A/N - Just though I'd answer a few queries brought up in reviews, firstly.
Ambrosia; Okay, I'll answer you first, since you asked the most questions. Hmm, why do I update so slowly? Well, basically because my computer and I fight. A lot. We have a longstanding contention that means sometimes it won't let me onto the Internet, and - more often - when it *does* give me access it flatly refuses to let me access sites I want. FF.net is its favourite. It enjoys torturing me. The reason for the length of time between Fragments 9 and 10, however, is because I've been holidaying in Belgium; which also involved being bitten to ribbons by mosquitoes and coming home with Measles. Do I know how to have a good time or what?
Pertaining to other Evo characters, several *do* make appearances, but I'm not telling which, because... well... that would sort of defeat the object of your collective continued reading, wouldn't it? Magneto really was just the creepy quasi-villain who liked playing with paperclips at the ToT (time of tangent), so the whole freeing Pietro from his cell never happened. Pietro ended up in Bayville because Ororo came to fetch Evan so as to keep him safe from gangs at the Institute (talk about good intentions turning out bad!) and Pietro followed them just to spite him. He never met Magneto. As in, at all.
Pietro and Mystique *do* have guilt over Todd's death in common, but they're still just uneasy allies at the moment, not true friends or anything. Mystique wants to make things right again with him (reasons for which shall be explained forthwith), but Pietro tolerates her because of Kurt, primarily. But Pietro and Mystique as parents? That's... more than a little disturbing. And far too much mental imagery I really didn't need. Ugh.
Leading on from that, Mike; no, Kurt's not gay. He and Pietro are pseudo-brothers thanks to his sense of family and Pietro's need for comfort and an ally. I think this was explained a few chapters back when Pietro was talking to Kitty...
Makura Koneko; yup, Rogue certainly got thrown in the shallow end of the dream pool (and on that note, I shall now say that I should never watch Disney movies while drinking caffeine, as it indelibly imprints random lines on my poor misused brain). But if you think she had it bad, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. As to whether there will be any other genres included here... angst *does* seem to wheedle its way into a lot of it, but there are happier scenes. Plus, this is me we're talking about. You know there's going to be chunks of fighting and action in there, too.
Many thanks to anybody and everybody else who read, and especially to those who reviewed. It's so nice to know that people are actually reading this stuph, and I'm not just talking to myself a propos Real Life. Anybody asks me anything in a review; I'll do my best to address it here from now on. So, thank yous go to Yma (self promotion, much? ^_^), Sorrow Rain, Ambrosia, mike, Makura Koneko and Unknown Source. You people are the cooling fan on which I rely during this sodding heatwave. Danke Schon. I salute you and make up for lack-of-updates by posting two chapters today... provided my computer plays ball, of course.
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Tenth Fragment ~ 'Away'
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Trader Dan was a clever man. Sometimes, he marvelled in his own genius. He didn't trade in pots and pans or foodstuffs like the other traders. He traded people.
People *always* needed other people, and there were just some folks that couldn't stand to live with others.
In a time of crisis, he'd made himself an *industry*.
First, he took in a bunch of girls and made a harem. Some were even experienced in that line of work. Heck, he even ran a halfway decent bawdyhouse in Trader Town. When a girl got pregnant, she moved to his ranch, where an experienced physician friend of his and other pregnant ladies would take care of her. She, in turn, would help take care of the pre-existing babies and other Moms-in-waiting for the rest of her term, plus a six-month 'rest' while she got back into shape.
Any muties in the bunch would be carefully schooled up according to their abilities. A very clever man had devised a test for the X-gene that also gave the tester an idea of the testee's powers. And that was Trader Dan's best secret. He could take a mutie and teach 'em all about themselves before even *they* had an idea of what they could do. And when the power manifested, they were calm about it, sometimes even gleeful, and always, *always* in control.
The norms were useful, too. They learned how to garden, cook, clean, read, write, do math, scavenge, sew, and tell stories. Girl children were automatically worth more than the boys.
But muties were more valuable than anything.
Sure, there was anti-mutant hatred going around, but Trader Dan was an expert in advertising. He sold Trader Town - and its subsequent customers - the idea of using muties for the benefit of mankind. And hell, the idea of slavery caught on if nothing else did.
He tended to keep some of the more beautifully exotic for the bawdyhouse, and they almost *always* bred mutie babies for his ranch. And, thanks to his army of scavengers-in-training, he never had to want for clothing or food. And he always had plenty of things he could sell.
Today it was Ariel, the water wizard. Trader Dan was loath to let the boy leave, but he had a baby sister now, with similar looks, and an identical indicator on her X-gene for an affinity with water, so he'd duly tattooed the boy and told him about the Big Wide World.
Someone like Ariel was going to bring in the wealth. Some out there would sell their own soul for a creature that could draw clean water from dirty water. Hell, Ariel was so efficient, he could take water out of cured concrete[1]. That was damn valuable. So too were the baby chickens and kittens the ranch produced, but Trader Dan had found it was much more profitable to only carry one high-ticket item at a time.
Ariel was properly clothed in garments he'd found himself from the wreck of the city. It was an interesting mix and showcased his ability to improvise. It also showcased his sewing, since some of the clothes had been artfully repaired.
Ariel wore a zip-up turtleneck to cover and protect his gills, as well as keep himself warm. The tag of the zipper had been lost to some mishap, and replaced with a pull-tab from a tin can. His pants were serviceable denim, patched at the knee where their previous owner had ripped them, and his shoes were mismatched. One old army boot on the left, and a Doc Martin on the right. But that wasn't the real genius. The *real* genius was taking an ordinary backpack and turning it into a holdall-vest. He kept his tools in there, along with anything edible he scavenged, and maintained a different pocket for each need.
Ariel was one talented kid. And Trader Dan hated to see him go, but there was a textile mill he had his eye on and certain things were needed in order to obtain it.
Ariel touched his left cheek.
"Don't bother it, son, it needs to bide a while."
"But it itches, Trader Dan."
"Of course it itches. You're healing. Let it bide or you'll blur it."
Ariel's fingers flexed. In a minute, they'd be back up there.
"Do some knitting," suggested Trader Dan. "Sweeten the deal with a show of your skills, eh?"
"OK, Trader Dan." Ariel opened the big front pocket and took out some needles and yarn, and began to cast on. Busy fingers were useful fingers, and if anyone asked where he got the wool, he was smart enough to say he'd found it.
Trader Dan's secret supply of sheep was going to remain just that. *Secret*.
The horse, on the other hand, was hard to hide, but as far as Trader Town knew, he only had just the one. If they knew he'd been holding out on them there'd be a *riot*. Still, a horse was a useful thing to have when you traded as much as Trader Dan did; and one horse looked pretty much like another when you had a ready supply of black dye.
The steady beat of the horse's hooves and the rattle of trade-items in the cart filled many a long hour in Trader Dan's life. As did the bang of the auction hammer.
Ariel's tattoo, for the record, was a barcode. A reminder of times past when everything bought and sold had a barcode on it. Dan's mark was the same for everything he sold. An ASCII D.
Trader Dan was here.
*******************
The Big Wide World was dark, much unlike Trader Dan's ranch. There were no plants, like the dead city, and the odd ruined building. Ariel's eyes skipped over abandoned items by the trail as his needles clicked busily.
"So much trade," he whispered.
"Folks abandoned a lot of things to the plague," said Trader Dan. "Some folks still won't touch 'em in case they could make 'em sick."
"But the plague's gone," said Ariel. "They killed it, and half of nearly everything else."
"Yupyup," said Trader Dan. "Some folks are just silly like that. Take the whole mutant thing. Some folks just hate 'em for no real good reason, not knowing that muties can be twice as useful as ordinary folk."
Ariel smiled. That was him. Of course, he *could* extract the water from a *person* and kill them in a second, but he didn't. People were needed, because they had to rebuild.
Trader Town began to rise above the horizon. A cobbled-together mess of buildings made from whatever the first traders could salvage. Well away from any cities and the types who preferred to live in them. Trader Town hired a lot of people to stop the gangs of scavengers and hunters from raiding or ruining it.
Ariel had been in there exactly once before, when they needed extra hands to unload the bounty of chickens, kittens and food plantlings a few years ago. Someone had tried to run off with him, but he'd bought the man down and run for the safety of Trader Dan's cart.
Now someone was going to buy him. Properly and legally, he'd belong to someone else.
This was it. His big day.
He hoped he'd be worth it.
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"Two layin' hens, a bolt of cloth an' a dog!"
"Three layin' hens an' a cookin' pot!"
"Got me a ten-year-ole girl!"
"Sorry, sir," the auctioneer said, "We don't accept people as trade. The bid stands at three laying hens and a cookpot for this fine brood sow. Her last litter was an even dozen, and all piglets lived. What am I bid?"
"An apple tree!"
The auctioneer smiled tightly. Those darn Goddess-worshippers. They always had to complicate things.
"Five dogs, two cats an' a sack of clothes!"
"How much in the sack, ma'am?" said the auctioneer.
"Weighs five kilo."
"The bidding stands at five dogs, two cats and five kilo of assorted clothing, with sack. Anything further?"
No hands went up. "SOLD! To the lady with the sack. Thank you ma'am. Our next lot comes from the house of Trader Dan. Step up, my boy. Here we have a *lovely* young mutant, and as with all Trader Dan's finest merchandise, he can fend for himself. You might be wondering what, aside from these beautiful golden scales and appealing bronze hair, makes this boy so much more special than any other? Well, lad? What do you do?"
"I manipulate water, sir," said Lot 47. "If someone could give me some dirtwater and a clean pot for a demonstration?"
Everyone had some unclean water they took to the Purifiers. Sack Lady had an old cooler bottle full of greenish-brown liquid. The auctioneer offered the plastic drum he usually used for smaller items.
Lot 47 held his hand over the dirtwater, which danced and swirled underneath. Then it leaped up into a ball of clear liquid, suspended above the other hand. Finally, the ball poured itself into the plastic drum, and all that was left in Sack Lady's cooler jug was dust.
Lot 47 was only breathing a little hard.
"A piglet!"
"Two piglets!"
"A breedin' sow! An' she's pregnant!"
"That water, ten kilo of biomass, an' a mama cat!" said Sack Lady.
"Two apple trees!"
The audience gasped, facing the Devoted One in their midst. Two apple trees was a hard offer to beat.
A fellow holding his left arm spoke up. "Three full bolts of cloth, four lady pigs, just full-grown, an' *five* cats - yearlings."
Another gasp. Five yearling cats meant a fortune down the road. Ditto the female pigs.
The Devoted One hung his head.
The auctioneer hadn't even reached for his gavel, yet. He did so, now. "The bidding stands at three bolts of cloth, four unbred sows, and five yearling cats. Any further bids?"
Silence. They were all staring at the man holding his arm.
"SOLD! To the gentleman in the overalls."
It was the highest anyone had bid for *anything*in a long time.
*******************
"Yew gotta name?"
"Ariel."
"Mph," said the man, and rubbed his arm. "Follow, boy."
Ariel followed. "What am I to call you, sir?"
"Yew don't call me nuthin'. I'm what'cha call an inter-mediary."
"Intermediary," said Ariel.
"Yup. I make my purchases an' sell 'em on to others. Got me a widespread empire." He winced. "Jesus, that's a bad one." He bought out a tiny bottle and shook out an equally tiny pill, which he put under his tongue. "I only breed pigs. Got no other use for 'em. Too much fat. Can't have fat no more. Bad heart. But there's plenty that's glad to have a pig. An' plenty more that'll pay other things for a boy with your talents."
He led Ariel to a battered pickup, opened the door, and gestured for him to step up.
Ariel did. "So who *do* I belong to?"
"There's a gang in a city as needs water. They got everything else to keep 'em, but they have trouble with water. I might get a girl or two for you. And with a girl, you get *anything*."
"Oh."
The truck spluttered into life and lurched down the road.
Ariel took in everything he could. "Does this gang like muties?"
"Boy, after you show 'em what you can do they'll *love* you. Critter like you'll change their minds like a shot."
Ariel took out his knitting. He got ten rows done before the intermediary spoke again.
"Oh yeah. They'll love ya." He winced again. "Goddamn it." The truck slowed down.
"Are we there?"
"Nh... Naw. Need t' stop." He was holding his left arm again. "You get out and wait in th' park for me. I'll be out when I'm better."
Ariel nodded once and walked out to the park that they'd stopped by. There was a set of swings. He sat, idly pushing himself back and forth between a sign that read, _Die, mutant scum!_ and a less permanent, _The Goddess loves us all_ in the dirt. Someone had shot the writer and left the corpse to tan in the sun. There was no sign of the Devoted One's plant cart.
Ariel drew a small ball of water from a puddle and played with it, waiting.
Sooner or later, something would happen.
He would wait for it.
*******************
In his truck, the intermediary gasped his last breaths. _Jesus, God,_ he thought, _Let that kid have the motherborn sense to run while he can. Or let him find someone who'll care for him... Those fuckers'll kill him without me t' speak for 'im... Please, God. Please, Baby Jesus... pl--_
And his chest felt like it was imploding, and he died.
*******************
The trader was a long time coming. Ariel bounced the water-ball off his knee, spun it on his finger, then licked it out of the air. He swallowed it and took up his knitting again.
The road was deserted and silent, save for the steady hum of the truck's engine. It was hot, and Ariel had a tendency to dry out. Gills would do that to a person. He closed his eyes and sensed for available water.
There was quite a bit in the Devoted One, but the young mutant didn't like to steal from bodies, alive or otherwise.
Another source drew his attention. It was in the truck. Water jugs? Ariel concentrated on the shape of the water.
"Gah!" His eyes flew open, and he toppled backwards off the swing. The water was the trader's body, and it was slumped across the dashboard.
He scrambled up and raced to the truck, leaping halfway through the passenger's window and pressing his fingers against the man's neck.
Warm, but no pulse.
Ariel was washed with horrible feelings completely separate from the stabbing pain in his midriff. All his training deserted him at that moment, and he simply stared.
Then he panicked. Surely a stray mutant would be arrested, or worse. He crawled through the window and tried to stuff everything, from scraps of paper to a ten-pound sack of potatoes, into his pockets. His mind took another desperate turn, and he quit that endeavour, trying instead to hide the body. Unfortunately, he was twelve years old, and the trader was nearly six feet.
Abandoning the man facedown in the dust, Ariel ran back the way they had come, thought better of it, and turned around.
That put him facing south, though his scrambled brains wouldn't notice that until later.
Run run run run run run run run run. Ariel turned a corner at random and ran again. He'd be blamed for the death of the trader, this he knew in his soul. And there were people who didn't see muties as useful. They saw them as targets.
He turned another corner. And another, and barrelled smack into a wall. He spent a few futile minutes trying to scrabble up its sheer surface and then crumpled to a halt. It was as if the smack had shaken his sense loose again, and he paused, swaying.
_Think. Think. Trader Dan taught you lots of things. *Use* them._ Drawing a deep breath, Ariel extended his senses. Water. Yes. There was water here. A filthy toilet, trickling and dribbling.
He sought it out, purifying it as fast as he could drink. When at last, he was fully hydrated again, he found a clean place in the light to sit and think and knit. Knitting always helped him to think better.
He could eke out an existence on his own if needs be, scavenging for what he needed. But what he *really* needed to do was get ahead. And the people who got ahead traded.
All he had to trade was himself, and his abilities.
With that thought in mind, Ariel went looking for a backpack or barrow, and lots of clean containers. He was, after all, a mutant. And a mutant, kid or no, had a lot more to hand to help him survive than a normal human.
*******************
Seer tapped at the door and waited. There was no reply, and he hesitantly tapped again. No answer.
Sighing to himself, the mutant turned to descend the front steps, but a reedy voice called him back.
"Come in."
He pushed open the door and peeked through. "Goddess?"
A grunt, and the figure in the wheelchair shrugged her thin shoulders. Seer went gratefully in and shut the door behind him.
"Yes, Seer?"
He chewed his lip and wrung his hands a little before answering. "Goddess, I have something to tell you."
"Then come to where I can see you," she replied, gesturing.
Seer pipped and slunk to face the dark-skinned woman, penitence written across his features. "Goddess, I...." he rocked backwards on the balls of his feet, wondering how best to phrase this.
Ororo gazed up at him blankly. "You had another vision, didn't you?" There was no emotion to her voice, since she was so weak it was a mere whisper. Yet a curious light danced in her eyes. "When?"
"Last night, not a few hours ago," he answered, pointing out of the window at the rapidly rising sun. "I came to tell you first. Nobody else knows yet, not even my roommates."
Ororo surveyed the gawky youth. Seer was the only other mutant in the Lands of New Hope, and the single other person who accepted that she wasn't a true deity. She got the feeling that everyone else *understood* she was really just a mortal like them, but somehow it was a notion they preferred not to sit with. Thus her elevated status. Seer called her Goddess sometimes because all the others did, but he knew it wasn't really true; and in days gone by she'd had long conversations with him about Mutantkind and other things that only he and she could talk about.
His appearance was more than a little odd, which had led to the continued nickname of 'strange one' amongst some people, but he was a normal as they in all other aspects. They respected him almost as much as their Goddess *because* of his strangeness and abilities, but it was she they truly worshipped, and no other.
Ororo took her hand from her forehead and regarded the teenager. She wagered he was about seventeen, if a little older, but couldn't verify it. Neither could he. The dunk in the river that had brought him here had also stolen his memory, along with his name and identity. He'd assumed the codename 'Seer' when she explained to him about where she came from and what she used to be, and refused to be known as anything but that. He'd carved himself a new place with her and her followers, and was content in the fact that he could care for her where others feared to tread.
"It's probably best," Ororo said, shifting in her seat. "What form did it take this time? Visual? Aural - "
"Aural," he put in. "Words again. I can remember them all, clear as day, too."
"Can you repeat them for me? Maybe we can piece together what it means."
Seer leaned back on his haunches and contemplated for a moment, recalling every exact detail about the vision that had struck him in slumber, lest it be important. His digigrade legs sagged a little, and he swished his long, powerful tail to maintain balance, expertly avoiding all the meagre possessions dotted about. He'd stood in this spot too many times now to be so clumsy.
Clearing his throat, the leathery-skinned mutant said aloud;
"Come not to rest on tainted black,
Press on, press on O' wanderers bleak.
Sadness and gloom prey at your back,
Yet tarry forth to what you seek.
Find one who drinks of air and stone,
And one who beats no more,
Upon his road, his feet have stilled,
In lands of unkempt law.
Take heed of one with hair of pale,
His anger grieves souls gone;
His actions shall bring sorrow more,
'Ere old wounds heal anon.
Beware of friend and foe alike,
Press on with hands of blade,
Keep children close, be on your way,
Else goodbye shall be bade.
Great bravery you all have shown,
We ask a little more,
Press on, my friends, and do not stop,
Until the distant shore."
He stopped, and scuffed his claws.
Ororo blinked. "Is that it?"
"That's it."
"It doesn't make much sense, does it?"
Seer smiled a toothy grin. "You noticed too, huh? I can't make head nor tail of it. Just like the others. But this one's a *lot* longer."
"Indeed." Ororo stroked her chin. The other visions had all been brief, and the zealots had latched onto them almost immediately, scribing them down in the 'Goddess' Texts' and carrying them around whenever they left the Lands. No doubt they were spreading those bits and pieces of gobbledegook all around the lands they'd been sent at this very moment. And yet.....
_And yet, he was right about Scott and Jean. Right down to the letter,_ she remembered, thinking about the scraps of vision that had portrayed the two X-Men's deaths so accurately. _She who heard all now is deaf, her wisdom echoes forever; and, peaceful warrior sees all in blood unshed, sleeps alone in city of black men. He even saw them, red hair, eye-lasers, everything._
Seer had never met either Jean or Scott, and Ororo had been convinced after a while that his visions pointed to something else. Referred to other things that none of them could properly understand.
The gargoyle-like mutant stood with hands clasped behind his back. He looked... guilty somehow.
"There's something else, isn't there?"
"Might be," he responded, tugging on his left ear as he always did when he was nervous. "But I don't really remember it properly, so it might be just a normal dream, not a vision at all."
"Tell me anyway. It might be important."
Seer sighed, and said; "Man who drove world apart, reunites in uneasy peace."
"Man who..." Ororo frowned. "It doesn't fit with the rest of it, I'll give you that. What does it mean, I wonder?"
"You don't know either, huh?" Seer's tail drooped a little, and his wings made a curious rustling sound as he readjusted the thick, leathery skin. "Sometimes I wonder if Im just mad, and these visions don't mean a thing at all."
"You're not mad," Ororo said steadily. She'd seen mad folk, both the gibbering kind who's thrown themselves off bridges after the plague, and the quiet, unassuming sort who didn't even know they were insane until someone told them. She shivered inadvertently.
"Cold?" He reached forward to tuck in the blanket one of the zealots had scrounged up before he left. It was patchwork, and obviously had been lovingly made by someone.
She swatted him away. "I'm fine, just..." she sighed, "Just confused, is all. I'm convinced your visions *mean* something, Seer. I simply don't know *what* exactly. Could they be a prophecy? A portent of things to come?"
"Could be," he said, thinking. "I was right about Gwennie's seedlings flowering when they did, and that Theodore's hoe would break - "
"While he was leaning on it, I know," Ororo inserted. "That's why I'm worried. You know some of your visions haven't been exactly... pleasant. I'm just a bit anxious that they might mean something for one of our order."
"You mean the visual one last week, don't you?" Seer said grimly, remembering. A sheet of flames as tall as the eye could see, and screaming somewhere within. A small figure bounding through on all fours, retching and called endlessly. A splash of water, and the screaming ended. Then a gunshot, and a makeshift cross of bleached bones tied with twine.
"Yes," the weather witch coughed, and raised her hand to her mouth.
"Are you OK?" Seer moved closer to her again, but she glared at him.
"I'm fine," she hacked, though her frame juddered with every cough. "Just fine. We'll have to consider this problem later, Seer. It's morning light. I have work to attend to." Already the morning chorus was chanting outside, ready to come fetch her for her duties with the flourishing plants.
The ridges above Seer's slitted yellow eyes raised, since he had no eyebrows to knit. "You know, this can't go on. You work yourself too hard."
"I know," Ororo snapped, perhaps a little more waspishly than she meant to. "But I have to! Those plants *need* me, and I'm not going to let them down while there's still breath in my body. Too many people rely on that greenery for me to put myself first."
Seer cringed, dipping the claws that marked the centre of his wings. The amber leather that was his face darkened a little under a blush, and he turned to go. "They rely on you just as much. I'll let myself out on the roof and go patrol. There were strangers with knives on the fringes yesterday. They left, but it's probably best to make sure they've stayed away."
Ororo sighed as he left through the back door, and heard his claws digging into the brickwork on the other side of the wall as he clambered his way up to the eaves of the old abandoned house.
"Goddess! Goddess, a new dawn awaits!" called another voice from the front door.
Just a few more days of this. She could stand a few more days.
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To Be Continued...
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[1] True stuph. If there were concrete on the moon, astronauts would be mining it for the water. *That's* how dry it is, up there.
Ambrosia; Okay, I'll answer you first, since you asked the most questions. Hmm, why do I update so slowly? Well, basically because my computer and I fight. A lot. We have a longstanding contention that means sometimes it won't let me onto the Internet, and - more often - when it *does* give me access it flatly refuses to let me access sites I want. FF.net is its favourite. It enjoys torturing me. The reason for the length of time between Fragments 9 and 10, however, is because I've been holidaying in Belgium; which also involved being bitten to ribbons by mosquitoes and coming home with Measles. Do I know how to have a good time or what?
Pertaining to other Evo characters, several *do* make appearances, but I'm not telling which, because... well... that would sort of defeat the object of your collective continued reading, wouldn't it? Magneto really was just the creepy quasi-villain who liked playing with paperclips at the ToT (time of tangent), so the whole freeing Pietro from his cell never happened. Pietro ended up in Bayville because Ororo came to fetch Evan so as to keep him safe from gangs at the Institute (talk about good intentions turning out bad!) and Pietro followed them just to spite him. He never met Magneto. As in, at all.
Pietro and Mystique *do* have guilt over Todd's death in common, but they're still just uneasy allies at the moment, not true friends or anything. Mystique wants to make things right again with him (reasons for which shall be explained forthwith), but Pietro tolerates her because of Kurt, primarily. But Pietro and Mystique as parents? That's... more than a little disturbing. And far too much mental imagery I really didn't need. Ugh.
Leading on from that, Mike; no, Kurt's not gay. He and Pietro are pseudo-brothers thanks to his sense of family and Pietro's need for comfort and an ally. I think this was explained a few chapters back when Pietro was talking to Kitty...
Makura Koneko; yup, Rogue certainly got thrown in the shallow end of the dream pool (and on that note, I shall now say that I should never watch Disney movies while drinking caffeine, as it indelibly imprints random lines on my poor misused brain). But if you think she had it bad, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. As to whether there will be any other genres included here... angst *does* seem to wheedle its way into a lot of it, but there are happier scenes. Plus, this is me we're talking about. You know there's going to be chunks of fighting and action in there, too.
Many thanks to anybody and everybody else who read, and especially to those who reviewed. It's so nice to know that people are actually reading this stuph, and I'm not just talking to myself a propos Real Life. Anybody asks me anything in a review; I'll do my best to address it here from now on. So, thank yous go to Yma (self promotion, much? ^_^), Sorrow Rain, Ambrosia, mike, Makura Koneko and Unknown Source. You people are the cooling fan on which I rely during this sodding heatwave. Danke Schon. I salute you and make up for lack-of-updates by posting two chapters today... provided my computer plays ball, of course.
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Tenth Fragment ~ 'Away'
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Trader Dan was a clever man. Sometimes, he marvelled in his own genius. He didn't trade in pots and pans or foodstuffs like the other traders. He traded people.
People *always* needed other people, and there were just some folks that couldn't stand to live with others.
In a time of crisis, he'd made himself an *industry*.
First, he took in a bunch of girls and made a harem. Some were even experienced in that line of work. Heck, he even ran a halfway decent bawdyhouse in Trader Town. When a girl got pregnant, she moved to his ranch, where an experienced physician friend of his and other pregnant ladies would take care of her. She, in turn, would help take care of the pre-existing babies and other Moms-in-waiting for the rest of her term, plus a six-month 'rest' while she got back into shape.
Any muties in the bunch would be carefully schooled up according to their abilities. A very clever man had devised a test for the X-gene that also gave the tester an idea of the testee's powers. And that was Trader Dan's best secret. He could take a mutie and teach 'em all about themselves before even *they* had an idea of what they could do. And when the power manifested, they were calm about it, sometimes even gleeful, and always, *always* in control.
The norms were useful, too. They learned how to garden, cook, clean, read, write, do math, scavenge, sew, and tell stories. Girl children were automatically worth more than the boys.
But muties were more valuable than anything.
Sure, there was anti-mutant hatred going around, but Trader Dan was an expert in advertising. He sold Trader Town - and its subsequent customers - the idea of using muties for the benefit of mankind. And hell, the idea of slavery caught on if nothing else did.
He tended to keep some of the more beautifully exotic for the bawdyhouse, and they almost *always* bred mutie babies for his ranch. And, thanks to his army of scavengers-in-training, he never had to want for clothing or food. And he always had plenty of things he could sell.
Today it was Ariel, the water wizard. Trader Dan was loath to let the boy leave, but he had a baby sister now, with similar looks, and an identical indicator on her X-gene for an affinity with water, so he'd duly tattooed the boy and told him about the Big Wide World.
Someone like Ariel was going to bring in the wealth. Some out there would sell their own soul for a creature that could draw clean water from dirty water. Hell, Ariel was so efficient, he could take water out of cured concrete[1]. That was damn valuable. So too were the baby chickens and kittens the ranch produced, but Trader Dan had found it was much more profitable to only carry one high-ticket item at a time.
Ariel was properly clothed in garments he'd found himself from the wreck of the city. It was an interesting mix and showcased his ability to improvise. It also showcased his sewing, since some of the clothes had been artfully repaired.
Ariel wore a zip-up turtleneck to cover and protect his gills, as well as keep himself warm. The tag of the zipper had been lost to some mishap, and replaced with a pull-tab from a tin can. His pants were serviceable denim, patched at the knee where their previous owner had ripped them, and his shoes were mismatched. One old army boot on the left, and a Doc Martin on the right. But that wasn't the real genius. The *real* genius was taking an ordinary backpack and turning it into a holdall-vest. He kept his tools in there, along with anything edible he scavenged, and maintained a different pocket for each need.
Ariel was one talented kid. And Trader Dan hated to see him go, but there was a textile mill he had his eye on and certain things were needed in order to obtain it.
Ariel touched his left cheek.
"Don't bother it, son, it needs to bide a while."
"But it itches, Trader Dan."
"Of course it itches. You're healing. Let it bide or you'll blur it."
Ariel's fingers flexed. In a minute, they'd be back up there.
"Do some knitting," suggested Trader Dan. "Sweeten the deal with a show of your skills, eh?"
"OK, Trader Dan." Ariel opened the big front pocket and took out some needles and yarn, and began to cast on. Busy fingers were useful fingers, and if anyone asked where he got the wool, he was smart enough to say he'd found it.
Trader Dan's secret supply of sheep was going to remain just that. *Secret*.
The horse, on the other hand, was hard to hide, but as far as Trader Town knew, he only had just the one. If they knew he'd been holding out on them there'd be a *riot*. Still, a horse was a useful thing to have when you traded as much as Trader Dan did; and one horse looked pretty much like another when you had a ready supply of black dye.
The steady beat of the horse's hooves and the rattle of trade-items in the cart filled many a long hour in Trader Dan's life. As did the bang of the auction hammer.
Ariel's tattoo, for the record, was a barcode. A reminder of times past when everything bought and sold had a barcode on it. Dan's mark was the same for everything he sold. An ASCII D.
Trader Dan was here.
*******************
The Big Wide World was dark, much unlike Trader Dan's ranch. There were no plants, like the dead city, and the odd ruined building. Ariel's eyes skipped over abandoned items by the trail as his needles clicked busily.
"So much trade," he whispered.
"Folks abandoned a lot of things to the plague," said Trader Dan. "Some folks still won't touch 'em in case they could make 'em sick."
"But the plague's gone," said Ariel. "They killed it, and half of nearly everything else."
"Yupyup," said Trader Dan. "Some folks are just silly like that. Take the whole mutant thing. Some folks just hate 'em for no real good reason, not knowing that muties can be twice as useful as ordinary folk."
Ariel smiled. That was him. Of course, he *could* extract the water from a *person* and kill them in a second, but he didn't. People were needed, because they had to rebuild.
Trader Town began to rise above the horizon. A cobbled-together mess of buildings made from whatever the first traders could salvage. Well away from any cities and the types who preferred to live in them. Trader Town hired a lot of people to stop the gangs of scavengers and hunters from raiding or ruining it.
Ariel had been in there exactly once before, when they needed extra hands to unload the bounty of chickens, kittens and food plantlings a few years ago. Someone had tried to run off with him, but he'd bought the man down and run for the safety of Trader Dan's cart.
Now someone was going to buy him. Properly and legally, he'd belong to someone else.
This was it. His big day.
He hoped he'd be worth it.
*******************
"Two layin' hens, a bolt of cloth an' a dog!"
"Three layin' hens an' a cookin' pot!"
"Got me a ten-year-ole girl!"
"Sorry, sir," the auctioneer said, "We don't accept people as trade. The bid stands at three laying hens and a cookpot for this fine brood sow. Her last litter was an even dozen, and all piglets lived. What am I bid?"
"An apple tree!"
The auctioneer smiled tightly. Those darn Goddess-worshippers. They always had to complicate things.
"Five dogs, two cats an' a sack of clothes!"
"How much in the sack, ma'am?" said the auctioneer.
"Weighs five kilo."
"The bidding stands at five dogs, two cats and five kilo of assorted clothing, with sack. Anything further?"
No hands went up. "SOLD! To the lady with the sack. Thank you ma'am. Our next lot comes from the house of Trader Dan. Step up, my boy. Here we have a *lovely* young mutant, and as with all Trader Dan's finest merchandise, he can fend for himself. You might be wondering what, aside from these beautiful golden scales and appealing bronze hair, makes this boy so much more special than any other? Well, lad? What do you do?"
"I manipulate water, sir," said Lot 47. "If someone could give me some dirtwater and a clean pot for a demonstration?"
Everyone had some unclean water they took to the Purifiers. Sack Lady had an old cooler bottle full of greenish-brown liquid. The auctioneer offered the plastic drum he usually used for smaller items.
Lot 47 held his hand over the dirtwater, which danced and swirled underneath. Then it leaped up into a ball of clear liquid, suspended above the other hand. Finally, the ball poured itself into the plastic drum, and all that was left in Sack Lady's cooler jug was dust.
Lot 47 was only breathing a little hard.
"A piglet!"
"Two piglets!"
"A breedin' sow! An' she's pregnant!"
"That water, ten kilo of biomass, an' a mama cat!" said Sack Lady.
"Two apple trees!"
The audience gasped, facing the Devoted One in their midst. Two apple trees was a hard offer to beat.
A fellow holding his left arm spoke up. "Three full bolts of cloth, four lady pigs, just full-grown, an' *five* cats - yearlings."
Another gasp. Five yearling cats meant a fortune down the road. Ditto the female pigs.
The Devoted One hung his head.
The auctioneer hadn't even reached for his gavel, yet. He did so, now. "The bidding stands at three bolts of cloth, four unbred sows, and five yearling cats. Any further bids?"
Silence. They were all staring at the man holding his arm.
"SOLD! To the gentleman in the overalls."
It was the highest anyone had bid for *anything*in a long time.
*******************
"Yew gotta name?"
"Ariel."
"Mph," said the man, and rubbed his arm. "Follow, boy."
Ariel followed. "What am I to call you, sir?"
"Yew don't call me nuthin'. I'm what'cha call an inter-mediary."
"Intermediary," said Ariel.
"Yup. I make my purchases an' sell 'em on to others. Got me a widespread empire." He winced. "Jesus, that's a bad one." He bought out a tiny bottle and shook out an equally tiny pill, which he put under his tongue. "I only breed pigs. Got no other use for 'em. Too much fat. Can't have fat no more. Bad heart. But there's plenty that's glad to have a pig. An' plenty more that'll pay other things for a boy with your talents."
He led Ariel to a battered pickup, opened the door, and gestured for him to step up.
Ariel did. "So who *do* I belong to?"
"There's a gang in a city as needs water. They got everything else to keep 'em, but they have trouble with water. I might get a girl or two for you. And with a girl, you get *anything*."
"Oh."
The truck spluttered into life and lurched down the road.
Ariel took in everything he could. "Does this gang like muties?"
"Boy, after you show 'em what you can do they'll *love* you. Critter like you'll change their minds like a shot."
Ariel took out his knitting. He got ten rows done before the intermediary spoke again.
"Oh yeah. They'll love ya." He winced again. "Goddamn it." The truck slowed down.
"Are we there?"
"Nh... Naw. Need t' stop." He was holding his left arm again. "You get out and wait in th' park for me. I'll be out when I'm better."
Ariel nodded once and walked out to the park that they'd stopped by. There was a set of swings. He sat, idly pushing himself back and forth between a sign that read, _Die, mutant scum!_ and a less permanent, _The Goddess loves us all_ in the dirt. Someone had shot the writer and left the corpse to tan in the sun. There was no sign of the Devoted One's plant cart.
Ariel drew a small ball of water from a puddle and played with it, waiting.
Sooner or later, something would happen.
He would wait for it.
*******************
In his truck, the intermediary gasped his last breaths. _Jesus, God,_ he thought, _Let that kid have the motherborn sense to run while he can. Or let him find someone who'll care for him... Those fuckers'll kill him without me t' speak for 'im... Please, God. Please, Baby Jesus... pl--_
And his chest felt like it was imploding, and he died.
*******************
The trader was a long time coming. Ariel bounced the water-ball off his knee, spun it on his finger, then licked it out of the air. He swallowed it and took up his knitting again.
The road was deserted and silent, save for the steady hum of the truck's engine. It was hot, and Ariel had a tendency to dry out. Gills would do that to a person. He closed his eyes and sensed for available water.
There was quite a bit in the Devoted One, but the young mutant didn't like to steal from bodies, alive or otherwise.
Another source drew his attention. It was in the truck. Water jugs? Ariel concentrated on the shape of the water.
"Gah!" His eyes flew open, and he toppled backwards off the swing. The water was the trader's body, and it was slumped across the dashboard.
He scrambled up and raced to the truck, leaping halfway through the passenger's window and pressing his fingers against the man's neck.
Warm, but no pulse.
Ariel was washed with horrible feelings completely separate from the stabbing pain in his midriff. All his training deserted him at that moment, and he simply stared.
Then he panicked. Surely a stray mutant would be arrested, or worse. He crawled through the window and tried to stuff everything, from scraps of paper to a ten-pound sack of potatoes, into his pockets. His mind took another desperate turn, and he quit that endeavour, trying instead to hide the body. Unfortunately, he was twelve years old, and the trader was nearly six feet.
Abandoning the man facedown in the dust, Ariel ran back the way they had come, thought better of it, and turned around.
That put him facing south, though his scrambled brains wouldn't notice that until later.
Run run run run run run run run run. Ariel turned a corner at random and ran again. He'd be blamed for the death of the trader, this he knew in his soul. And there were people who didn't see muties as useful. They saw them as targets.
He turned another corner. And another, and barrelled smack into a wall. He spent a few futile minutes trying to scrabble up its sheer surface and then crumpled to a halt. It was as if the smack had shaken his sense loose again, and he paused, swaying.
_Think. Think. Trader Dan taught you lots of things. *Use* them._ Drawing a deep breath, Ariel extended his senses. Water. Yes. There was water here. A filthy toilet, trickling and dribbling.
He sought it out, purifying it as fast as he could drink. When at last, he was fully hydrated again, he found a clean place in the light to sit and think and knit. Knitting always helped him to think better.
He could eke out an existence on his own if needs be, scavenging for what he needed. But what he *really* needed to do was get ahead. And the people who got ahead traded.
All he had to trade was himself, and his abilities.
With that thought in mind, Ariel went looking for a backpack or barrow, and lots of clean containers. He was, after all, a mutant. And a mutant, kid or no, had a lot more to hand to help him survive than a normal human.
*******************
Seer tapped at the door and waited. There was no reply, and he hesitantly tapped again. No answer.
Sighing to himself, the mutant turned to descend the front steps, but a reedy voice called him back.
"Come in."
He pushed open the door and peeked through. "Goddess?"
A grunt, and the figure in the wheelchair shrugged her thin shoulders. Seer went gratefully in and shut the door behind him.
"Yes, Seer?"
He chewed his lip and wrung his hands a little before answering. "Goddess, I have something to tell you."
"Then come to where I can see you," she replied, gesturing.
Seer pipped and slunk to face the dark-skinned woman, penitence written across his features. "Goddess, I...." he rocked backwards on the balls of his feet, wondering how best to phrase this.
Ororo gazed up at him blankly. "You had another vision, didn't you?" There was no emotion to her voice, since she was so weak it was a mere whisper. Yet a curious light danced in her eyes. "When?"
"Last night, not a few hours ago," he answered, pointing out of the window at the rapidly rising sun. "I came to tell you first. Nobody else knows yet, not even my roommates."
Ororo surveyed the gawky youth. Seer was the only other mutant in the Lands of New Hope, and the single other person who accepted that she wasn't a true deity. She got the feeling that everyone else *understood* she was really just a mortal like them, but somehow it was a notion they preferred not to sit with. Thus her elevated status. Seer called her Goddess sometimes because all the others did, but he knew it wasn't really true; and in days gone by she'd had long conversations with him about Mutantkind and other things that only he and she could talk about.
His appearance was more than a little odd, which had led to the continued nickname of 'strange one' amongst some people, but he was a normal as they in all other aspects. They respected him almost as much as their Goddess *because* of his strangeness and abilities, but it was she they truly worshipped, and no other.
Ororo took her hand from her forehead and regarded the teenager. She wagered he was about seventeen, if a little older, but couldn't verify it. Neither could he. The dunk in the river that had brought him here had also stolen his memory, along with his name and identity. He'd assumed the codename 'Seer' when she explained to him about where she came from and what she used to be, and refused to be known as anything but that. He'd carved himself a new place with her and her followers, and was content in the fact that he could care for her where others feared to tread.
"It's probably best," Ororo said, shifting in her seat. "What form did it take this time? Visual? Aural - "
"Aural," he put in. "Words again. I can remember them all, clear as day, too."
"Can you repeat them for me? Maybe we can piece together what it means."
Seer leaned back on his haunches and contemplated for a moment, recalling every exact detail about the vision that had struck him in slumber, lest it be important. His digigrade legs sagged a little, and he swished his long, powerful tail to maintain balance, expertly avoiding all the meagre possessions dotted about. He'd stood in this spot too many times now to be so clumsy.
Clearing his throat, the leathery-skinned mutant said aloud;
"Come not to rest on tainted black,
Press on, press on O' wanderers bleak.
Sadness and gloom prey at your back,
Yet tarry forth to what you seek.
Find one who drinks of air and stone,
And one who beats no more,
Upon his road, his feet have stilled,
In lands of unkempt law.
Take heed of one with hair of pale,
His anger grieves souls gone;
His actions shall bring sorrow more,
'Ere old wounds heal anon.
Beware of friend and foe alike,
Press on with hands of blade,
Keep children close, be on your way,
Else goodbye shall be bade.
Great bravery you all have shown,
We ask a little more,
Press on, my friends, and do not stop,
Until the distant shore."
He stopped, and scuffed his claws.
Ororo blinked. "Is that it?"
"That's it."
"It doesn't make much sense, does it?"
Seer smiled a toothy grin. "You noticed too, huh? I can't make head nor tail of it. Just like the others. But this one's a *lot* longer."
"Indeed." Ororo stroked her chin. The other visions had all been brief, and the zealots had latched onto them almost immediately, scribing them down in the 'Goddess' Texts' and carrying them around whenever they left the Lands. No doubt they were spreading those bits and pieces of gobbledegook all around the lands they'd been sent at this very moment. And yet.....
_And yet, he was right about Scott and Jean. Right down to the letter,_ she remembered, thinking about the scraps of vision that had portrayed the two X-Men's deaths so accurately. _She who heard all now is deaf, her wisdom echoes forever; and, peaceful warrior sees all in blood unshed, sleeps alone in city of black men. He even saw them, red hair, eye-lasers, everything._
Seer had never met either Jean or Scott, and Ororo had been convinced after a while that his visions pointed to something else. Referred to other things that none of them could properly understand.
The gargoyle-like mutant stood with hands clasped behind his back. He looked... guilty somehow.
"There's something else, isn't there?"
"Might be," he responded, tugging on his left ear as he always did when he was nervous. "But I don't really remember it properly, so it might be just a normal dream, not a vision at all."
"Tell me anyway. It might be important."
Seer sighed, and said; "Man who drove world apart, reunites in uneasy peace."
"Man who..." Ororo frowned. "It doesn't fit with the rest of it, I'll give you that. What does it mean, I wonder?"
"You don't know either, huh?" Seer's tail drooped a little, and his wings made a curious rustling sound as he readjusted the thick, leathery skin. "Sometimes I wonder if Im just mad, and these visions don't mean a thing at all."
"You're not mad," Ororo said steadily. She'd seen mad folk, both the gibbering kind who's thrown themselves off bridges after the plague, and the quiet, unassuming sort who didn't even know they were insane until someone told them. She shivered inadvertently.
"Cold?" He reached forward to tuck in the blanket one of the zealots had scrounged up before he left. It was patchwork, and obviously had been lovingly made by someone.
She swatted him away. "I'm fine, just..." she sighed, "Just confused, is all. I'm convinced your visions *mean* something, Seer. I simply don't know *what* exactly. Could they be a prophecy? A portent of things to come?"
"Could be," he said, thinking. "I was right about Gwennie's seedlings flowering when they did, and that Theodore's hoe would break - "
"While he was leaning on it, I know," Ororo inserted. "That's why I'm worried. You know some of your visions haven't been exactly... pleasant. I'm just a bit anxious that they might mean something for one of our order."
"You mean the visual one last week, don't you?" Seer said grimly, remembering. A sheet of flames as tall as the eye could see, and screaming somewhere within. A small figure bounding through on all fours, retching and called endlessly. A splash of water, and the screaming ended. Then a gunshot, and a makeshift cross of bleached bones tied with twine.
"Yes," the weather witch coughed, and raised her hand to her mouth.
"Are you OK?" Seer moved closer to her again, but she glared at him.
"I'm fine," she hacked, though her frame juddered with every cough. "Just fine. We'll have to consider this problem later, Seer. It's morning light. I have work to attend to." Already the morning chorus was chanting outside, ready to come fetch her for her duties with the flourishing plants.
The ridges above Seer's slitted yellow eyes raised, since he had no eyebrows to knit. "You know, this can't go on. You work yourself too hard."
"I know," Ororo snapped, perhaps a little more waspishly than she meant to. "But I have to! Those plants *need* me, and I'm not going to let them down while there's still breath in my body. Too many people rely on that greenery for me to put myself first."
Seer cringed, dipping the claws that marked the centre of his wings. The amber leather that was his face darkened a little under a blush, and he turned to go. "They rely on you just as much. I'll let myself out on the roof and go patrol. There were strangers with knives on the fringes yesterday. They left, but it's probably best to make sure they've stayed away."
Ororo sighed as he left through the back door, and heard his claws digging into the brickwork on the other side of the wall as he clambered his way up to the eaves of the old abandoned house.
"Goddess! Goddess, a new dawn awaits!" called another voice from the front door.
Just a few more days of this. She could stand a few more days.
*******************
To Be Continued...
*******************
[1] True stuph. If there were concrete on the moon, astronauts would be mining it for the water. *That's* how dry it is, up there.