29 Saint (Rescue cont.)

a/n: The team meets another prisoner.

All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, but not Al.

'You got enough goo to open the door?" Frye said. Doug was leaning heavily on H.B.'s shoulder, but he was watching the Reclaimer's actions intently.

"Pard, I got enough to cut this building in half," Yelv said proudly. The neighboring door popped loose before he'd finished his boast.

A wave of stench hit them, gross and rotten as a butcher's dumpster. H.B. and Yelv gagged, but Doug pushed off of H.B. and fell into the dim cell. Frye followed, having smelled a thing or two and lived to tell the tale. The cell was roughly the same size as Doug's, but where the previous cell had all the hopelessness that impersonal industrial design could offer, this one's despair felt more like that of poverty and neglect. Besides the smell, it was clammy and the blank metal panels managed to look dingy.

In the exact center of the room, silent and motionless, sat a Marnuck.

Frye was glad that H.B. and Yelv were still in the corridor. It gave him time to get over his shock. The Marnuck was grotesquely emaciated, his lines of his skeleton clear beneath his sunken grey skin with its unclean pink scales. The fingers of his hands were tented together in a triangle that mirrored the shape of his three jaws. His three lips were pressed together, the tiny jagged teeth fitting neatly against each other.

"Al! Aldaf! We're here to rescue you," Doug said. He had an arm around the shriveled figure's shoulders. He gave the alien a shake, or tried to. The prisoner could have been carved from stone.

Every other Marnuck that Frye had ever met had tried to kill him. Probably every Marnuck he would ever meet would try it too. He didn't have it in him to pity any member of that species. When Aldaf finally opened his eyes after Doug repeated his plea, the pale yellow shine of his gaze didn't warm Frye's heart. Frye should have been disgusted, furious, dismayed. All he felt was recognition. He crouched slowly to sit beside the pair.

"Ah, Douglas, it is as the spirits said. I'm glad to see your friends, your heroes, with my own eyes."

"Your friends too," Doug said. "Come on, we're getting you out."

"No, I'm staying. I don't even need the spirits to tell me that. I cannot follow you."

"You'll be fine," Doug cajoled. He tugged at Aldaf again, to no effect.

"In your city, resting in a blessing, I'd only be a curiosity. Every word I spoke would be sifted to gain advantage against my brothers." Aldaf was staring directly at Frye as he spoke. "I won't kill, and I won't help others follow the path of pain. The Auntie gives enough that we may all be free."

"We make lots of friends in NLA," Frye said carefully. "Somebody has to be the first.'

The Marnuck puckered his jaws, the little teeth fluttering. It should have been horrific. Frye couldn't repress an answering smile, one that came from his heart. "Let me be the last, walking with my brothers."

"You can't stay here, Al," Doug protested. There was more than present-day worry in his voice. "This place is a nightmare. You'd be okay in NLA."

"Here I can give comfort."

"There's nothing but monsters here."

The alien was still looking at Frye. "We are here too. The Auntie knows that we all need comfort, even when we don't deserve it." Finally, he turned to Doug, and his eyes glinted a soft amber. "I look forward to seeing you again, here or in the graveyard. May the Crone shelter you."

Frye took this as his cue to rise, to pull Doug to his feet, to get them the hell out of there. Doug didn't want to agree, but his protests were half-hearted. The Marnuck called out one last time, before they exited the cell into a hallway that was starting to ring with gunfire.

"The spirits say that four floors above there is something, not a friend, but still a blessing. Good luck."

a/n: Aldaf the OC was mentioned but not named in "Hourly/10" last spring. Again, he was supposed to be dead. Guess not.

Next up: Look, there is only one more day and I WILL reach the end of this story. So we will be assuming that the boys fought their way free, even with a certain detour, and got back to NLA.