11. Echoes
A/n: Well, I'm back, after 6 months of absence and college. Six months of crazy classes, a whole bunch of new people,, a hockey season and a lack of writing. Now that I'm having a June break (nothing but home and studying to do), I think it's finally my duty to make good on my oath to finish this once and for all, to complete where I first began 2 years ago. I take it that I write in a bit of a weird way, but bear with me 'cause I'm always trying to sound like how it was back when I started. And I'm just trying to show that the TAE page on this site isn't dead and buried. Is anyone else out there?
I part the curtains of the thicket. The heavy, stinging scent of twisted grass blades and fresh water on the leaves catches me for a moment, and dims my eyes to the opening ahead where Iain and I entered. I can scarcely tell how long we spent under the thicket, under the absence of night or day or the how Spike and the other girl fared. Insects speak into my ears; Iain moves silently on all fours from behind, though no sound stirs outside the curved wall of grass and branches to alert us. Finding a current of wind ahead, I creep towards it, one hand on the grass that leans towards me, pulling it open with a noisy rustle.
I crawl onto the ground, the air alive around me. Turning up, starlight bursts onto my face.
In the thick, overgrowth of scrub, I can barely make out the way we came from, much less the fractured iron gate that marks the entrance. Lights, remote and vague, bounce off my eyes to give me enough sight to see the tombstones and their mounds, cratered by looters and mobs. The tombstones, crooked, huddle together as if whispering about our presence; they interrupt the grey outline of the cemetery of unkempt, tall grass with their peeking, sentinel heads.
A crash of grass echoes in the darkness; Iain and I spin around – halting, prepared to charge – the grass creases and cracks – but it is only Spike and the girl that saved us. Their faces still bear the weariness of our earlier sprint.
"Where the hell did you two go?" Spike directs his words at us. "Those aliens were screaming so loud that we thought they'd caught you."
The girl lowers her head.
"And when we heard them digging something we thought they were burying you alive."
"We were hiding," I reply, "in the thicket. Sorry, Spike, we couldn't hear anything."
I turn to the girl, her head still lowered and her hands dangling free at her sides. There is unusual air about her. She seems alien herself, as if this was her first time on soil, breathing the free air. I respect her for the divine recklessness that she saved us with, and the insane calm that most certainly must be hypocritical of her nature. Her presence itself decorates the scrub and tombstones with a sort of spiritual dimness.
I turn to her. "So what's your story?"
She brushes one of her bangs from her eyes, a glance of cream against a streak of maroon. I try not to notice her eyes, which are as almonds, clear and serene with a sparkling gloss. I am sure Iain sees them, much less Spike.
But she speaks with an invisible undertone that hides pain.
"I'm Akima, if you must know, I was actually coming away from a refueling station when I heard the brawl. I'm with another human friend and a ship, which got quite thrashed up since we crashed landed here a few days ago. We're trying to get off Solbrecht," she explains, with a nervous caution.
"If you're trying to, I can help. My brother and do cargo runs every fortnight, you can stay at either of our places for a few more days," Spike offers.
"Sorry – Spike, is it?" she gestures, and he nods. "I've found a way, thanks. A Mantrin friend of mine and myself have a plot going. And it's at somebody's expense, so I can't risk your families for it."
"Who're you ripping off?" I ask, callously.
"Golbus."
A sharp pause comes between us. Now that certainly is risk.
"Are you insane?" Iain cuts in.
Akima gives him an intimate grin of total disregard. I hold back a cringe. "He gave my friend a nasty beating, so this is my version of revenge, I guess."
"They'll be looking for you," I add, "and they won't stop until you're dead."
She ignores the threat. "What I'm seeking is worth dying for anyway."
"And that is?" I ask, skeptically.
"Something that has to do with the Titan Project."
Another pause. I shift from disbelief to awe and back to doubt within those seconds before Akima interrupts: "Look, I'm no adventurer or renegade or anything that humans only have their hope for. I bound to a debt: that being a human."
"You're with the Titan Project?" Spike asks, failing to conceal his admiration.
"Come off it! I'm not," Akima responds. "But my friend's father was, and we need to get off Solbrecht before Golbus or anyone else finds out. That's how I ended up at the station in your city… is there anyone that can help me back to Zechaat?"
"Hardly," Iain tells her. "The magistrate and his officers have some share with that filth of a crime lord. Best way out is the way in."
All of us jump as the scrub rustles – we realise it's only the wind, rushing through the leaves and the grass that darkens our way and slices the light. The stirring leaves sing a soft hymn of evening, as the twilight sky, half-cluttered with stars, reminds me that in spite of everything, I am still myself. As much a human as I am a creature. Akima gives me this questioning look, as the four of us observe a devotional pause while standing around.
"Are there many humans in this city?" she asks.
"About three families, and twenty others who came here by themselves," I say, "there are many more drifters though, and I can tell you, they lead more predictable lives."
"Yes. I suppose they do," she says, very softly.
"Come on, best we get going home, or my Dad will be worried sick, with all the din that mob made."
"And you can stay at my place," I tell Akima, "my Aunt would enjoy having another girl to fuss over."
Iain leads, with Spike casting a swift glance at Akima, and then following. I gesture for Akima to go ahead, but she shakes her head.
"I didn't want to say it in front of them, since I thought it would seem a bit inappropriate," she whispers, "but things have gotten worse in Zechaat if you must know. The humans have fled to the cities around the capital for fear of the mob. I've heard what they do and… it's ones like us who are at the greatest peril when the mob has their way."
I blush scarlet, but Akima doesn't seem to notice.
"You heard me earlier, I'm on a mission, that's got to do with the Titan Project. Everyone will be combing the streets for me; Golbus will want to hunt me down. I'm sorry – but I won't follow you to your home. I can't put you and your family in such peril."
It's my turn to ignore her. "Stop talking bullshit. You're coming."
"If they see me walk in there, they'll burn your house down," she protests.
"And if you walk out there, the mob will tear you to ribbons when they catch you."
"Don't worry about me," she turns away for a second, and the purple locks flail across her eyes, barricading them like bars, as the wind disturbs them. "I'll be safe as long as I can get to the station."
"Sure, and when you fulfill your mission, please come back to Zyjushem so we can be the first to proclaim your glories with heralding honours and songs," I counter her sarcastically. "You're mighty stubborn for a drifter."
"Am I that obvious?" she grins again, moving forward through the grass.
The grass shortens, and with careful alertness Akima and I wander into the field of churned earth and pitted graves unsettled by the mob. Iain and Spike ease their way to the cemetery gate, crumbling and swollen with cracks; the streets are quiet and unnerving. Lights blink from two directions, but only one draws us: the scant light bulb swinging, pendulum-like, in the wind, on the back wall of the Perez household.
"This is where I say farewell then," Akima signals.
"Don't be insane," I admonish her. I try to seize her hand but she evades my grasp. "Maybe if you stop trying to be the hero, so many madmen won't be after you."
"Whatever, but I will remember what you said."
"And that is?"
"I'll remember you, even if I complete what I've got to do," Akima acknowledges. "You keep those two in your good hands, alright?" She waves, and before I can reply, she darts off into the cover of the tall shadows the city's lights cast. I watch her halt, and finally fade away into the darkness of the road beyond. The last glimpse I catch is the light descending down her face, and the jerk of her bangs as the wind rushes past her running.
"Where the heck is she going?" Iain mouths to me. The shock registers well in his face, even in the half-light.
I saunter up to him and a bewildered Spike. "Her business is her burden," I say to them. "And it's her responsibility. Come on, I'm going home before anything else chases is into another thicket."
In time, fragments of Akima's presence echo in the passing weeks. Rumours of a fierce gunfight in Zechaat and a defeated Golbus amassing his syndicates for some kind of war reach Zyjushem; I hear talk, from Rusty, whose state of mind has returned to his reckless composure and whose business is with the big trading firms in the capital. He speaks to us animatedly, swearing that a human pair and some other rebellious creature are responsible for inverting the peaceful chaos of the capital. But, as always, his stories always take on a severe weight. A week after Akima's blending into the shadows near the square, Rusty adds that business is poor. The traders fear the unreliability of human cargo haulers since the riots. Humans are afraid for their homes and livelihoods and lives in the capital. Golbus and his mob have sacked houses in search for accomplices. A mob publicly mutilated a young human girl to warn humans of the consequences of revolt.
And ships off the edge of the system have been intercepted by Drej.
To all these stories Spike, Iain and myself listen with an air of half-curiosity and unsure hope. We rest together with the knowledge, with the secret, that the cause of all this upheaval has safely exited Solbrecht and is on the way to fulfilling her mission. And suddenly we have hope that this mission could succeed. Vanessa notices my slight change in attitude, and jokes about my new interest in traveller gossip that I once spoke of as trash for the uninformed. But Spike and Iain agree with me that we should not tell anyone else about Akima; not even Vanessa or Tamar, much less our parents. While deep inside there is a flicker of hope that we had partaken in something beyond our selves, it remains overcast by a firmament of suspicion and dread at the coming days.
These coming days soon bring the dismay they promise. Another human is arrested, Alvin tells us gravely one morning. They came in at the break of dawn when I was preparing the herbs, and took him away in chains and broke the windows and splashed black paint on his door, he describes it to me and my dramatic parents hours later. The victim was John Gerrer. He was a seldom seen man who worked the sewers behind the neighbourhood. The black paint, like a pentagram of graffiti on his door, has its ominous symbolism: filth of the earth, scum of the wastrel, human, soon to killed. I know this black paint. It means pestilence. It means death.
The days of the invisible Solbrecht winter arrive glossy with blackness.
The previous dry weather turns hostile, with winds scarring the houses, dominating the narrow avenue with its ungainly presence. As the sun masks itself with the clouds and the sunshine eventually distils into sleet and rain, I cannot believe that once again the day of plenty is coming. The mood among the members of the neighbourhood remains entrenched with fear, but a sense of long-awaited elation and festivity threatens to undermine it. Michelle tries to draw attention to the herbs in the garden: rosemary and basil stretching up their stems, withered aniseed and cloves and the occasional chili.
"I see them, I really do," I tell her, "tell Mother, she's the one doing the cooking."
But on that day the aliens subvert our preparations, and they come to take us.
Plucking my guitar softly upstairs, I hear the scour of feet against the slippery, sandy flagstones downstairs. People always walk past my window, and I hardly care. But I hear the feet, a series of steps, made by a group moving fast without concern for the inundated pathway. I rush to the window, heavily confident of what I know I will see. I feel my entire frame numb itself when I pick out the jingle of their clanging chain. From the window I trace their walk; I see five of them, including the bulky Juniraxian, dragging the chain along the flagstones. They pass my door, and I can but only swallow my anxiety into relief. Then my senses numb themselves with self-mistrust at my eyes: the pack of officials halt before Iain's doorstep.
"Oh shit," I utter, realising the shared knowledge Iain and I possess like a wrapped present, never to be opened. And I am running to the door.
But before I can release the lock, Mother seizes me shoulders.
"No… Iris, no!" she mouths, overdramatic with fear. "If they see you out there. They will take you with them ah!"
I wrestle free. "That's Iain they're rounding up," I whisper, "and I'm not going to let them just take him away like that."
In between the pathetic pause that comes between Mother and I, I hear the officials yell out a warning: come out or else.
"But Iris, it is not good to get involved…"
"If somebody helped Uncle Cheng on the colony, would he still be dead now?" I snap, my emotions coaxing a fireplace aflame with uncertain embers. I realise, slowly, the weight of what I have said.
Mother slashes her palm across my face. I reel but my back catches support on the door. The bolt and catch of the door spear into my lower back; I wince.
"Don't YOU DARE show me any disrespect!" she shakes her voice at me, her face redder than the flush of excess Christmas wine. "You know very well that…"
I find the lock, and twist it. The door swerves into the street and, leaning against it, I fall, sideways onto the flagstones. Mother glances mortified, as the door strains on its hinges, with the clatter of reindeer's hoofs on roof tiles, creating the attention-seeking din she was hoping not to create. I pick myself up. The Juniraxian confronts me.
"Hello, hello," he snarls," isn't it the feisty little guitar girl that Arhleus can't stop talking about."
"What do you want with them?" I demand.
He throws me a look of domineering loathing, trying to edge my resolve with his posture and glare. "We want them for questioning, nothing less," he growls.
I look beyond him to the other officials. They apprehend Iain and his brother, throwing them around with their many arms, but Mr. Niel is nowhere in sight. They wrench the rails of the door free, and as a parting token, one of them splays black paint over the doorstep and it streaks unfulfilled down onto the flagstones in excess. They measure the chain and Iain, repulsed, recoils.
One of them gives him a blow that catches him on his right temple.
"HEY! Watch it!" I yell. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Get her away!" comes the order.
As I stride forward, arms half raised, the Juniraxian advances without warning, and his outstretched arm slams spitefully across my chest. I reel but my back steadies – then he presses ahead, his steps threatening to knock me over – I fail to correct myself – and land sidelong onto the flagstones for the second time.
"Bring them away!"
The chains, fastened, play to a hideous, wordless carol as they move with Iain and his brother away. Even before Iain can slouch to lock his own disgrace out of his bonds, they hurry him on. She casts a quick look at me; his face, for the first time ever, his unreadable. With mine on the verge of collapsing, I try to look brave; I try to tell him with my eyes that I'll be waiting when he is supposed to return after their questioning. Please, oh please let him see my courage. He turns away, and I find myself glancing at the back of his listless, petrified younger brother – and the official that drags him by the chain.
The Juniraxian lumbers over me, towering, not careful about his steps as he – again – threatens to stomp over me with his feet. Damn him! As he passes me, grounded but cleanly safe from any attack, he leaves a gift of his spittle; it hangs precariously from his mouth for a moment – and then sweeps across my face like a tattoo.
"Dog! Filthy bastard!" I hear Tamar cry, as she runs to me.
I wipe the spittle, viscous and heavy, from my face with my shirtsleeves. I am silenced by myself, by the breath that breathes through myself, by the blood that warms through myself, by my human self. I am undesirably human – which is why I am crimson with shame…
"Come on, get up," Tamar encourages me, dragging me to my feet. "We'll get back at them, someday, I promise."
I can only stare at the blackened doorway. Iain's scent, his hollow gaze, lighter than my own shame, is the anxiety beneath me; the sweat shine of the sun on his swollen temples clouds my eyes and I long for him to be near, to comfort me from his being taken away.
The black paint floods the creaks between the flagstones, meandering softly down the coldness of the entire street.
When I learn that Mr. Niel, like Keane Greening, has left Zyjushem, my shame absorbs itself and runs into resentment. Where he has gone, neither will any of my parents tell me. They tell me not to worry – without a flicker of any emotion, with the numb disregard of the fate of all those the officials have hauled away for questioning. I shadow them in my rage, a nervous silence that waits for the night to bring me back Iain and his brother. I cannot imagine how Iain would have felt: with the self-elegy of the sound of the chain muttering at his doorstep, the aliens leading him away in the open day; having no father, no mother, no friend, no neighbour – would he hold it against me for my lack of courage?
I lean on Spike, his frame scrambled by the insecure light my wall traps. Tamar veils her eyes from the light, while Vanessa has my permission to keep a quiet vigil on the ledge of my room's open window. Spike tells of Rusty wanting to leave.
"He says that it was always his ambition to turn this part-time cargo hauling into something solid," Spike says, his voice light and his accent the contour of the walls. "Now that there's nothing to hold him Zyjushem, he wants to leave. Wants to start hauling among the drifters where he'll know it'll be more –"
He stops.
"Profitable," completes Vanessa. The limp night breeze carries her disgust over easily.
"Yes, I know. He won't say – but he wants to get off Solbretch and escape all this mess. I know him, he won't tell anyone. He won't accept it himself until it happens. And yeah, Vanessa, he's a bloody coward. But he's my brother. What the shit am I supposed to do?"
"Tell the coward to stand up for himself."
I let them speak. I am losing the fluid of my heart. And in its place myself blends into a statue, a stone set in a frozen longing. I had seen Spike's and Vanessa's looks when they came: they know that nothing but Iain's return will smelt me from this suspension. And I know that they know. And they know that I know they know. And we speak, aimlessly, hoping to voice from the futile something slightly less grave.
I love them.
"They will not let any human go," Tamar speaks, her voice weary from traveling all across the room. "The magistrate has barred anyone from coming down this street, and he continues to say that he cannot guarantee our safety anymore – the hypocrite – whenever he saw us as prosperity he never failed to trade – and now that everything's collapsing he sides with those scum from Golbus.
"My father thinks that if we present a gift to him he will ease our burdens. And everyone who has a stake in this street has agreed. They are going to present him the sword that my father has kept all these years in the family. He thinks the silver and ivory will convince them to purchase us some more safety."
I mouth these words over in my head again. I picture Ershed's sword. The curved silver blade, the ivory handle and scabbard. The sword Ershed said belonged to the finest and fiercest generation of holy warriors Earth ever had.
I cannot take in the irony.
"Doug Whiteman isn't going down like that. He disapproves of Ershed and Alvin's peaceful motives," Vanessa informs us. "He's an ex-soldier. Fought the Drej as fighter pilot when they attacked Earth, he did. He's planning a rebellion. And he says he's got weapons – and supporters. A small cache of them stored in his home up there. Jeffery's one of them. He proclaims without fear. Says that it's fear that's keeping us down."
"The fools," I hear Tamar curse under her breath. "They're only going to quicken their own deaths by proclaiming a rebellion. And how do you think the city officials are going to treat us once they learn we are scheming to usurp them?"
"Tamar's right," Spike answers, and he straightens himself, as if to rival Vanessa's frowning gaze. "I hope you're not thinking of joining them."
"That's none of your business."
"It is if you get killed with those warmongers," Tamar attacks.
"You and your father have always been concerned about peace. Peace to the point that it weakens your heads," I see Tamar's eyes narrow and Spike hesitate as Vanessa persists. "At least spare some thought for those who have fought and given their blood for your survival. At least try to see that their motives are pure and for everyone's good…"
"It's not everyone's good if we all die because of them!" Tamar replies, her face bearing the full force of the light. It gleams.
"You know what – forget it! Forget I said anything about Doug and Jeff and what they've sworn me not to tell anyone else," Vanessa balances tremendously on the ledge. "Who said you'd even understand in the first place? You and your father can give that shit magistrate your lives and hearts and souls and you'll still be –"
The moment that she stops, Vanessa leans out the window.
I see her face concentrated in seeking – something.
And she looks up to me. "Iris…."
I blur Spike and Tamar's questions and the room and the landing and the stairs and my warning parents and the door and the fumbling latch and the night wind and the dead houses until I see Iain's face.
"I told them nothing," he mutters dreamily.
I take in the full measure of his face and his eyes. Eyes shaping the night and my face into a dream? I watch him as he limps into my arms, his left leg loose and out of place. He lets out a muffled gasp of pain and stumbles – I lean him against the walls of nobody's house, trying to steady him. I grip his blood-smeared palms and swallow his panting. As I put my arm around his shoulder to help him in, I hear Spike and Tamar approaching. A lock of Iain's hair falls into my face. The smell is familiar. I do not wish to move again – ever.
Written by shelter (08.06)
Akima's inclusion is a bit of a deviation from Titan A.E – Akima's Story by Kevin Richardson & Rebecca Moresta. Thought it would be nice to have a real hero in here anyway.