40 Follow Me (2/2)
”What? No. We had our packs and found a shelter to keep us out of the worst of it. We'll go over it with you when you get here,” Kelly says.
”If you ever get here….” Uzu mutters.
”F**king freezing my-”Manu's last words were cut off.
Dernel recalls what Sia had done for those men.
APEX
THE SUN IS APPROACHING ITS LOWEST POINT
Dernel looks out the shattered glass pane. With a sigh, he retreats to the van. They don't exit the port.
Sia's memories revealed that traveling at night is avoided by most natives. Dernel backs the van into an empty shipping container and shut it as closed as possible. He sits at the steering wheel and ponders his actions for the next day. But Sia's past actions distract him from his plans.
”She didn't know those men. Humans don't share around connections to kin. Why did she leave those bags?”
DATA NEEDED TO COMPLETELY ASSESS THE SITUATION IS NOT YET AVAILABLE
”She would make a great Underling. I wonder what my pod would think of her. She seems very humorous.”
…
KEEPING WATCH IS UNECCESARY
”Wake me if anything alarms you.”
AFFIRMATIVE
Dernel's dreams don't provide him with rest. Memories play under his eyelids.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~````
Dernel's arms were fastened to his sides by a metallic fabric. His legs were wrapped in the same material. The collar around his neck is fixed to the ceiling and keeps him balanced on the balls of his feet.
Underlings do not break under physical duress. Their pod shares all pains with them and the more powerful the pod, the less of a chance the victim would experience pain.
His eyes are crusted with dried blood after he attempted to shut them and escape the torture happening before him. His captors noticed his efforts for peace and stripped him of his outer eyelids.
As his lids gradually returned, he tried in vain to meditate the sights out of his memory.
Deep Society agents understood the methods needed to damage an Underling. Why torture his body when they could take his mind?
Longevity in mind and body are an Underling curse. He would never forget. The stain would exist along with all his hopes and dreams. Poisoning them. Strangling…
Dernel shook his head and hissed at the rub of the collar on his abused neck. His feet are stiff and aching.
”All your strength means nothing when it takes just a touch…” a woman hissed.
She raised a heated metal rod with a gloved hand and laid it on the spine of the human below her.
”Aaaaaaaaaah!” the human male screamed and struggled against his bindings.
”—to cripple you,” the woman finished.
The human was bound tightly with rope and a black cloth tied around their neck. The cloth was damp from blood, sweat, and tears. It clung to their face in several places.
”That is what you all lack. The blessing of Understanding,” the Deep Society agent continued.
The end of her antenna is lit and dangles between her crimson eyes. Its green light illuminated the chilling smile on her face.
”A gift that keeps on giving. It shares all and any pain. It clears us of selfishness and the drive to harm others. For what creature feels pain and does not learn from it?” She lectures while circling the human.
Laughter filled the room.
She crouched and laid a clawed finger on the humans covered forehead. The sharp tip cuts through the fabric and deep into their flesh.
”Mmmmm, please…..mmmmmm.” the man pleaded.
”Only one. Humans.” Her partner said as he stepped forward.
She retracted her claw and stroked the humans head. Her partner came forward with his own heated rod and jabbed it into the humans' thigh.
”AAAAAAAAAAAH!”
”Ssssssh,” the Deep Society agent hushed the broken man.
She turned to their Underling prisoner.
”You want to save them? Look at the agony they are in. This is constant, even without our help. Why not let them kill themselves off? Interfering will spoil this planet even more than it already is.”
She rose up and approached Dernel's naked form.
”Give us your research, and we shall let you go.”
Silence.
Dernel focused on the human behind her. He paid her no attention.
”Deny us, but you and yours will feel pain, unlike anything an Underling has felt in millennia.”
Silence.
The human was still alive and fighting. He strained against the bindings tied around his hands and feet. His writhing form was large. His thin garments did not hide the muscles beneath them.
'Strong enough to get free, but could he fight these creatures? No,' Dernel thought.
”Does your pod mean nothing to you? Imagine the derision they will feel for you while phantom pains make their skins crawl?” The agent whispered at Dernel's neck.
He shivered as her warm breath crept up his neck but remained focused on the man below.
The human lay still. A Deep Society agent walked up and kicked them in the abdomen, but they remained unmoving on the stone floor.
”Me, I'll never know how you self-righteous ones make it this far in life,” She slid a claw down his scaled chest and laid her head on his bound shoulder.
”You devote all this energy to your goal and throw it all away for meaningless reasons. All for nothing. All that work just to walk right into our arms and-”
KRRRRRRK
She imitated a cracking neck while curling a hand around his own neck.
The human curled into a ball after being kicked a few times. The back of his shirt rose. A tattoo decorated the lower area of his spine. Dernel commits that to memory. Someone out there might be looking for them. The least he could do is give word of who had taken him and what was done in his presence. That is all he could do in his current position.
'Forgive me, forgive me.' He thought.
Her partner cackled before he climbed over the human and began strangling them. It blocked the human from view. Dernel grimaced at the fin on the agents back. It glowed in the dim room.
”Fineeeeee. I'll let you complete your legacy….”
She wiggled her finger in the air like it was riding on a wave.
Sailing on nothing.
A gesture known to Underlings to mean ”a solo journey” or ”a trivial pursuit”. For no Underling with worth would journey alone to accomplish anything. Collaboration was celebrated.
Solitude is exile. Exile is dishonor and dishonor is a fate worse than death.
Dernel clenched his jaw at her gesture.
”Your demise…..is a thrill to them. They won't waste any time acquiring all sorts of data from you. While living or dead. It's all science to them.”
She motioned to an agent that was watching the torture. With a shove, she straightened up and Dernel choked while trying to steady his body.
”Tell them it's a holiday prezzie for their work so far,” She told the minion.
Dernel choked as the minion approached him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``
Dernel awoke and rose out of the driver's seat to escape his assailant. His head made contact with the ceiling of the car.
He catches his breath and looks around the car.
”Has the sun risen?”
AFFIRMATIVE
They exit the port.
When they get a few miles away, Dernel decides to inform S.I.D of his new choice. S.I.D was not happy about it.
”You don't understand! I need her…We need her.”
NEGATIVE
SUBJECT 001 IS IRRELEVANT
CITIZENS OF CINALIA ARE FUGITIVES UNDER UNDERLING LAW
”A journey alone is exile.”
…
”Don't you remember that?” he recalls the frozen harbor.
The half-submerged ships full of cargo and men, a cemetery for the poor souls lost as collateral damage to pay for sins amassed by men and women that never took a moment to ask if their victories were worth it. Was it worth it? All those crushed souls.
”Alienating her won't help us. If our energy depletes who will come for us?”
REGENERATING ENERGY THROUGH STASIS.MODE
”Has failed a countless amount of times…do you really want to go back to that slow struggle while I waste away in that chair? When we could have an ally, working just as hard to accomplish both our goals…,” He steers around a dip in the earth and speeds up.
”She is the only one that knows we still exist. That we're alive. If we torment her for control of her body, she will buckle under it and be lost to us. And then what? We need help. She can get us help. Support. Then we can return home. This is not a discussion. I don't want your opinion.”
”I'm not on some crusade against them. Our objective is meaningless if we resort to their tactics to survive. I just want to go home. It'll never be the same, but I want to go home. Don't screw this up for me.”
…
He drives her outside of the danger zone until the van runs out of gas. A forest is to their left and to their right he sees the beginnings of decaying grass and cracked earth. The Wastelands.
He has been enjoying time without pain, without the void of silence he will return to.
He sits on the hood of the car.
To the left, he senses a signal from the labs, but to the right, Sia will be safe from their reach.
”She can decide. Creator, steer our steps to the path. Forgive me for being tempted. Forgive me, so I may forgive myself.”
The sun reaches its zenith. He lays back against the windshield and reaches a hand out toward the sky. Tears well up in his eyes as he looks at Sia's brown hand with the sun's rays warming the palm. Her hands are so unlike his own. So fragile, like an infant's.
”Give it back.”
'Give her back control,' He commands.
AFFIRMATIVE
TRANSFER INITIATED…