Note: Okay, this is a different kind of note... As an author, I can recognize my tendency to rush to endings. I see an ending I chase it down and hammer it out as quickly as possible (sometimes to the detriment of my fics). Therefore I take it seriously when multiple reviews ask me to not finish the story yet, especially when I was planning the ending in the next three chapters. Then I did get one review which said the plot was running thin, which I take to mean end the fic as quickly as you can. Mixed comments! Very disturbing for someone who generally takes feedback very seriously. So if you have any comment on the subject now is the time to make your voice heard.

Chapter 10

Tidus turned to stare at his friend Hershey. They were alone in the little corridor, at least for the moment. "You're ready to bust out of here. Just like that? Not that I'm complaining, just tell me what we're doing." Something, not the usual black scum speckled Hershey's face and front. It was hard to tell in the dim light but it looked rust colored, almost like the poon blood had look splattered all over the mess hall. Tidus shut his eyes and tried to get the image of the Poon Toose game out of his head.

"We have a shift coming up. They're going to ask for a B.A.S. crew, two men. We're going to volunteer," Hershey said.

"Okay, what is a B.A.S. crew? How is this going to work?" Tidus asked. One of the Poon Toose players shoved past them, headed back out into the sleeping area, and they had to wait until their privacy returned. "Can I know the plan now?"

"You get to know, what you need to know." Hershey looked around, cautiously. "Just volunteer, then when I give the signal, help me overpower the guard. Hopefully there won't be two."

Tidus did the math, two unarmed, untrained miners, against a trained, armor clad, weapon laden overseer. At first glance the odds were not good. Then he figured again, desperation had more value than a weapon could ever provide. "We can take down one overseer and we're out? You sure you know what you're doing?"

Hershey nodded. "This is my last chance. I gotta get out now."

Tidus didn't ask Hershey about his rush. He had his own reasons to want out as soon as possible. Hershey's were his own business.

The long metallic whine, which signified the beginning of a shift, filled the hall and surrounding rooms. Hershey pushed Tidus forward, back into the sleeping area ahead of the straggling Poon Toose players. One of the Overseers stepped forward and signaled for silence. The small amount of murmuring that had been going on gradually stopped. "I need two volunteers for a B.A.S." The room was silent. Hershey kicked Tidus in the shins.

"I'll do it... whatever it is," Tidus said. He looked around slowly. Some of the men were moving away from him and he could hear a murmur about bad luck.

Hershey patted him on the back. "Can't let Vern go it alone. I'll help too."

Tidus felt a nervous flutter deep in his stomach. What the heck was a B.A.S.?

Rikku wrapped the bandanna she'd bummed off Aldon more tightly across her face and tried not to breathe unless absolutely necessary. They had arrived at the Alathian Mining Platform less than an hour ago, but the smell had invaded the air slightly earlier. Yuna had gotten all excited. "That's the smell. That's the smell from my dream." Of course Rikku had been too busy gagging to bounce around with her. This couldn't be a good thing, dumping something that smelled like that into the ocean. As the only real Al Bhed aboard the Solomon, Rikku felt a little ashamed and upset at what she'd seen and well smelt.

Yuna was the only person who didn't seem to be suffering through the rancid vapors. A patch of white cloth was wrapped over her face. Lulu had insisted that the vapors couldn't be healthy and had tied it on personally. Yuna was obviously too busy worrying and thinking. If Rikku had been in her position, she imagined she would be up and down the ship, pacing a furrow in the deck, but Yuna wasn't a pacer. She was a prayer. Her eyes half-shut and her head bowed, you could just see her lips moving behind her mask. Now that Yevon was no longer a religion, Rikku wondered to whom Yuna prayed.

"Hey Rikku, any response to your hail yet?" Wakka asked. He took a seat by her next to the rail and adjusted the yellow swath of cloth over his lower face. "I'd like to figure out if Tidus is here and get as far away as possible. Ya know what I mean?"

Rikku nodded. "I know what you mean. We're still in limbo though. That guy said they were changing shifts and it would be a few hours."

"Ya, okay. What the heck is that stuff anyway?" Wakka was staring over the edge of the boat at the too dark ocean water. "It can't be a good thing, smelling like that."

"I don't know if it is the stuff they're mining or a throw-away-something. The G3 grade sludge, we refine that into fuel and lubricant and plastics." Rikku stared at her feet. "It is pretty nasty, isn't it?"

"Worse than Malboro dung." Wakka laughed long and hard. "You'll just have to tell your dad about this mess. Never would have said this a few months ago, but I trust Cid and quite a few of you Al Bheds. I figure you and your dad will stop this stuff, now that it's been rubbed in your face, eh?"

Rikku nodded and readjusted her bandanna. "Liberally rubbed in." What must Tidus have thought of the world, waking up with no memories in a stinky hole like this place? "I hope Tidus is okay."

"I wouldn't worry, Rikku," Wakka said. "He's a tough guy."

"B.A.S., burial at sea," Tidus thought to himself. He hadn't realized exactly what they had meant until he was face to face with the dead body. He had almost backed out when he saw who the B.A.S. was for. Oleander, one of the half-dozen or so faces and names he had together, and the man who had pulled him aside earlier today and tried to warn him about how crazy Hershey was.

"Both of you. Get the body on the gurney and follow me," the overseer said. "Don't drag your feet either. They're holding the last shuttle out to the mine for you."

The dim lighting glinted off the visor covering the armored guard's face. Tidus shivered. The man hardly seemed human, barking at them about disposing of Oleander as though the old man they were carrying were no more than a bag of particularly bulking and annoying garbage. Tidus caught Hershey's eye but he shook his head, not yet. Hershey started pushing the gurney after their guard, and Tidus followed close behind.

"Okay boys, we're here. The body goes in the pod there. Take the clothes and the shoes, he won't need them where he's headed," the guard said.

Hershey turned to Tidus and grinned. "You ready? Cause I'm ready." He winked and pushed the gurney forward into the overseer's chest.

Tidus didn't waste time wishing that he had a weapon, anything but his unaided fists against the armor encased overseer. He rushed past the gurney and pinned the man to the ground. The man bucked and struggled. Tidus could barely keep him down. "Hershey, I think his armor is upping his strength. It's machina. I can't hold him much longer!"

"Just need to hold him a second," Hershey said. He pulled one of the guard's guns out of its holster and knelt by his head. He flipped open the armored visor and rested the cool muzzle on the guard's temple.

Tidus, felt the man go rigid beneath him as he turned his newly revealed eyes up to his captors. "Don't kill me," the man whispered. "I don't want to die." He wasn't that old, maybe in his twenties. A young man caught in his role in life, he, was just a man. "Please?" He was crying, the formerly inhuman overseer was crying.

"We don't have to kill him. We could lock him in a storage bin or something," Tidus said. "We aren't going to kill him, right?" Without acknowledging a word Tidus said, Hershey pulled the trigger and the guard's begging stopped. One moment Tidus had been pinning a living man to the deck, now he was astride a dead mass... He was covered in bits of...

"No time," Hershey snapped. "Those jokers are holding the last mining shuttle. This has to happen fast."

Tidus was a little slow rising off the overseer. He used his shirt to wipe at the fine spray of blood and bits of flesh covering his face and hands. "We killed him. Why did we have to kill him?" It was Poon-Toose on a bigger scale, but who decided who the rodents were? How had they become the predators?

"Snap out of it," Hershey hissed. "You didn't kill him. I did. You can rest your fricking conscience. I need you're help with this, now." He was leaning over the capsule they were supposed to have put Oleander in and trying to pry the top off. He cried out in agony after only a few seconds and gripped his right side.

This wasn't the time to wax and wane over right and wrong. Tidus turned away from the guard. "Are you okay?" Tidus asked. He reached out to Hershey but his friend just glared at him.

"You think I'm not going to want to leave, cause of this little thing? I'm getting out you stupid son of a bitch," Hershey hissed. Sweat was standing out on his brow and his eyes were wild again, wild and dangerous. The gun in his right hand rose slowly toward Tidus.

"Calm down, man," Tidus unconsciously echoed Hershey's words from his first night at the mining colony. "We're both getting out, right?"

"No just one," Hershey hissed. "One man in the capsule, shot out beyond the machina sentries. One man, swims to the surface and stows away on the Al Bhed supply ship. He gripped Tidus' shirtfront and pulled him close. "I killed Oleander. I killed the guard. I earned this!" he screamed. Some sanity seemed to return to his eyes. "I waited so long for someone to die when the supply ship was here. People are always dying. I waited for six years. I didn't want to have to kill anyone. But I had to kill Oleander... to escape. Dying here, I can't die here," Hershey pleaded. He lifted his shirt exposing a weeping sore covering his right side and most of his chest. Tidus felt the bile rise in his throat. Hershey was crazy. This place drove him completely mad. "Vern?" Hershey said. "I'm sorry about lying to you about two people getting out with my plan." He held his right side and stared at Oleander. "I had to kill him..."

Tidus couldn't find any words of comfort to offer Hershey. He'd never felt more lost. What was he supposed to do now? Every second they delayed they came closer to capture. After killing a guard, Tidus didn't want to know what was going to happen to the man who stayed behind. He ran his hand along the seam in the pod until he encountered a depression. He pushed and the pod slid open. Tidus had to fight the urge to get in the pod and tell Hershey to go to Hell. Whoever went would need the other's help or they'd never get launched. "I didn't want to die here, you know?" Tidus said. He could feel despair welling up in his heart. "There was that girl I wanted to check on." The ties to death surrounding Tidus's soul grew stronger and blacker with each passing moment. The huntress, death, could finally smell the lamb she'd lost.

Like a pendulum swinging high and low, Hershey's state of mind, his very sanity waned and ebbed. The hand clenching the gun went limp and the weapon clattered to the deck. Dangerous eyes turned sad, almost gentle. Hershey laughed long and hard. "You still got that wet dream on your mind? I liked you Vern, from the first time we met. You're still good. It ain't in you yet. The poison in this place fills up your mind and your body. But it ain't infected you." Hershey shifted and looked at the ugly sore eating into his chest. "Vern." He turned to stare at the sleek coffin. "I want you to have this, my plan. Find your girl, for me, okay?"

Tidus rocked back in shock. "Are you serious?"

After a long pause, Hershey nodded. "I'm dead already. Knew it coming into this. Wasn't sure what I was gonna do about it. Till now."

Despair evaporated in the face of renewed hope, and Death lost sight of her prey. Thwarted by her quarry again, the dark huntress continued to stalk the land of the living, now almost close enough to touch the misplaced soul, Tidus. It wouldn't be long now, a little fear and a little anger that would be enough.