Chapter Nineteen
I Hear You
Nightsky's Doss
Auburn, Seattle
November 5, 2059
11:15 pm
Nightsky sat in his room. The lights were off. The shades were shut. Darkness embraced him. The only illumination came from a partly closed door. His own eyes adjusted better than any mundane's to the minimal light pouring through the crack. Even better than some metahumans'.
A shadow cast itself into the room. Alona stood in the doorway. "Nightsky? Nightsky, you've been sitting there for hours. Aren't you hungry? I was going to order out." She called, but he did not answer. Alona's eyes, being elfin, pulled his shape out of the darkness. His head turned slightly in her direction, but that was all. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, utterly oblivious to the world around him. "Are you listening to me?" She called again, catching the reflected light from the smooth metal in his hands. Alona became worried. She took a step beyond the doorway's threshold. Nightsky tensed. She could see his hands tightening around whatever he was holding.
Before she could say anything there was a knock at the door. Whatever was on her mind would have to wait. She had to answer the door. Nightsky visibly relaxed her shadow left the doorway.
He looked at the katana in his hands. It was old. The hilt worn smooth by generations of owners with strong hands. Nightsky felt a certain kinship when he held the blade. As he held the sword felt like the its own soul was linked with his. That is, if a sword can have a soul.
She is infected..
"No she isn't." He said aloud.
The blood of the infected runs through her. The blood of Imira Folkstaff.
"No it doesn't."
The sword seemed to grow colder in his hands. He place it at his feet, letting the moonlight gleam off its polished metal. His mind wondered to Imira for a moment. As a child he had thought Imira Folkstaff was a wonderful woman. Almost like a second mother or favorite aunt. There were so many fond memories from childhood. Nightsky remembered having those fond memories. Now the only thing that he seemed to recall was the torture and pain she had put him through. Nightsky felt the black tendrils of hate bury themselves in his thoughts. As he began plotting revenge he realized that he had forgotten something.
Imira was already dead.
Nightsky's eyes opened at that idea. She was dead.
No, she isn't. She still leaves in Alona. A mother's blood flows through the daughter's. It is a simple fact of nature.
Nightsky closed his eyes. He placed the sword in its sheath. "No."
They will still come after you. Alona will show them the way.
"No, she won't. She doesn't know anything."
There were voices from the other room. One was Alona's. The other two were unfamiliar.
She's talking to them. Hear her laughter? Her giggling? They're plotting right now.
Nightsky wanted to say 'no' again, but found himself reaching for the sword. He stopped for a moment, but the voices from the other room grew louder. He couldn't make out any words. He understood their mocking tones more. They were talking about him!
The sword was suddenly in his hand. The tendrils of hate and rage dug deep. A thousand images of torture and loss at the hands of Imira and he kind flooded his mind.
It wouldn't take much. Alona isn't strong. One clean cut and it would be over. Her friends, the mocking friends, would be next. Take them out with quick, focused strikes.
His hand tightened around the hilt. His fingers toyed with the fabric wrapped tightly around it, counting the folds, as his mind played out an imaginary sequence of events. Sweep left, diagonal cut though the lower ribs, Alona falls. Look of surprised on her co-conspirators. Take crouching stance and single forward thrust with the blade, half spin, sword horizontal, forward step. The metal easily goes through the unarmored flesh. It sticks slightly at the bone and a little more into the body cavity. A slight pull gives the blade fluidity. Both fall down.
The eerie silence follows. They gasp for their last breath. The sharp, hissing sound trying to steal air from a shallow world. Blood starts to pool on the carpet, soaking into the fibers before congealing into a thick mucus. Easier than you thought, wasn't it?
Nightsky's snap open. Not at the whispers in his thoughts, but at the light that has suddenly poured into his darkened room from the opening door. Someone is stepping inside! Immediately his hand wraps around the sword's hilt. His wrist locks as he turns into a full twist, bringing the blade up at a sharp, biting angle. The muscles in his arm go taunt, stretching to support to impact to follow.
"Nightsky I-"
THWACK!
"Holy drek Nightsky!" Alona jumps back.
For the first time Nightsky focuses his eyes. The sword is stuck in the reinforced door. The blade hangs motionless in line with what would have been Alona's head. He holds it there for a moment, not realizing that he had moved so quickly without thinking what he had done.
"What the hell are you doing!?" Alona blurted.
Nightsky noticed her eyes were filled with fear. It wasn't the sword or the fact that it had nearly struck her that caused that look of terror for she was looking at neither. Her eyes were focused on him. Nightsky tilted his head at that.
Before he could ask 'what?' she backed away, stepping into the hall. She barely said a word before ducking out of sight. He didn't want her to go right then. There was something he wanted to know. What was it about him that was made her so scared?
He started to stand, to pursue the answer, but he was interrupted. The telecom in the corner of the room was beeping. There was a message waiting for him from Lenny.
Nightsky frowned. Alona would have to wait. Something was afoot.
Downtown, Seattle
November 6, 2059
3:00 am
Quiten looked at the door. Light seeped out around the edges. It was late. Far too late for his employer to be up. He politely knocked on the door.
"Sir?" He spoke. "Sir, it is late."
There was no response. Quiten's concerns were peaked. He risked disrupting Sergi by opening the door. Immediately light flooded into the darkened hallway, making Quiten squint at the sudden illumination. At first he did not see Sergi. He wasn't in his usual position, behind his desk. Instead the man was huddled into one corner of the room, his legs drawn beneath him in a childlike state.
"Sir?" Quiten questioned, unsure what to make of this.
Sergi seemed startled by Quiten's words. He looked at him as if he wasn't real. Like he was hallucinating the whole seen. "Quiten?"
"Yes, sir?"
Sergi cast his eyes to the floor.
"Is there something wrong, sir? It is late."
"The old woman that was here earlier?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Find her."
Quiten looked confused. "Sir?"
"Just find her! Tell her she can have it!"
"But-"
"DO IT NOW!"
Quiten frowned slightly. "Yes, sir. I will find her immediately. Is there anything else you require?"
"No."
"Very well, sir." Quiten turned his back to him. "Shall I turn out the lights on my way out?"
"NO!" Sergi said fearfully. "Leave them on. They come when the lights are out."
Quiten stood there a moment, unmoving. He kept trying to put this scene together. In the end he didn't have an answer. Perhaps he didn't need one. All he had to do was perform his task. That was his niche in life.
As the door shut Sergi turned his wary eyes back to the empty space of his office. He would hear their voices in the back of his mind. They whispered to him of a lifetime long past. As the minutes past their words grew louder and louder. It wasn't long until it felt like they were right next to his ear.
Then they were.
Auburn, Seattle
3:30 am
"For crying out loud, Smiley, hurry up!" Riggs bitched as he pulled his lard butt into the Bison. "We're already late."
"I said I'd be there in a second, dickhead!" Smiley growled as he waltzed up to a snack machine outside the gas station.
Riggs cursed under his breath. Why was it always him that got partnered with Smiley? The eccentric samurai made everything twice as complicated as it had to be. It had downright bad karma.
"Spare change, chummer?"
Riggs turned around to see a squatter crouched next to his van. The man smelled of garbage and piss. The rags he wore were barely hanging off his skin. He was so sickly thin and pale that Riggs could swear he could see right through the squatter's head.
"Come on, help a chummer out."
"Sorry, only cert cred on me." Riggs held up his hands. The squatter frowned and scooted away as the dwarf started yelling at Smiley again. "Hurry the frag up, Smiles!"
"Go fuck yourself with a troll happy toy!" Smiley retorted as he slotted his credstick and selected a Cheesy Bun from the window. The machine gave a agonizing lurch as it uncoiled the spring around the pastry. Just when it looked like it would drop the spring stopped, leaving the cheesy goodness hanging by a thread.
Smiley looked at the machine like it had just personally insulted him.
"Smiley!" Riggs called again.
"I said fuck off!" Smiley roared as he kicked the machine with his foot, shaking the pastry to its doom, but it still refused to plummet into the tray.
"Smiley?"
"Give me my fucking cheesy bun!" Smiley slammed his fists into the machine, making huge dents as his metal-laced bones pounded on the frame. He rocked the damned demon of snack foods back and forth, straining his vatgrown muscles to free the cheesy bun from its prison.
"Just forget it, Smiley!"
Smiley's face became a twisted, demonic form as he slammed his forehead into the plastic screen once, twice, three times. The bun still didn't fall. "CHEESY BUN!" He snapped his razors, tore off the button panel, and smashed the electronic innards of the machine. "You stupid piece of recycled drekcan! Give me my damned bun!"
"Spare change, mister?"
Smiley looked over his shoulder. That squatter was standing behind him with an outstretched hand, begging for some coins that would put a little clean food into his belly.
"Please, mister? I'm starving."
Smiley looked at the squatter, then at the snack machine, then back at the squatter. He smiled.
"Mister? Why you looking at me like that.
Smiley grabbed the squatter by his baggy collar and slammed him head first into the plastic screen hard enough to jar his teeth. The squatter screamed in shock and pain as Smiley slammed the man's head against the machine again and again, trying to defy the laws of physics with his squatter battering ram.
Alas, the Cheesy Bun did not fall.
"ARRRGGHHHH! FUCK ON A STICK!" Smiley roared and pounded the machine with the squatter until the squatter was a limp sack of bones and meat at his feet. "Damnit! Damnit! Damnit! Why the fuck to squatters got to be so fucking boneless!"
"Smiley?" Riggs called again.
"I said I'd be there in a second!"
"Hey! What the hell are you doing to my machine!?" The store owner stepped up to him. He was a big man, with an impressive belly and a bald head. His lip was deformed, probably from a childhood scrap that he came out the loser in.
"I'm getting a Cheesy Bun."
"You're wrecking my machine!"
"I'm having a conversa-....say," Smiley looked the man over. "How much do you weigh, fatboy?"
"Huh?"
Smiley grabbed the man by the collar, swung him in a full circle before letting go, slamming the man's weight against hte candy machine. IT tipped over under the impact and scattered its contents across the street.
Smiley bent down and grabbed his Cheesy Bun. "Heh. Gotta snag'em all."
Like this chapter? Then go on to the NEXT CHAPTER. Had enough of this story? Try going back to the Fiction Index and find something else. Thoughts, rants, comments? Email me and tell what you thought about it.