AN: And I'm finally back. Sorry for the delay. Again. Don't worry too much though, there are three more chapters to The Exposure after this one and I'll put one up every week until it's done. I've only got to write the last one, the others only need proof reading now. I actually really like how this one turned out for the most part, so I hope you enjoy it.
The Exposure Part 7
Ben
You'd think after running to and from wild, blade wielding monsters from another world that nothing would scare me anymore right? Wrong.
I'd barely finished emptying my stomach before the guy who threw a spear at me, the man well into his late twenties with black hair who was apparently called Tyrone, hurled me up by the back of my shirt and practically tossed me into the middle of his friends' circle.
Flinching and groaning as the landing unsettled my injuries, I tried to sit up only for Tyrone to shove me back down, eliciting a scream as my back hit the dirt again.
"Stay down if you know what's good for you." Shivers ran from my head to my toes as he got right in my face and I found myself nodding erratically. The look on his face was vile, spiteful, and well...a demon would look less menacing. With the look he was giving me and the way he spoke to me, I'm pretty sure that I would have done anything he told me to, anything to avoid the long, painful death he looked ready to dish out.
Fortunately, he was pulled off me a moment later, though I still didn't move an inch. There was no way I was risking the punishment he looked far too keen to inflict upon me.
"Tyrone, back off, he's just a kid." The injured guy shouted, matching Tyrone's cold, vile look with a heated glare while Hunter and the other man held him back.
"What difference does the age of the host make?" Tyrone retorted, sneering so viciously at me that I actually tried to sink into my shirt like it was a turtle shell. Even dealing with the alley's foul smell seemed more appealing. "A Yeerk's a Yeerk."
"You don't even know if there is a Yeerk in his head." The guy snapped back, sparing just a second to give me a sympathetic look between glares. I was liking that guy more and more right now.
"He has a Dracon beam!" It was only that I noticed it in his hand.
"And used it to help us!" Was the injured guy's quick, exasperated response. "He could be like us! And either way, whether or not there's a Yeerk in his head, you're still facing a scared, teenage boy! Why make this more terrifying for him than it already is?"
Tyrone didn't seem to have an answer to that, though it was a fact that he definitely did not like. Nonetheless, he did stop resisting the others, opting simply to glare at me.
"Fine. But if he is a Controller-"
"Then my dear sister will find the Yeerk and the poor boy will suffer enough without your help." The injured guy stated, turning to me with an apologetic look. That time he was the one to make me shiver. I'd never been so grateful for my freedom in my whole life than I was at that moment.
"I doubt you will find a filthy slug." Hunter said calmly as he and the third guy let Tyrone go, instantly getting a demanding stare from the my latest attacker. "He's saved my life twice already, one by battle and one by convincing me to see common sense. I'd probably be reinfested by now if not for him."
"It could still be a ruse." Tyrone scowled, not giving another inch. Without proof of my freedom, he wasn't going to believe a word. "We all know that the Yeerks infiltrate and capture from the inside. He could easily have been a sent to join our ranks and bring us all down."
"In the old days, I would call you ridiculously paranoid for that one." The woman called, smiling teasingly as she sorted through her bag. "But now, I have to admit, he has a point. Sorry kid, but a scared, harmless little guy like you is the perfect host for this kind of work and it's well within their style."
She was a lot more critical with the way she looked me over than her brother, unnerving me a little, but it was still touched with some compassion, much like the sandy haired guy next to Hunter. It was enough that while I still tensed as she pulled a black gadget out of her bag and walked over to me, I was still able to control my breathing and hold back the flight instinct.
"Will...will it hurt?" I asked quietly, cringing at how much like a child I sounded as she kneeled before me. She let a small grin cross her face as she shook her head, holding the device up to my eye level.
"Don't worry, it's just a neural scanner. It'll only scan your head in search of Yeerk brainwaves and DNA, not effect anything there. If you have a Yeerk in your head, the light will turn green, if not, it'll go red. Are you ok with us searching?" She spoke calmly and gently through the whole explanation, like a mother soothing her child after nightmare. Still, there was a flicker in her tone, a tiny one, Warren had taught me to watch out for at the end. Not that I needed any of Warren's psychological knowhow to figure out that she was already testing me. They were going to scan my head regardless of what I wanted.
"It's fine. Go ahead." I agreed, my voice coming out a little nervously as I nodded. Not that I was afraid of the scanner, I knew I was clean, but these guys all seemed ready to strike me down if it glitched on me. A small, approving smile growing on her face, she slowly placed it by my forehead and flicked a switch before moving it all around my head. Fortunately for me, it was glitch free. The group immediately relaxed as she pulled it back to find a red light.
"He's clean. I was right." Hunter stated stoically as he scanned the area, quickly causing the others to almost sheepishly do the same. In all the excitement, the rest of us seemed to have forgotten that we were still in danger. I had at least.
"And I'd love to hear your story, but first we should probably get out of here." The injured guy responded, grinning at me before it turned into a grimace as he tried and failed to get up. Up close I almost puked again at the sight of his wounds. There was a slash on his leg that looked good and gruesome and a blood stain I hadn't noticed before was growing just above his hip. Both wounds would need stitches and I had a feeling that they needed to be put in place soon. "Can someone help me up please?"
After he stood up for me so much, I was happy to help the sandy haired guy pull him to his feet. "Thanks. Now, let's head off to our rendezvous point. We have to find all the others."
"Alice, Aiden , Bruce and Mary are gone." Hunter informed them, his voice hitching every second word. His eyes were already watering again and though he tried to hide it, he was startle to tremble. Sighing mournfully, Tyrone placed a hand firmly on the boy's shoulder, squeezing it every few seconds as gasps and small sobs left the others.
"Max and Lidia are gone too." The injured guy sighed, not bothering to hide his tears like the other guys and causing Hunter to go rigid. "Let's face it, running for your life from seven foot blade monsters isn't a sport for people maybe two years away from a retiring home. They knew it and sacrificed themselves before we knew what they were doing. The Horks took the bodies."
"The Hork-Bajir didn't see you guys before they found them right?" I asked quickly, the gears already turning in my head at that piece of information. I felt lousy that I only just heard of a pair of poor old people becoming victims and was fully intending to take advantage of it, but this is...war. Besides, it was a possibility to ensure that they're sacrifice wasn't in vain. "They never noticed you there?"
"No...why?" Tyrone asked irritably, making me cringe again at his indignant stare. I couldn't blame him, I was being the cold strategist here. The people that died today were all deeply cared for friends and allies to these guys. Still, it was nothing compared to how he'd looked at me before. I could handle this one.
"The Hork-Bajir only saw seven of you in total." I answered quickly, focusing solely on Tyrone. I didn't really want to see the looks Hunter and the others might have been giving me for the lack of compassion I was exhibiting. "Hunter and I overheard the head alien after they killed your four friends say that three were missing. If they got two more of you, and didn't discover that you four were with the last two, then they're only looking for one more. If we can trick them into thinking that the last one is dead or taken off in a specific direction, then it'll give you plenty of time to find your other friends."
"And how would you suggest that we do that?" Tyrone asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well..." I started, frowning as I looked around the area before my eyes stopped on the results of my...handiwork. It made me feel sick all over again just looking at it, but it did give me an idea. The land around it was soft and full of footprints, altering it shouldn't make it stand out too much. I hoped. "If you're willing to lose the Dracon beam, we could make it looked like you and the Hork-Bajir killed each other." I suggested, pointing to the scorch mark. It only took a minute of staring at the black mark before realisation dawned on all of their faces.
"Hork-Bajir do have lousy eyes." Hunter commented neutrally. "And it is starting to grow dark."
"And it's not like one Dracon beam is going to get us out of this." The sandy haired guy nodded slowly.
"I guess it's worth a shot." Tyrone smirked at me. I was a little surprised to see a little bit of approval on his face. "Let's see if we can make it look a little more human."
...
I can't say that I was too thrilled with our work when we were done. The scorch mark hadn't been a well defined Hork-Bajir shape by any means of course, but it was humanoid enough. We carefully turned over dirt, bringing it back to a grown human man's size, but none of us were very good at this to begin with and it made it look wonky and disproportionate, even for a mere scorch mark. If the Yeerks brought in someone from forensics, they'd know instantly that we'd mangled it and I seriously doubted that many people would even consider the possibility that it was from a human. It didn't help our cause either that another scorch mark was left behind by the guy riddled with spears when we blasted him. He was evidence that we couldn't let them find, as much as I hated vaporising a dead body and hiding the mark with dirt and leaves. It felt like desecration to me. And if the Yeerks saw it too, well...let's hope they think their guy had bad aim or something.
The others were more confident though, something that surprised me considering that this was my plan. Still, they had plenty of experience with these particular aliens. Apparently their sense of smell was only about as good as a human's and our eyes were better. The sun was already setting, which only encouraged the group's confidence. The Hork-Bajir's eyes apparently weren't really meant for night vision, they were lousy without the sun. That meant that as long as it had something to draw their attention and back up the possibility of it being an obliterated human, they were sure to take it at face value.
Tyrone had handle that easily enough. Seeing as they were mostly shredded anyway, he'd taken off most of his clothes and struck them with the Dracon beam before the sandy haired man, who I'd learnt was called William, carefully placed half a shoe and burnt pieces of fabric around the scorch mark. With the darkened sky and them covering the wonkier areas of the black mark, it did look a lot more likely to succeed. After that, we just had to move the speared Hork-Bajir into facing the 'victim' and put the Dracon beam in his hand. Once Tyrone had stopped scowling and relinquished the most powerful weapon any of us had and Hunter had removed the pieces of his arrow from the area, not wanting any suggestions that more than one human had been there, we all slid back into the rocks a little further off.
Within them was a naturally made trench that was perfect for our use. It was hard to notice, we almost lost it in the dark, you either had to know it was there or basically be standing right on top of it to find it. The siblings, who'd happily told me that they were called Laura and Steven, were already in place, Laura treating Steve's injuries as best she could. She cleaned and managed to stitch up the wounds, but she was the first to say that the work was sloppy. Steven was still managing to be all grins though, assuring her that she'd done great before proudly telling me about his big sister's talents as a programmer and mechanic. Apparently she picked up everything her mechanically inclined Yeerk knew and he happily went on and on about the little technical difficulties she'd created for those 'good for nothing slime balls'. Then I got his whole family history right down to his half Mexican genetics and birth in Michigan, so it was more about ignoring the pain he was in then anything else. Not that I minded, he was a nice guy.
It wasn't until the trees started shivering around us that he stopped talking and that was immediate, his face finally warping into a more serious one that better resembled his age and unfortunate history.
Other sounds quickly joined the moving trees as the aliens got closer. Grunts, thumps, a sound similar to Wolverine's claws being extended that I assumed was blades digging into the bark or across stone. I almost screamed as one Hork-Bajir's feet dropped down right in front of our hiding place, only stopping because William placed one hand over my mouth while the other pressed me to his side.
"Found dead!" I pressed my face into William's shoulder at that, not trusting myself to do anything. I was terrified again, if I didn't keep William's shoulder pressed against my mouth I'd have screamed and probably never stopped. William rubbed circles into my back and Hunter nudged me with his shoulder every few seconds, reassuring me as best he could while he kept an arrow notched and ready to fly if things went wrong. That, the fact that both Tyrone and Laura were back to looking deadly with more carefully made spears in their hands and our rather impressively hidden hiding place were all very necessary in keeping myself in control, especially since none of us had the Dracon beam anymore and, well, they did.
I couldn't make out what was being said for most of it, the Hork-Bajir were talking in what was probably their native language. To me, it was just a string of strange sounds, some low, some shouted, like an argument. William and Hunter tensed a few times, so I guess that they understood some of it, but since neither of them were making a move to run, I guessed that we were still safe for now.
A flash and bang occurred a moment later and in my panic, the only thing that stopped me from screaming again was the fact that I accidentally bit William's shoulder. He jolted as my teeth sunk in and I almost gagged at the taste of his overly dirty, sweat filled shirt in my mouth, but he just pushed my head down a little further, leaving us both very discomforted, but quiet.
"They destroyed the Hork." Hunter's voice could barely be considered a whisper as he leaned right next to my ear. Carefully giving a small nod, I slowly pulled back just enough to get William's shoulder out of my mouth. It made sense, they had to destroy the evidence. They couldn't leave a bladed alien where any hiker could find it if they wanted their existence to be a secret.
"Should check more?" A Hork-Bajir asked, sucking the breath right out of me. They were so close, bad eyes or not, if they kept looking... "Could be more."
"Others still searching." Another one, the leader if the air of authority in his voice said the same thing for Hork-Bajir and/or Yeerk races as it did for humans. He went on, but whatever reason had them slipping into English had passed and he reverted back to his strings and 'Gareth' and the like. They stuck around for a few more minutes before they headed off once more, each one heading in a different direction. Probably to find and inform the other aliens of their success and check for any others.
We stayed where we were for about half an hour after they left, barely making a sound for the most part. My five new acquaintances had a conversation with their eyes only moments after the aliens left and quickly came to the mutual agreement of laying low and silent. After about ten minutes, a hushed conversation was started about what was said. Each of them had recognised different words, William catching the most, and together they mostly managed to piece together the conversation. The aliens had a little trouble buying it, but they accepted that the seventh human was dead in the end. However, with both arrows and larger wounds, they doubted there was only one human. However, they were supposed to be back at the Pool for another mission by now and they'd only seen evidence that guaranteed seven people, so if the other Hork groups hadn't found anything, they were considering this hunt over.
The relief that washed through me at that was so great that I almost passed out. I was running in nothing but adrenaline at that point and without it, my body was ready to rest. Of course, the others were still tense as hell, with the status of six of their friends still unknown, not to mention their anger and grief for those they lost, but for now, at least we were safe.
And soon enough, the Hork-Bajir would be off for whatever mission they're supposed to be performing, Hunter and the others could rendezvous with their friends and I could go home...to get grounded. I was going to be really late and I had no excuse that I could use. Well, I guess that's a fair price to pay for the chance to help save at least five lives. Not to mention what I know about Warren's actions now.
Still, a medal would be a nicer thank you than being confided to my room.
