The Seek, page 20
part #2 of New Earth Series
‘Mmm.’ Mirren seemed very far away now. Kyn watched a fine trail of blood as it worked its way down her cheek from a slash on her forehead. ‘But it was weird. He…my father…became more and more obsessed with it. Teaching us to fight. And more secretive, and paranoid. No matter how good we became, we could never be good enough. Then the Enforcers came.’
Kyn’s attention shifted quickly from that blood to Mirren’s eyes. ‘Enforcers?’ They both knew what she was asking. Our Enforcers?
Mirren nodded gently.
‘How do you know about Enforcers?’ Kyn’s pulse quickened. The solar whip scars on the Haitite; now this.
Mirren’s lips pressed together. ‘Because they killed my whole family.’
Kyn closed her eyes. ‘Mirren, I’m so —’
‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘Don’t be sorry for me. I don’t know what my Dad was into, but it makes sense now. All that training for us.’
Kyn nodded. ‘You were there, when it happened?’
The girl swallowed. ‘I tried my hardest to stop it.’ She brought her hands up to cover her eyes. ‘But after I saw Jento — my last brother…’ She stopped, dragging in long breaths. ‘After I saw him go down, I ran.’
Things started to fit together. But…
‘Asha? Asha saw you? He saw you fighting. But how?’
Mirren raised an eyebrow at Kyn.
She felt the ground tilt under her feet. Asha, an Enforcer. But why? They were…secret police. Not warriors.
‘He saved me,’ Mirren said softly. ‘He found me, but he didn’t give me up. He should have, they were looking for me.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t really know why. Anyway, he told me to run, hide. When he covered me, I knew where to go. I knew that star so well. They didn’t find me. And then, later, he came back for me.’
Kyn put her hands on the girl’s shoulders again. ‘You did what you could, Mirren,’ she said. ‘That’s all you could do.’
‘But you’re…’ The girl stopped again, her breath coming rapidly, and Kyn could see how hard she was working to keep the post-fight adrenalin under control. ‘You never waver. You’re so brave. I want to be like you.’
Kyn shut her eyes briefly, then opened them. She turned Mirren to face her. ‘No, Mirren,’ she said quietly, wishing she could imprint the force of what she was about to say into every cell of the girl’s body. ‘No, you do not want to be like me. I have nothing.’
Mirren’s eyes widened a little. ‘Neither do I,’ she said simply.
Kyn thought about all the girl had told her; learning to fight; watching her family murdered; running. She thought about her face in that club that night. And how she had fought out on the rocks moments before.
Kyn assessed the girl — her beauty, her boldness, her insecurities — and the confusing, protective instincts that had surprised her since she met this girl settled into her skin.
Rules were made to be broken.
‘Yes you do,’ Kyn said. It was out before she could stop it. ‘You have me.’
Chapter Thirteen: Moving Out
Symon had not left her side since the battle on the ridge. He wasn’t making a big deal of it; he just trudged along beside her, silent and unreadable.
Kyn had no intention of talking about it all right now. The forest was dense and dangerous; she was sure they were being stalked by the rest of the Haitites; and she had no idea whether they would make it back to the pod alive, let alone off this planet.
And maybe that was it. Maybe it was the thought that it might all be over here, today, that changed her mind. She had been planning to hit him up about all of it once they got back to the ship safely.
But what if they didn’t? What if she died wondering?
‘What does demos mean?’ Kyn planted one foot steadily in front of the other as she asked the question, not stopping or pulling her eyes from her endless scanning of the trees and bushes ahead of her.
Symon didn’t break stride either. ‘C’mon, Kyn,’ he chided her. ‘You had some schooling.’
She shook her head. ‘Nope. I got nothing.’
‘It’s Greek,’ he said, keeping step beside her. ‘Ancient Greek, to be precise. It means the people.’
Kyn snorted. ‘Like we, the people?’
Symon shrugged, but he didn’t look her way. His eyes were as deeply involved in scanning the terrain as hers. ‘I guess.’ He slashed at a low-hanging vine with exotic red flowers. ‘It was one half of the ancient word for democracy. Demos — the people. And kratos — power.’ He paused. ‘Or maybe force is better.’
‘People power?’ Kyn didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. She scanned the group quickly, both to make sure everyone was in formation and to check no-one was within earshot. ‘Because that worked so well for us when the shit hit the fan.’ She kicked at a small tree in her path and tramped forward. ‘With The Ultimatum and everything.’ She injected a girly optimism into her voice. ‘Yeah, it was so cool that as we were all voting they were planning their invasion.’ She swallowed, trying hard not to think about that night, dancing on the veranda, the blackness then the light. ‘Made me feel so powerful, all that. So all filled up with people power.’ She said the last two words bitterly.
Symon laughed darkly. ‘No institution is perfect,’ he said, stepping slightly away as he manoeuvred around a larger tree. ‘Doesn’t mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater.’
Kyn scanned the tree line ahead as they stepped into a small clearing. All clear. She held up a hand to those following — keep moving.
‘So what about the chains?’ This time she did sneak a look at his face. He met her glance, and his eyes were dark and hard.
‘Some things change you,’ he said, his voice even more growly than usual. ‘They leave scars on your body, but it’s harder to explain the scars you can’t see.’
Kyn got it. Oh boy, did she get it.
Symon continued. ‘You ever run across the Laotites?’
Kyn wrinkled her nose. She knew a little about them. ‘Not much call for Avengers in the neutral territories. They’re pacifists, right?’
Symon grunted confirmation. ‘They’re interesting folks,’ he said, picking up the pace a little. ‘Great tattoo artists. I’ve spent some time there. They helped me pick the image. The one you saw on my arm.’ He paused. ‘When you were spying on me.’
Kyn almost stopped so she could punch him. ‘Hey, I wasn’t the one stripping off in plain view by the stream.’ She tried not to think about his semi-naked body. All that hard, brown muscle and caramel-coloured skin. The chains, focus on the chains, girl.
‘Silly old me,’ Symon said drily. ‘Here I thought I was taking precautions. Guess they’re not that effective if someone has a scope on you.’
Kyn decided she had no intention of apologising. Too late to break the habit of a lifetime now. Besides, if he could do secretive shit, so could she. ‘So what do they mean? The chains?’
‘They’re a reminder,’ he said, swinging a little closer to her as he rounded another tree, ‘of the people who are left.’
‘On Earth Three?’
Symon grunted again.
Kyn pressed forward, wondering if it was worth the argument. ‘Every society has to have consequences, Symon,’ she said finally, ‘if it’s going to survive. Just like every family.’ Symon knew better than anyone about discipline — Pietr had been a hard taskmaster; he’d expected a lot from his children, and was not afraid to dish out a belting if he felt one was required. But all that had changed when the Apocalypse came. On the day they grew up forever, he never hit his children again.
He just taught them how to fight.
She pressed on. ‘Those people, the ones on Earth Three, they’re the bad guys.’ She tried to quash the rebellious thought in her heart. And Mirren’s brothers? And the Haitites?
Symon exhaled audibly. ‘No, Kyn, they’re not.’
Kyn had almost had enough. She stomped closer to him and whispered though gritted teeth, ‘Goddamnit then, Symon, spill. What the hell happened to you?’
Symon came very close, but they continued their march forward. At this moment, Kyn couldn’t remember which thing she wanted more — to get to the pod and get the hell off this star, or to find out what had happened to the beautiful boy who had been her best friend; who had hurt him; what he had done to deserve it; how he had survived.
She leaned against him a little as he swung closer. ‘Tell me, Symon. Maybe I can help you.’
His next words were sharp. ‘I don’t need your help, and I wouldn’t take it. You need to do what you do. And most of all, you need to stay safe.’
Okay, so Kyn got this. He didn’t want to implicate her. This she could work with. ‘Okay, I get it. You don’t want to get me into trouble. So what can you tell me?’
Symon kept walking steadily on, scanning the tree line in front of them, slashing at the odd plant. She knew he was considering her question. This was so Symon. Careful Symon: the thinker, the planner. The cleverest boy she ever knew.
‘I can tell you I got caught,’ he said. ‘Doing something that was forbidden, asking some questions I shouldn’t have. But I was young then, only twenty.’
‘Two years after I left,’ Kyn interrupted him.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, his voice heavy. ‘I was more foolish then. I was kind of…’ He paused for a second mid-stride, then started up again. ‘…I was kind of rash, obsessed. Once I knew you were okay, I slowed down a little.’
So she had started him on this quest for answers? Oh no. ‘So you got caught and you got taken to Earth Three.’
‘Yep.’ His voice took on a different tone, darker and further away.
‘Was it very bad?’
He was silent for a moment, and the only sounds Kyn could hear were the crunching of the boots through the undergrowth. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Very, very bad. And I didn’t have anything to tell them. I didn’t know anything then. But I did know the one thing I couldn’t tell them.’
Kyn knew. ‘Who you were,’ she said.
‘Mm,’ he agreed. ‘They would have found out, eventually. But it’s…it’s different there, not what you’d expect. One interrogator per prisoner. The Enforcer who captures you is the one who processes you is the one who…works on you. It’s personal. And private. No records are kept. It’s all hand to hand.’
Kyn considered the horror of it, the intimacy. ‘To keep the secrets of the place?’
Symon made an agreeing noise in his throat. ‘And it doesn’t matter that there are no records, because no-one can escape.’
‘But you did.’ Kyn felt like almost every moment she was spending with him she was revising her understanding of who he was.
‘It’s a good system,’ he said, sounding a little impressed. ‘It only has one flaw.’
Kyn considered his words. ‘You only have to kill one.’
‘Yes.’
A thousand questions hammered at Kyn’s brain. ‘But how?’
‘I made friends with her.’
Something about his voice; Kyn knew. ‘You fucked her.’
‘That too,’ he said, his voice dark.
Kyn tramped on, trying to imagine the horrors of it. He had been twenty, and in that place. Imagine it. Trying to hide who you were. She thought about those solar whip scars — all that pain. And then — to become close to the person who had hurt you. It must have taken a supreme effort of will; a supreme belief in the need for survival.
‘How did you cope?’ Kyn worked hard so that her voice would form the words without cracking.
He looked over at her then. She felt him doing it, and she couldn’t resist meeting his eyes. They were very dark, almost black, and they bored into her accusingly. ‘I thought about you,’ he said. ‘That girl, that little girl back in Sweetheart. All that you coped with, alone. What you saw.’ She didn’t want him to list her hurts, but he did. ‘Your ma. Losing the twins. Your dad.’
Kyn wanted to put her fingers in her ears and say, lalalalala like she might have when they were kids. But she let him say it.
‘I thought about you, and I knew I could cope. There are worse things than pain.’
Kyn knew it was true. He swung a little closer, and she punched him lightly on the arm. ‘And they’ve never found you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not yet. No-one really knew me there. Except her.’
There was a loaded tone in Symon’s voice when he said not yet that spoke volumes. He was still doing it, whatever he had been doing. He was still in danger.
But why? Why why why?
That was what she wanted to ask him. She wanted to scream at him, out here in this forest. Remind him that he had survived. That he had a good life, and no business putting it in peril. For what? Some idea? Some people power crap?
Then she thought about what he had said. A reminder. Of the people who are left.
‘Do you think about them, a lot? Earth Three? The ones still in chains?’ It was cruel of her to ask, but she had to know. What was in his head? What was he doing?
‘Oh Kyntura,’ he groaned, kicking a rock away with his foot as he marched. ‘They aren’t the only ones still in chains.’
Kyn didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to hear some rant about how they were all prisoners of the system — the repopulators, the Avengers, the poor souls on Earth Three. She had a job to do today, and to do it she needed to be sharp and clear and focused. She needed to believe. She couldn’t let the doubts that were crowding her mind press in on her.
Darkness was upon them again and Kyn flicked down her visor and switched on her infrared, hearing the low click as various Avengers followed suit around her.
She tramped along silently with Symon for a while before he spoke again. ‘Kyntura, what will you do?’ His voice was low and quiet. The grey darkness pressed in on them, sobering the mood all around them. ‘After this?’
Kyn stopped, holding up her fist to those around her. The jungle was about to taper off into the gentle ascent that led up the ridge and to the cave system that sheltered the pod.
They’d made it; they were alive.
Kyn had been sure Haitites would come at them in the forest, but they must have other plans.
‘There is no after this,’ she said, turning and standing close enough that he could see her clearly in the dim light. She didn’t know what he wanted from her, what he wanted to hear. But she did know one thing — if they were indeed in chains, there was no escape. ‘There is only this.’
***
It had been too good to be true that they might make it to the pod without incident. The Haitites had chosen the moment the Avengers emerged from the forest to launch their attack. They were up on the ridge, raining hell down on them with long-range spears. Kyn’s stomach turned to water as she considered why they might have chosen that particular spot. Did they know the ship was in there? Had they already found Krysto, and those she had left to guard it?
Kyn ordered the group back into the forest.
‘We have to advance,’ she said. ‘We need the ship, and we have to get through them to get to it. But regardless of whether we do it out there or in here, it’s going to be tough.’ Twelve faces regarded her. She felt sad that her boys — and Mirren — did not look afraid. They looked tired, and ready.
Kyn squatted down in a small clearing and the group took a knee around her. ‘To the east and west are embankments we can use to skirt around to the front of the cave. But we’ll need to create distraction up the centre, and try to access the ship from the damaged cave mouth.’ Kyn started firing off codes and pointing at pairs. Then she turned back to Tabi. ‘You’ll come with me,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you to the ship.’
‘No.’ Asha’s mouth was a grim slash. ‘She comes with me.’
‘I need you to create the distraction,’ Kyn countered, motioning up the slope in front of them. ‘And hold it long enough. Without it, none of us will make it.’ It was true; he was the only one she knew was seasoned enough to do it.
She motioned the others away and spoke quietly to Tabi and Asha. ‘You know I’m right, Asha; it’s the only way.’ She studied him. Asha, an Enforcer? She knew them to be vicious and zealous. It was hard to see it in him. He was a fighter. An Avenger.
Asha turned to Tabi, who was shaking her head violently. The Explorer rounded on Kyn. ‘I’m no rarefied scientist, Kyn. I can hold my own. Tell her. Tell her, Asha.’
He shrugged at Kyn. ‘It’s true. She saved my ass on Tyver, when the ice vampires came calling. I was injured, badly, and I would have died on the snow in that pod.’
Kyn nodded. ‘I have no doubt.’ And she didn’t. Tabysha was Pietr’s oldest child, and one of Kyn’s best friends. Kyn knew exactly how tough she was. But she wasn’t as tough as Kyn. And she didn’t know about real battle. ‘I’m not treating you like a liability; Tabi, I just need you safe. You’re all we’ve got now to explain all of this’ — She waved her hand to indicate the planet around her — ‘to The Council.’
Tabi blinked a couple of times, and nodded.
Kyn waved a hand at them. ‘Say what you need to say,’ she said.
She tried not to listen, she really did. She withdrew as far as she could, but she couldn’t go and re-join the others lest they ask where Tabi and Asha were. So she heard them. Every word.
‘Be careful, baby.’ The break in Tabi’s voice cut into Kyn’s heart. ‘I’ve only just found you again.’
‘Hey, girl,’ Asha said softly all Southern charm and easy sweetness. ‘I’m indestructible, remember?’
‘Ha,’ Tabi laughed, without sounding like she meant it. ‘You sure looked pretty destructible when you crashed on Tyver.’
‘Mm,’ he agreed, and then they were quiet so Kyn figured they were embracing one last time.
She waited a moment; she would have to tell them soon that it was time.
‘Tabysha.’ Asha sounded brittle and desperate. ‘Stay close to Kyntura. Do exactly what she says. If anyone can keep you alive, she can.’
‘Be safe, darling,’ she whispered to him.
‘I’ll see you soon, my best girl,’ he said.
Then they were back with Kyn, who had busied herself preparing her pack.
