Chapter VI

Nicknames

The tiny tower swayed on its unstable edges, small colored blocks stacked in a jumbled arrangement. A small, trembling hand reached up towards the top, clutching a new block. "Almost… there…" the Vusstran girl muttered between clenched teeth. The block neared the top… closer… closer…

SLAM.

The tower gave one last jerk and fell, crumbling into dozens of little pieces. She blinked down at the pile in surprise, still clutching the block where the top of the tower used to be. The sound of heavy footsteps hurtling up the stairs could be heard outside the room. Putting down the block, Iji hopped over to the doorway and peered outside just as a red and blonde blur went speeding past. She fell back on the floor with a shriek.

"CALE!" she cried. She scrambled to her feet and hurried out the room to the next, where the blonde-haired boy was busy up heaving the already disarrayed room. "What's the rush? What's going on?"

The boy heaved a knapsack out of the top shelf of the closet, throwing it down on the bed. "We're leaving, Iji," he said as he shoved a shirt and a blanket into the knapsack.

Iji stood looking perplexed in the doorway. "Leaving? Where? Why?" she said with an edge of panic.

"I don't know. But we're going to find Tai. I don't know how long we'll be gone…" He threw more stuff into the knapsack, not even looking at what it could be.

"Tai hasn't come back yet? Where is he?"

Cale hesitated. "He's… we don't know where he is. That's why we're leaving."

"I'm going too, right?"

Cale spun around. "No. You're staying here. It's too dangerous." He swung the knapsack on his shoulder and headed out the room, pushing past the flustered Iji.

"What? No! I want to go with you!" she moaned, stumbling after Cale as he launched himself down the stairs.

As Cale went to clear the last step, his foot suddenly slipped out from under him. Grabbing onto the stair rail, he jumped aside to see what he had stepped on. Looking down he saw a small book with a hard paper cover, now wrinkled. Puzzled, Cale bent to pick it up, looking the book over and flipping through the pages. It was filled with sketches of various sizes and stages: drawings of scenery, Earth animals, Cale and Iji. There were some drawings of grotesque monsters, fighting, bleeding. "Tai's sketchbook…" he whispered to himself. Thinking of Tai pained him, so he shoved the sketchbook quickly in his knapsack as he headed towards the kitchen.

Tek was just as busy as Cale was, bustling around the kitchen writing notes, leaving messages and making arrangements. Cale jogged into the dining room, throwing the knapsack down on the table. "I'm ready!" he called to Tek, who was putting on a jacket and carrying a similar bag, like a briefcase.

"Alright, then, everything's settled. I've booked us a shuttle leaving in about an hour, I called and told the lab I'd be gone for about a week or two, I've made arrangements for Iji to stay at the neighbors'…"

"No!" Iji had just skidded into the kitchen, panting, her alien face contorted into a mixture between frustration and horror. "No, I'm coming with you!"

"Iji…" Tek started to say in an undertone, but Iji cut him off.

"Youalways leave me behind! I want to come with this time!" Cale and Tek just gave her apprehensive stares. Seizing the moment, Iji hurried on, talking faster and faster, afraid of missing a second. "Please? I promise I'll be good, I won't get in the way or anything, I won't make a peep I swear if that's what bothers you I'll be quiet as a…"

"Alright! Alright!" Tek cried in exasperation, throwing up his hands. "Fine, you can come with us. But you have five minute."

With a squeal and a jump, Iji scrambled out of the kitchen and back up the stairs. Cale grinned after her, and Tek sighed.


He was alone again. He sat on the bench rubbing his left wrist, which still stung from the tattoo they had torn into his skin. Not at all an appealing marking, but a short string of numbers – 359172 – similar to the one he had seen on Rivin's wrist. Thinking of Rivin made his stomach turn.

Rivin had kept that drawn look on his face all the way up until the two separated. Taylor kept catching glimpses of Rivin looking around with an odd sort of smile as they walked. What became of Rivin, he didn't know, but screams of pain echoed all through the hall, making Tai's ears ring and his heart clench. Tai's alien escort snickered. It was in this moment the full reality of his situation hit him like an anvil to his consciousness. He lost touch for a while, hardly noticing as he was led into a small room and given his number. He didn't come crashing back to reality until the alien smacked the back of his head, hissing for him to pay attention, lest the needle miss.

Not for the first time, Tai found himself thinking of home, which seemed very far away now. He just dimly remembered it… he had had so many homes already, and all of them snatched away from him without a backward glance. The word "home" lost its meaning to Tai. For now this place was his home: the secluded cold cell, the pain and the sorrow – but he knew even that wouldn't last long. And where from there? He curled up on the bench and buried his face in his arms, withdrawing into the corner. His chest heaved as he silently sobbed, knowing no one in this whole universe could hear him anyway, or care.

Somewhere outside his consciousness he heard the door of his cell deactivate for a pause and then reactivate. Tai didn't look up. Heavy footsteps stepped past the door and stopped in the center of the room. Tai raised his head to look up, eyes narrowed. Above him stood the man from the cargo hold... Tai pushed himself further into the corner with a feral grimace. The man blinked with surprise, but didn't make any move backwards. He raised his hands palm-out in front of him. "Hey, woah… not going to hurt you, see?" he said.

Tai gave him one skeptical look and shoved his face back in his arms, not saying a word in response. The man put his hands down and came tentatively closer. Gradually Tai began to feel the man staring in the back of his mind. With a snap he looked up at the man, who was now kneeling down by the bench, smirking.

"You weren't crying, were you?"

He was taken aback. "Of c-course not," he snapped, though he couldn't suppress a sniff as he turned away.

The man just smiled. "Good. Because you're too old to cry."

Tai turned his head to glare at the man. "What are you doing here?" he growled.

The man smirked. "Excuse me? I believe this is my cell you are in. I should be asking why you are here."

Tai narrowed his eyes and turned away, trying to break from that silver gaze. As bitter as he was, he reflected on the man's question, but in the end couldn't come up with an answer. "I don't know why I'm here," he mumbled. With a pang of annoyance he felt the man sit down across from him.

The man looked puzzled, but amused. "You mean, you don't remember…?"

Tai waved his hand. "No, of course I remember…" Not knowing what possessed him, whether it was the nostalgia or the longing to speak, he began to tell the man everything he could remember, from the day the Earth was destroyed to his last moment on Vusstra. The man never interrupted Tai as he spoke; his attention never waived for a moment. Tai was grateful for his company, for a human face to speak to. When he finished talking there was a long silence, and a question surfaced in Tai's mind. "Why did you help me?" Tai asked.

The man was thrown off for a second. He paused, trying to grapple for an answer; finding none, he sighed, avoiding Tai's gaze. "Oh, I don't know. Just felt like it."

Tai frowned. Seeing he was not satisfied, the man went on, exasperated. "Because I know how it feels kid, okay? To be treated like a piece of shit. I've been passed from place to place so fast my head is still spinning. I've seen so many faces; I've watched them all come and go, knowing I could do nothing about it. Nothing." The man seemed to be in a full-fledge rant now; interested in what he had to say, Tai did not dare interrupt as he went on. "You don't know what it's like to sit and watch them die. Not physically, but spiritually. I see it in their eyes... I see it in yours." He glanced just for a brief moment at Tai and then looked away. "I've seem them fight, but they all give in, in the end. They're all sold in the end, they all die. That's the fuck of it. You can fight all you want, but no matter how much you fight it, they'll bring you down anyway. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

He lapsed off for a moment, staring down past his hands.

Tai gave the man an appreciative look. "Who are you?"

At this the man smiled. "268389. Though if by that you mean my name, then you can call me Steele. That's the nickname they gave me, though I don't really approve of it myself." He shrugged. "And while we're on the subject, who are you, kid?"

Tai smiled, clasping his wrist. "My name's Tai. That's the nickname he gave me a long time ago, though I don't really approve of it myself..."