Chapter 21: Miyu II
An empty bottle of wine sat by the bed. A second rolled around the floor of the bathroom. A third bottle, almost empty, was in her hand pouring another glass. The gold liquid swirled around cheaply in her glass. She was too inebriated to be checking the wine's quality but it felt natural and reminded her of rocks less barren as Katina.
The television was blasting an import drama from Papetoon in some Papisch dialect she was unfamiliar with. A handsome Canid in a flashy military uniform was trying to choose between brides: the local girl he'd been in love with since the sixth grade, or the Venomian commander who held him prisoner, threatening to give him titles, wealth, and advancement if he married her. (Or her sister, who helped him escape.) And then he stopped home to meet the white furred local girl with eyes as blue as oceans.
"Ti xujk tasx lohudtohk!"
Miyu didn't understand so she drunkenly made up her own dialogue, "I loved you!"
"Doad," he said, "Asx xuro Tadwo wojoxod, Jao boddod jasx dasxk lehjkoccod."
"And," she lowered her voice, "I loved you. But things are different now."
"Idt nuj nuho tuj?" she demanded, "Tao Uhmo oadoh udtohod Vhui?"
"What's different? You look the same!" she mocked.
"Tao Jkohdo. Tao Fcudokod. Tuj Lylat-Jojkom leh mah uijworhoakok."
"Not breasts. Balls. Balls of a man named Lylat..." she brought the glass to her lips and found it empty. She stood up and walked over to the bottle on the other side of the bed on the nightable by the bathroom door. She emptied the bottle into the glass, only filling it with a centiliter of liquid. She scoffed.
She looked in the mirror. The hotel supplied bath robe was draped open, with the belt falling loosely through the loops at her waist. She closed it, hiding her breasts and thighs, and tied it roughly closed. The liquor store wasn't far. She stepped toward the door and felt light-headed. Only after grabbing on to the handle did she regain her balance.
Ordering. She could call the liquor store on her link. With new determination, Miyu walked calmly back to the bed and opened her comm link. It wasn't the home screen she was looking at, but a photograph from the war. She was sitting underneath a giant branch of some alien tree on Sauria. Next to her was her ex, white furred and smiling as she was digging into their rations, blissfully unaware of what war actually was. Neither of them would ever really know. They'd graduate boot-stomping duty after a long campaign being shuttled from one base to another under full CDF control. The closest Miyu and her team ever came to real combat was marching through orange-alert jungles from Cape Claw to Thorntail Hollow.
More like camping than fighting.
And in that kind of environment, away from family, and judgment, and the constraints of Cornerian society, they met.
She forgot about the liquor store and dialed. What time was it there? "Hello?" She sounded happy, as if Miyu had just interrupted a loud party.
"Fay..."
"Miyu?" she sighed heavily, "What... where are you calling from?"
"Katina," she answered.
"What are you doing there?"
She didn't respond. Would be in huge trouble if she did, "I have something I want to say to you."
There was some background noise, but for a long while she couldn't hear Fay, "Well... go ahead, then."
"I still... I still hope you want me like you said you would." She felt the wine hanging out around the back of her palate.
"What?" She almost hissed it like she couldn't believe what she was hearing, "I don't even..."
Another voice entered the background, "Who is it?" A deep masculine voice.
"Who's that?"
"Just give me a moment." Fay was talking to the other voice, "Miyu... what are you doing?" The voices died down as she walked outside.
"That's classified. What the hell are you doing?" She raised her voice, "Who was that?"
Fay became defensive, "You know what? That's none of your business."
"It's always been my business, Fay."
"Are you drunk?"
"I know what you really are. Who you really are."
"Enough, Miyu."
"Please. You can't get enough. I know you better than anybody. I know what you feel like... what you taste like. I remember what happened at Hound Tail Grove."
There was complete silence on the other end.
"Why do you try to hide who you really are?" Miyu felt righteousness mixing with the alcohol in her blood. It was one of those drunken moments where lucidity has never been quite so acute, and judgment so impaired.
"You're wrong." Fay declared. Miyu was stunned. Hadn't she just said... "I know who I am. I'm not the liar. I'm not the dyke."
Click. The line went dead.
Miyu sat on the edge of her bed for a long while, the Papisch drama playing stitched with droning commercials. She stood up and walked over to the mirror. The empty bottles of wine all seemed to stare at her from around the room with their empty hulls and their lidless tops. The robe still covered all of her quite well, the belt tied tightly, keeping her parts hidden.
She loosened it, just enough to let a nipple slip over and around through her gait, and then disappear once she brought the other foot forward.
Miyu turned to the door and walked out of her hotel room. Once she heard hers click shut behind her, she walked out and down the hall. There was a family of Cornerian tourists that were walking the other way, heading with all of their suitcases for the elevator. Miyu passed the husband, catching his eye just as it was grazing her nipple and he quickly averted them forward.
She approached it, Room 1-C, and knocked three times. After a bit of shuffling behind the door, it opened, and Dwic was standing there. His vacant expression turned quickly to shock as he soaked in the image of Miyu leaning against the door frame, a nipple peeking out from behind its hiding spot in her robe. Dwic's eyes were fixed on it as if it had gravity of its own, drawing his gaze down to a trance.
"I'm out of wine," she said.
"I don't have any," Dwic responded.
"What do you have?" She walked into the room and he stepped aside, his confusion subsiding. Dwic's hotel room was a general mess. A tower of books stood in the corner of the room. All of it was heavy literature: biographies of the Tsudish Kings, the vulpid Warring States, conquests of the Lupid hordes, biological analyses of the Aparoids, ethnographic studies of Aquaean islanders, Zonesian treatises on kingship.
"Whiskey," he said.
"I'll have that." His clothes were laid out for the next day, all neatly folded on the dresser. The television wasn't on, but an open beer sat condensating on the table next to the window with a book lying face down on the top, "Sky Kings, Dead Kings," she read aloud, "More anti-colonialism stuff?"
"It intrigues me." There was the tinkling of ice in a pair of hotel glasses and then the careful pouring of whiskey, followed by some ginger ale from a new bottle.
"Because you're pro-colonialism."
He didn't answer, just handed her a glass and sat down in front of the book. He picked it up and dog-eared the page he was reading before closing it with the title facing the table.
Miyu lifted her glass too high and toasted: "To the Thousand-Year Dynasty."
Dwic repeated, "To the Thousand-Year Dynasty."
They drank.
Miyu loosened her belt and tossed it on the floor. Dwic tried not to look uncomfortable, "What's wrong?" she asked.
"I haven't seen you so brazen."
"Brazen?" She asked. She threw open one half of the robe and in the morning that was essentially the last thing she could recall.
When she came around the light was streaming through the window in a way that made her head hurt just having her eyes open. She forced herself to stand up and walk over to the table where a stale glass with a bit of lukewarm water and a bit of whiskey was sitting. She downed it and bit back the taste.
Miyu realized she was alone in Dwic's room. The door to the bathroom was ajar and she was naked. She was staring at herself in the mirror, her body covered in brown and black stripes. She managed to keep fit and healthy after her laughably easy time as a grunt, but she couldn't help but feel disgusted at herself. Like she had somehow let herself go. Fallen off the wagon without considering the one person she was hurting.
She collected her robe off the floor and ran out of the room. Her own suite wasn't looking much better as far as orderliness was concerned. Empty bottles littered the floor, mingling with discarded clothing. The television had at least detected her absence and shut off after a while, otherwise it would probably still be broadcasting Papisch stories into an empty room. It was late, she went to the closet and picked out a conservative outfit for the day. She gathered her comm link and decided she wouldn't worry about much else. Another day of putting her astrophysics and sociology degrees in the blender and trying to act as a translator between Dr. Powalski and Dr. Doa.
Damn it... Dwic.
Miyu took the elevator to the lobby and skipped the hotel's breakfast, walking out into the street and hailing a cab on her own. She prayed the whole while that Dwic wouldn't come running after to "help pay."
When she arrived at the base, a grunt saw her and immediately said, "Dr. Lynx!" He stepped forward, "Dr. Powalski and Dr. Doa have been trying to reach you all morning."
"Oh." "She flipped her link to check it. A dozen missed notifications, "I'm afraid I've been a little scatter-brained. Regarding what?"
He started leading her hurriedly through the facility to the next security checkpoint, "I don't know. But they're going nuts in there." At the next checkpoint, her clearance was above his.
"Thanks," she said, and went down the next hallway without him.
She arrived at the command room that over looked the excavation area and the artifact's surrounding religious architecture. Powalski and Dwic and a dozen of their technician underlings were in the room. Monitors were flashing with energy read-outs and wave-form readings and projections. Inside the facility, suited professionals were carrying a yellow artifact as if it were an unstable explosive.
"What is that?" she asked, leaning too close to the window.
"Dr. Lynx," Leon said, not taking his eyes off the activity below, "Nice of you to join us. What you see is Dr. Doa's hypothesis in action: an attempt at manipulating a Cerinian staff to open the artifact."
Dwic didn't look at her.
She stared down and could finally make out the long golden piece as the staff. She'd never seen one in person, just pictures and photographs in Dwic's books. She knew there were some in the facility but they were useless without their wielders. They were no better than hunks of wood and metal.
"How did you get it open?"
"Non diegetic sound." Leon said, as casually as if he was describing the temperature of coffee, "We set up the speakers that broadcast commands artificially from inside the staff."
"And that... worked?" she asked, stupidly.
"Took some tinkering," Leon said, "But yes, it did."
A technician lifted the staff, which was now attached to a wild apparatus that held the non-diegetic speakers the correct distance from the glowing head of the staff. He approached the artifact with the staff's sharp tail end pointed to the key hole in the artifact's door.
Leon held the transmitter down on his link, "Insert the staff."
One technician approached the door and helped guide the staff into the keyhole. The one holding the staff and all its contraptions took a step forward. The other grabbed the staff's tail lightly and corrected its aim. The whole process took two full minutes before the staff locked in place and stopped.
"There's some give," came the technician's voice on the speakers.
"Push." Leon ordered.
A loud click was heard and another analysis from the technician, "There's some in a clockwise direction."
"Turn."
The technician turned the staff. It clicked again and stopped, "Nothing," came his voice. The technician released the staff and let it hang on the door from the keyhole.
"Issue Command 1."
One of their technicians at a monitor leaned into the microphone coming out of the top of her display and said something in Saurian. Miyu assumed the commands were being broadcast into the staff via the speakers. Nothing happened.
"Issue Command 2." Leon said.
"Something's not right," Miyu blurted out.
"Why?" Dwic turned to her, "What's wrong?"
"I don't know, but we're going ahead and playing with something without thinking about the consequences."
Nothing happened. Leon turned to her as well, "What do you mean?" Without waiting for a response he ordered, "Issue Command 3."
"I mean, what if something terrible is on the other side of that doorway? What if we're not supposed to open it?"
"Speculation." Leon dismissed, "We'll never know if we don't venture ahead. Issue Command 4."
"No," she said, "We should keep doing readings. Do the science properly. This way is too dangerous."
Dwic said nothing.
"We forge on ahead, Dr. Lynx. This is the path of discovery. It is only natural that you are frightened. But we forge on ahead." He turned, "Issue Command 5."
Dwic stared at the artifact, and then at the raw fear in her eyes. He turned to her, "No. She's right. Dr. Powalski..." But it was too late. The staff flashed in response to the command and the doorway at the front of the artifact shrank to an eighth of its size, turned sideways, and then disappeared. Inside the artifact was a whole other world. Literally, from where they stood, Miyu, and Leon, and Dwic could see a barren landscape of ice and snow. On distant mountain peaks, columns of black smoke ascended into an alien sky. Below them, bodies.