Hmm, I didn't think that one a lot darker than the previous version; maybe I'm just in a lower mood these days. Or maybe it's just that I wasn't writing so well when I tried this before and didn't get it across properly.
I cut down Stivik's conversation with Razor a bit; I'm not sure which version I like better to be honest but the new one fits the chapter its in more. And the dream changed quite a bit, but the old one contradicted itself and didn't really get its message across; there will be at least one subtle reference to the dream in the chapters to come.
The mood of the chapters follows the mood of events; when Anni was happy in Rupture Farms they were often funny. Now things are in a particularly dark time for Anni, my writing becomes darker to reflect that.
This week's chapter is almost certainly darker than the previous version of it.
It also contains rude words.
Chapter 47
Anni rolled over and retched, but her stomach was empty so nothing came up. She raised her head and felt the world pitch around her and she whimpered at the pain the movement awoke in her. She reached out and grasped the nearby bars of a cage and pulled herself up onto her knees, struggling for breath.
What had he done to her? Rage warred with her pain and she shuddered, and then couldn’t stop. Her body shivered violently, convulsively, and flooded her with fear. Was she alive? Was she about to die? A sob escaped her and heavy tears rolled down her scarred cheeks. She forced herself to stand, clinging to the bars of the cage as her legs trembled like grass beneath her and her fit of shivering grew worse. She had to escape the lab! She had to get out! But her body was failing to her; she hung onto the bars of the cage, shaking and gasping, not daring to let go or move.
After an age the fit passed and her shivering stopped, but her body was bathed in sweat and chilling rapidly. She pushed herself up and stumbled across the room to the door and fell against it. She paused a moment to catch her breath and then turned the handle. Nothing.
“Not locked,” She begged softly, drew a breath and thought of Stivik. She could see him gloating, locking her in a room to die unaided, and rage rose like bile in her throat, tears sprang to her eyes and she twisted the handle again. There was a click, or perhaps a crack, and the door swung open.
She leant against it, panting as her hammering heart filled her chest with pain, her legs trembled beneath her and her streaming eyes looked out across the lab. It was, blessedly, devoid of life. Breathing hard she staggered across to the main door. Halfway across she stumbled and fell to her knees, the jolt sending pain through her head and neck and for a moment she reeled with it before she pushed herself back up and, gasping now, forced herself to the door. It was closed, and she threw her arms up and fell against it when she reached it. It was unlocked but heavy and opened a crack under her slight weight.
It was then that she noticed the handscar on the back of her right hand. She gaped at it; it was in black ink that looked long-faded, as if she’d had the mark for years. It was some abstract native design that was meaningless to her, an array of graceful, rather beautiful lines. All she felt seeing it was fear of what the sligs, or Arnie saw it; she’d be lucky just to be killed! Shuddering, she dared to look at her other hand and... yes, there was one too. This, too, looked faded, almost camouflaged in her blotchy skin. It was graceful like the other but where the other looked attractive, this looked, aggressive, hateful, dangerous.
Her heart pounded as she stared at it, her body releasing the chemicals that meant the simple, animal warning: Danger! Run! The lines of it seemed to rise up beyond the ink and wrapped around her head like a net, like a web, filling her mouth, her eyes, seizing her, trapping her. She shrieked, thrashing, and stumbled forwards through the door, falling painfully onto her hands and knees in the corridor outside the lab, gasping heavy sobs and trembling violently.
“Hey, are you alright?”
She recoiled in panic and huddled her arms to her chest to hide the marks on her hands. An unfamiliar mudokon was hurrying down the corridor towards her, his eyes wide.
“What’s wrong? What happened? Oh Odd!”
She looked up at him and murmured weakly, “Who are you?”
“I only got here yesterday. I’m Jim What happened to you? Are you ok? I heard the vykker here was alright!” He dropped to the ground beside her and gingerly laid a hand on her bent back. He was short, probably similar to her height, and his eyes were wide with nerves and concern.
She shook her head, tears falling from her cheeks. “It was a slig... Stivik. I...” Suddenly she found herself shivering again, the trembling fit returning, “I don’t know what he did to me...” She whispered.
“Come on, you have to get up,” He said, his voice suggesting that doing anything couldn’t be worse than doing nothing. “We’ll go to the mudokon bunks and... I don’t know; I’ll get help.”
“I need Dean, or Javi.” She murmured as he began to pry her off of the floor. She wanted her friends more than she had ever wanted anything before. She immediately hated herself for thinking that; what about Nova?
‘What about me?’ A voice hissed menacingly in her head, and she didn’t know if it was her imagination or the voice of her friend.
‘I’m sorry,’ She thought,
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’
“Please get up,” The mudokon was saying to her. “Odd, I really hoped this would be over when I got out of BlawCo’s. Come on!”
Before she could try to give a reply, there was a yell from down the corridor and she raised her head; Kix and Javi were running towards them and Anni felt her heart melt with relief; she was suddenly held tight in Kix’s arms and she felt like she would burst with the warmth of it. She pressed her face into the older female’s chest as Javi placed his hands on her back and asked, “What happened, Anni?” In his low, familiar voice. She felt so safe now.
“Anni!” Kix shook her by her shoulders, “Anni, you look awful! Did Dek do this?”
“It wasn’t Dek,” She whispered.
“Was it Stivik?” Javi asked softly, but his voice was as dangerous as a poisonous snake where children were playing.
Clinging tightly to Kix, she answered, “Yes.”
Several seconds passed as Kix and Javi communicated silently, before Javi said aloud, “I told you Kix! Don’t worry, Anni; we’ll make sure Arnie knows he hurt you. We’ll make him pay!”
“It won’t do anything,” She muttered, and swallowed. “I attacked him first.”
She felt Kix stiffen and Javi answered sharply, “You mean in the stockyards? That was ages ago!”
She shook her head, “No. Last night. I...” She couldn’t go on; how could she possibly explain those horrors, what she had done and how for one awful hour she’d thought she had murdered him. It didn’t matter if it was Stivik; she couldn’t bear to take life. She began to weep at the memories.
“Javi, she’s half dead. Let’s get her to the bunks. We can worry about this after.”
“Alright,” He said through gritted teeth. “Did you get her from the lab?”
She wondered who he was talking to until that other voice spoke: the new mudokon, Jim. “She was out here when I came past.” Then he added, beseechingly, “It’s only my second day.”
“Help us move her to the bunks. Steady, Kix.” She felt herself lifted gently by her friends, her weight transferred onto Javi, and she remembered back at the old lab when she had been smaller, riding around on his huge, broad shoulders. She felt herself smile fondly at the memory as he carried her gently, cradling her like a child, taking her fears away.
* * *
Javi, Kix and Jim were sat closely around a bed in the mudokon bunks; Anni was asleep and breathing heavily. Her face looked pained and bruises were appearing in odd places over her skin. “What do you think happened?” Kix asked quietly for perhaps the tenth time. Javi shook his head dumbly, concern etched on his face. Jim was hovering awkwardly, desperate to know more of what had led to this (and if it was a common occurrence) but too nervous to ask.
As they sat in silence, the door opened and they all turned; Javi’s expression became aggressive as Dek entered the lab. “Have you seen- There she is!”
“Shh!” Javi hissed.
“How did she get in here?” Dek demanded quietly, “The room she slept in looks like a bomb site!”
Kix gave him a harrowing look, “Stivik attacked her.”
“So that says a lot for your protection!” Javi snarled, his voice rising with anger, “And Boogie told us she would be safe! Ha!”
“Javi, shh!” Kix said urgently, though Anni was deeply asleep and gave no sign of being disturbed.
“I didn’t expect this!” Dek snapped, coming into the room for a closer look, “What did he do to her? She looks like a corpse!”
Kix gritted her teeth and looked at him with tears in her eyes, “We don’t know.”
“Then I should have a look at her! Odd knows what he did!”
“Listen to me!” Javi grunted, jerking to his feet and storming towards the vykker, who stepped back quickly. “I’ve had enough of watching vykkers screw with her all her life! If you come near her again I’ll break your neck!”
“Are you mad? She needs a doctor! Look at her!”
“OF FUCKING
COURSE SHE NEEDS A DOCTOR!” Javi roared as Kix gasped at his sudden, uncharacteristic anger, “BUT SHE DOESN’T NEED A BASTARD VYKKER TORTURING HER TO DEATH! GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW OR I’LL MAKE YOU SORRY YOU WERE EVER BORN!”
“She needs to be examined by a trained medical professional!” Dek squawked before scurrying from the room. Javi slammed the door behind him and spun aggressively back towards Anni’s bedside.
“Javi!” Kix croaked, sounding distressed.
Javi’s demeanour changed instantly and he hurried back towards them, “Did I wake her?” He asked, laden with concern and guilt.
Kix shook her head numbly, looking frightened. It took a moment for this to sink in; if his shouting, his rage, hadn’t awoken her...
“Hell,” Javi hissed. Kix had never heard him swear before today. Anni swore more than he did.
“Javi, I think she might be really sick.” Kix whispered.
Javi leant over the girl, shaking his head and muttering furiously. “Jim, go to the kitchen and ask Dean for a jug of water or something.”
Jim nodded nervously and began backing towards the door.
“Javi,” Kix said, sounding frightened, “She could really be in danger. I really think you should-”
“I’m not letting that vykker near her!” He snarled adamantly. “You ask her about vykkers and you’ll see why.” He stood up and strode towards the door.
“I’m going to find Seven and tell him she’s sick and you need to look after her, then I’ve got to work. Don’t let Dek near her, understand me?”
There were tears on Kix’s cheeks, but she nodded.
* * *
“You’re the third unwelcome guest I’ve had in here this morning,” Arnie informed Stivik darkly. Standing in the middle of the office, Stivik appeared unconcerned. “The first was Dek, telling me you’d attacked one of the mudokons in the lab. The second was Seven, telling me one of the mudokons was sick and another of them is having to keep off work to look after them.”
“Why don’t they send him back to Dek?” Stivik asked innocently.
“You tell me,” The glukkon growled, a vein throbbing in his temple.
Stivik suddenly grinned, “We’re talking about Anni, right? She was in the lab last night; I carried her there myself, and I know she was in there overnight because I told Dek to lock her up.”
“Why?” Arnie snapped.
Stivik grinned and delivered his coup de grâce, “Because she tried to kill me. She would’ve managed it too, if the vykker hadn’t come back in time to save me. Look.” He turned his arm so the bruise from the injection glistened in the light. “And it’s not the first time.”
The next five minutes were not the best of Arnie’s life, as Stivik gleefully explained Anni’s various transgressions; trying to escape from under the noses of the guards and threatening Stivik with his own gun when he tried to stop her, only to have Nick hush up the whole thing. Disobeying Arnie’s orders to work with her friends. Sneaking off to visit the derelict part of the factory where she had played the gun-stealing trick again, this time on an unprepared Razor.
“But this morning Dek told me you attacked
her!” Arnie cut in as the vein in his temple came close to bursting.
“And where did he get that idea?” Stivik asked mildly.
“He said her friends told her.”
“Oh right. Totally, believe the words of the muds. Convenient the girl’s suddenly unconscious again and can’t speak for herself. And who is it they’re now avoiding, me or the vykker?”
Arnie fell silent.
“Whoever did it, the girl got what was coming to her,” Stivik snarled. “She deserves to be punished; that’s three times I know of when she’s tried to kill sligs.”
And there was that fire. But there was no way he’d tell Arnie about that; the glukkon would go mad. They were all terrified of anyone showing the tiniest signs of having powers and there was no guessing what they’d do when it happened under their noses.
Arnie was silent for a long time, thinking carefully. At length he raised a totally different subject. “Who did you work for before coming here?”
“Huh!” Stivik snarled at the change of subject, but his mind too quickly picked out the cover story and automatically fed it through his mouth. “Law firm. Chroniclers.”
“Alright,” Arnie grunted, “Get out.”
Stivik glared, but decided to obey. He’d make sure the glukkon gave Anni what she deserved.
* * *
Dek spent the morning chasing after Seven to get him to assign a mudokon to clean the storeroom in the lab. What with two workers already away from work, Seven was reluctant, but Dek’s persistence and the vykker’s inherent creepiness eventually wore down on the slig, who agreed to send someone that afternoon.
That accomplished, Dek went to the security office to leave a note for the mechanic (whatever his name was) asking him to repair the lock on the storeroom door, which was perhaps the biggest part of the mystery; the lock had been torn apart, the metal twisted and bent out of shape, but there was no way Anni or any mudokon would have had the strength to do that, much less a slig. Maybe Boogie could have done it, but he’d not been near the room that morning!
Still, with the mechanic (Grole? Grell? Something like that) informed, Dek put it out of his mind and settled down to spend a happy afternoon running tests on the hormonal scrab in his other storeroom; a rare treat indeed! He put Anni and her woes out of his mind; if her friends refused to let him treat her then it was their problem if she died, not his (and if she did die it would certainly end a lot of problems for everyone).
Dek was aware of the rumours that Stivik was spreading, that he, Dek, was the one who had hurt Anni, but paid it no mind. It wouldn’t be enough to get the vykker in trouble, but would cause enough confusion to keep Stivik out of it. As much as he disliked Stivik, Dek just wanted to put the whole mess behind him and move on. So he dedicated the rest of the day to science (and a little malicious torture to work off some stress).
He was not surprised the next morning when Arnie came into the lab as he was writing up the results of the previous afternoon’s tests. “I’d like a word, if you’re not too busy,” Arnie stated, in a tone of voice that meant, ‘And you’re not too busy’.
Dek made a last note and looked up. “How are the grinders going?” He asked, hoping to lift some of the tension floating dangerously around the glukkon.
“They’re running final checks now; they should be ready to turn them on tomorrow. I didn’t know you cared,” Arnie said suspiciously.
Dek shrugged, “A good machine is a lot like a living body, or in the case of the grinders, a dead body. If only raising the dead was as simple as putting the right bits back in.”
“Did the girl try to take Razor’s gun the other evening?” Arnie asked abruptly.
Making himself look unfazed by the sudden change, Dek replied, “She succeeded, actually.”
Arnie nodded, “And Stivik? Did she attack him?”
“She stabbed him with a very dangerous syringe normally reserved for people experiencing anaphylactic shock – a potentially deadly allergic reaction,” Dek replied. “I assume she was then overcome with remorse, because she came and told me and I was able to save him. Did Stivik mention any fire?”
“A fire?”
“Never mind,” Dek replied smoothly; “An overactive imagination on the slig’s part.”
‘But that doesn’t explain the burnt straps,’ Dek suppressed a shudder. But there was no telling how a glukkon would react to such news, so unless he could be 100% certain, Dek wouldn’t be the one to raise the subject. Stivik had apparently had the same thought.
Arnie, apparently suspicious that Dek was trying to divert his attention from the point, asked, “Why aren’t her friends letting you treat her?”
“The girl has hated me since she first set eyes on me.” Dek expressed his irritation, “Clearly she has some prejudice against vykkers.”
“How very foolish of her,” Arnie replied nastily. “What do you think is wrong with her? Other than what happened after she spent a night here?”
“That is a very interesting question,” Dek replied, stepping back from his work and turning to look at the unconscious scrab in the cage across the lab. “I could diagnose behavioural syndromes, none of which really fit. One day she appears simply maladjusted, the next I’d risk calling her schizophrenic or even psychopathic. I’ve tried looking into her medical history but whoever sold her to you...” He snorted derisively.
“She wasn’t sold,” Arnie grunted, “She was… loaned. You could say I’m being paid to look after her – paid with two better employees to make up for looking after the bad one. She was an experiment of some sort.”
“Really?” Dek asked, intrigued. “Well, maybe her records were deliberately badly written to keep things secret. Who sold her to you? Do you know a name?”
“Not from memory,” Arnie answered shortly.
Dek hesitated to ask to be allowed to find out, knowing he wasn’t the most popular employee in the factory thanks to Stivik. “I’d like to give her a proper examination.”
“Not at the moment. I do not want those mudokons getting even more upset than they are now,” Arnie snapped, voice laden with finality.
“Huh, do you need my help with that slig around?” Dek replied gruffly, annoyed at the denial.
“Don’t you worry about Stivik,” Arnie replied, heading back to the door, “I’m taking care of Stivik.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Hee hee, inherent creepiness.
Jim was created by me. Jim rocks.
Blimey, Javi! Take a chill pill! He's a very calm guy; when Anni or Kix or Dean have been close to hysterical he's always kept his cool; he's good at keeping a level head in any situation, but he also often keeps his opinions to himself, especially if they differ from those of his friends. Generally he feels that people should make their own choices, but sometimes this means he holds back when he should have said something.
Is this the first time he's expressed his disapproval of Dean making Anni submit to the vykkers' testing? Probably.
And finally someone suggests to Kix that she just asks Anni about her past instead of tiptoeing around the subject with her! Right now I have no idea if Kix will ask Anni, and if she does I've no idea what Anni (Nova?) will answer.
Oh, and for anyone who didn't read the previous versions of these chapters, omigosh dealing with Stivik?
I already gave the feedback I wanted to give in chat so yea.