kin?'

  Rollond gripped the door knob, and glanced back at Ashenzsi. "I never promised you that," he said.

  "This will never cease to baffle me. First your mother's lackey expertly thwarts my plans with a mere flick of his wrist. And then you," Fylus's voice seethed over the speakers. "You show up by yourself, completely uninvited and proceed to put your fist through four inches of isotopic, high-polymer industrial crystal."

  "Maybe you should've used steel," Rollond said.

  "Next time I will —"

  "And I'll put my fist through that, too." He was confident in the abnormality of his inhuman strength.

  Fylus scoffed. "Cocky swankard, aren't you?"

  "You have no idea," Rollond said, thickly, smoothly, teeming with pride.

  Fylus laughed. "That's a challenge I'm afraid I won't be able to personally accept, given the situation at the surface of this place. But, it seems you're up for a trial or two."

  The lights went off, even the soft glow of the holographic console. The power went out, and the emergency generators came on. The console chimed, and started up, contrary to emergency operations, and Fylus's face reappeared. He looked beside himself, smug and selfishly content as the doors shut and the locks clicked into the place. The air flow of the room was sealed, except for a ceiling sole ceiling vent. And Rollond's cocky attitude quickly shifted into a bent frown.

  "I'd like to see you get out of this place," Fylus said, his laughter filled the room. It rolled off the walls, and reverberated from the vents, everywhere, sounding off of everything, as the floating disembodied head bobbed in his chortle.

  Rollond put his fist through the console. The steel bowed in and the wires strained as he tore them up through the hole. They sputtered, sparked, and the console went dead.

  So'yi churred, and Ashenzsi got down on the floor, holding his hand over her mouth.

  Rollond could not smell the gas from the vent, but they could. He pulled his shirt off and ripped it, tying a part of it around his mouth and handing the rest of it to Ashenzsi.

  "You couldn't possibly put your fist through the door?" Ashenzsi coughed.

  Rollond inspected it. "No," he said. The door was a slab of metal with at least five inches socketed into the frame on all sides, and sealed airtight. He knocked on it and from the sound he could tell that behind it was reinforcements four feet thick, likely all the same, if not stronger metal. "I can't put my fist into something thicker than my arm is long."

  "You just put your arm into a console, and through four inches of — of — whatever Fylus said that stuff was that was the tank."

  "It all comes down to recoil," Rollond said. "My bracers absorb only so much. The rest gets right into the bone, and if it's too much for me to handle, my bones can turn into jelly."

  "So basically you loose an arm."

  "Yep," Rollond said, glancing up at the vent. "Permanently." He motioned for Ashenzsi to come over.

  "Wonderful," Ashenzsi groaned, dragging himself up from the floor.

  "Is your back any good?"

  "What? Why?"

  "I need you to stand here." Rollond pointed beneath the vent. "And lift me up on your shoulders so that I can pull the grating off."

  Reluctance, that was it, what the down-slanted ears and the furrowed brow said. Rollond knew that one, at least. But he kept whirling his hand in the air. "Come on." Finally when Ashenzsi stepped over and knelt down, Rollond got both his feet on the beast's shoulder blades.

  "Could lose some fat," Ashenzsi growled as he steadily lifted Rollond up.

  Rollond slid his fingers through the vent grate and pulled. The bolts whined, and the nuts ached, but refused to give. They were doing their job, but Rollond just kept pulling, and soon enough the grating came loose and he threw it onto the floor. "So'yi," he said, "let's go."

  "Wait — no," Ashenzsi faltered underneath Rollond, but the man shifted his weight. "I am not having her in the poison duct!"

  "Got any other ideas?" Rollond said, smooth and composed.

  "We… could go back and find another way out."

  "The only way we're getting out of here is if we go up. This warehouse is sealed. And we're dealing with an unconnected, sectional floor plan, except for, maybe, the ventilation system. If we go back, that gas keeps coming in, and we're going to die. Our best bet is this vent, since if we get far enough, I can easily force my way into another room and we can block it off."

  Ashenzsi did not look too happy. "What if we don't get far enough?"

  "Then I'm a corpse right along with you," Rollond said. "And I don't have time for that." He jumped off of Ashenzsi's back and pulled himself into the vent.

  So'yi tugged on Ashenzsi's tail, and he stopped following the thumps of Rollond crawling in the vent, directing his attention to her. She held the cloth over her face and pointed upward. "I want to go with him," she said, "his sayings are trustworthy."

&
nbsp; He nodded and lifted her up, then jumped into the vent behind her, creeping forward until he bumped into her, and she bumped into Rollond, who nearly tripped over the edge of the narrow platform at the end of the vent. The wind in the central duct threatened to throw Rollond upwards into the emergency barrier that cut it off from the upward levels. He stepped back and gripped a thin rail at the side of the wall.

  "What now?" Ashenzsi shouted, because the whirl of fan blades nearly swallowed his voice whole.

  "We jump," Rollond said. The ceiling posed little danger, and the alternate power kept the fans working. Otherwise it was a long drop, and maybe there was a screen. He chuckled at the idea: diced Rollond cubes. He knew he was not cold as ice, but he would make one hell of a cocktail. "You first," he said, taking Ashenzsi by the hand.