Memento Mori, Chapter 17
Jan. 8th, 2012 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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memento_mori_11 The sun had just passed its highest point, and cast a delicious cool shade under the hardy little trees that screened the Institute from view. The tough grass grew in tussocky clumps that made handy little seats; Blink spread her un-needed jacket over one, to cushion herself from the sharp-edged blades, and sank down with a little sigh of relief. “Nice to get my weight off my feet.”
“I can imagine.” Halli pulled the drawstring open. “I’m so glad lunch isn’t going to go to waste. I actually made it myself!” She felt around inside until she found the foil-wrapped parcel she was looking for. “My cooking might not be anywhere as good as Aron’s, but at least it’ll keep you going for a while.”
Blink peeled back the foil, and giggled at the ‘sandwich’ she’d revealed - thickly layered with slices of cold meat and a sweet, tangy chutney, the doorwedge-sized slices of grainy brown bread clearly hadn’t been cut by Aron’s delicate hand. “Thank you. I’m not sure I can manage a whole loaf, though.”
Halli smiled, sheepishly, unfolding her own parcel. “I was a little enthusiastic with the breadknife. A-and the chutney. I hope it tastes all right.”
Blink took a big bite out of the soft bread, and sighed, happily. “It’s delicious,” she reassured. One of the few aspects of being biological that she was growing to like, eating. If only it didn’t have such unpleasant consequences.
For a while, they sat and ate in comfortable silence. Small avian scavengers scampered through the grass around their feet, begging for crumbs; both took turns to throw them scraps of crust, which the small creatures fought over in a whirl of white fur and membranous wings.
“The Institute is a lot bigger than I was expecting,” Blink admitted, around her last mouthful of bread. “I think I imagined a couple of little old university buildings, maybe a little like the shops and offices at the centre of Kust. All... ostentatious stonework and dusty corners, stuffy academics.”
“Why do you think they chose to do the research into a cure for heff here? They were the best we had, and even they couldn’t beat it.” Halli sighed, and propped her head on her hands, elbows on her knees. “Not sure what Sadie thinks we can achieve when we’re not even smart enough to get in. Yet.”
Blink shot her a look. “Is that the only reason you wanted to come out here?” she wondered, cautiously. “Make me lose faith, convince me it’s a bad idea? ‘Stop rocking the boat, Bee, just do as Odati says’?”
Halli shook her head, with a sad smile, chin still cupped between her hands. “I hoped it’d give you some ideas. Maybe start to work out how to get in. I had a go at it myself, back in the day, but it was too big for my little brain to crack.”
Hesitantly, Blink put her hand on Halli’s small shoulder.
“I’ve not been down here in years,” the fal went on. “Wanted to see it again. Good to see it’s all still ticking over, exactly the same as I remember it doing.” She straightened, covering Blink’s long fingers with her deformed ones, and shot her a grateful glance. “How are you doing?”
“My feet are sore, and I’m tired.” Blink smiled. “But I don’t mind. I’m glad we came out here.”
Halli studied her friend’s flexing toes for a second before correcting herself. “I-I meant, not your feet... how are you feeling? I mean... are you... more used to being laima, now? You look a tiny bit more comfortable...”
Blink’s smile faltered, flickered away from her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Halli apologised, hastily. “I didn’t mean-”
“It’s all right.” Blink forced a smile for her. “I’m... learning. Coping. Just-...” She waved her hands, trying to magic an explanation out of the air. “I’m not used to the lack of control I have over my body.”
“How do you mean?”
Blink sighed. “If there’s something not right, for instance, it won’t tell me what, exactly, it just makes it uncomfortable. I have to, to... guess what I have to do to fix it.” She gestured with her crust. “Like refuelling! Why would it make sense to make my tan- my stomach hurt when it needs to be filled?”
“Your old body didn’t give you a signal when you were low on energy?”
“Well... yes! But-... it didn’t hurt. It was useful, it was informative, it told me what was wrong and why I needed to pay attention to it-!” She threw the last bit of crust at the chirping scavengers, frustratedly; they swarmed over it, hungrily. “Not just... abstract sensations that you have to work out the meaning of before you can act on them.”
Halli returned Blink’s earlier gesture, squeezing her shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, you look like you’re adjusting well,” she offered, quietly. “I know it’s not easy, having to relearn everything you used to know how to do.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t-... thank you.” Blink sighed, faintly, and leaned slightly into her friend’s hand. The small female seemed to have got the hang of making her feel guilty for her words, without actively scolding her. Perhaps it was seeing that sad, deformed little left hand – a deformity that had probably forced Halli into relearning everything just as acutely as she herself was doing. At least for Blink, everything still worked properly.
“Don’t be sorry.” Halli gave her a fleeting little smile. “Just don’t let it beat you. If you do that, then no matter what happens, you’ll come out stronger at the end.”
Once lunch was finished, and the containers stowed safely away in Halli’s backpack, Blink fished her journal out of her satchel and spread it over her lap, thoughtfully. Need to make some notes. While Halli investigated the perimeter, checking for any weak points in the supply grid, Blink began to jot down ideas.
With both so wrapped up in something they enjoyed doing, time crept stealthily past without either woman really noticing it, but eventually the shadows got just long enough for Halli to become twitchy.
“Are you at a point you can finish? Because we ought to be heading back, soon. If we leave it any later, it’ll be getting dark before we reach the perimeter.” Halli peeked over Blink’s shoulder; a quick, fairly accurate diagram of the Institute spread across two pages, surrounded by arrows and little bubbles full of notes.
“Mm-hmm, I’m nearly done.” The fessine’s pen never stopped moving over the paper. “You can sit down.”
“You’re busy. I didn’t really want to intrude-”
Blink patted the grass, with a reproachful little smile. “It’s not intruding if I’m inviting you to sit.”
Halli took the hint, and settled next to her, cross legged. “So… have you had any ideas?”
Blink nodded, head perked and ears forwards. “Well, I’d started wondering about the little machines.”
Halli waited for her to elaborate, but no more words were immediately forthcoming. “In what way?” she prompted.
Blink tapped her pen against her lips, rethinking the idea. “Well… if we could get hold of one of those little bots, I reckon we could reprogram it, and get through the fence that way. We might even be able to use it to change the settings on the security field, to permit bigger objects through.”
Halli frowned. “Sorry... ‘bots’?”
“Oh, uh. The little cleaning, repairing machines.” Blink pointed down at the six-legged blob in the centre of her page. “If we damaged the fence, we could try and grab it when it comes out through.”
“How do you know it can even get out through the field?”
“Well, something’ll have to be able to, otherwise damage on the outside of the fence will just... stay there, getting worse until the whole defensive grid fails.”
Halli nodded, albeit warily. “It’s worth a try. I just hope there’s not a giant patrol-guard machine in there,” she demurred. “To prevent people stealing the little... ‘bots’. They seem to have thought about everything else.” She pointed up at the sun. “Now we really ought to start back. So long as we get to the suburbs while we have plenty of light left, we’ll be back in the Library with no trouble.”
After checking her ink was dry, Blink stowed her journal carefully away in her satchel. “I saw we had the floor plans of the Institute, back at the Library,” she said, getting to her feet. “Do we have anything else? Like... I don’t know, technical diagrams?”
Halli nodded, thoughtfully. “We have some,” she confirmed, hefting her pack over her shoulder. “We even have one for the field controls – not that it’s done us any good, because the controls are inside the fence. What in particular were you thinking of, the little machines?”
They set out down the coast road, back towards Kust. “Mostly. They look fairly basic, compared to what I’m used to.”
Halli snorted a rueful laugh. “Don’t be rude; they were the pinnacle of our technology, at the time.”
“What? Oh-... oh!” Blink winced, apologetically. “I didn’t realise that’d be an insult-”
Halli gave her a gentle punch on the arm. “I was playing with you, Blink. Please try not to take everything so seriously.”
Blink felt the heat rise in her cheeks, and sheepishly agreed to try not to.
It was purely by chance that they elected to take a slightly different route back to Kust, but it was probably what saved them from the impending disaster that was gearing up to jump them. Instead of travelling down the road, they took an older footpath, lower on the headland and closer to the cliffs.
“I can see why they picked the headland,” Blink commented, peering warily over the cliffs. The waves lapped gently at the rocks, today, but the jagged teeth of the coast were unpleasantly visible, and only just beneath the surface of the inviting blue water. “Good defensive position, nice and private. No way for anyone to sneak up on you and steal your research.”
“It’d take a braver person than me to try and land a boat here,” Halli agreed. “I’m sure there’s places it’s safe to do it, in calm weather, but I wouldn’t want to try and find them.”
Somewhere above them, a distant voice floated down on the breeze. And it didn’t sound friendly. “There they are!”
Blink froze. “Hal? Did-… did you hear that?”
“I heard it, I heard it.” Halli was already backing up, shaking her head urgently. “Don’t ask questions, just follow me, and make it a run.”
“Run?”
“Run!”
Halli bolted, forcing Blink into a sprint to catch up. The taller female had longer legs, granted, but she’d never had to run like this before! Flat out, pushing hard, almost over-reaching on the gentle downwards slope. Twice she nearly fell.
They raced down the track together, aiming for the skirt of trees, hoping to lose them in the undergrowth. Blink chanced a look back over her shoulder; two pursuers, both blights, both running on all fours, although one was significantly bigger than the other. Their impossibly long stride had already decimated the distance between them; only a few hundred yards behind, now. The fessine could hear their breathing as clearly as if they were only a stride behind her, harsh and panting with exertion.
“Stand still, girl!” The smaller one’s hideous, shrieking bark echoed down the hillside. “Stand STILL!”
“Don’t make us bite out your ankles!” its friend added, punctuating itself with heavy, breathless snarls.
How anyone thought that would ever get a runner to stop, Blink had no idea. With every breath raw in her lungs, like she’d inhaled hot ash, and a burning pain that blazed through her thighs, she forced herself to keep running, through the pain, spurred on to greater efforts by the thought of what they’d do to her if they caught her. Her heart fairly thundered behind her ribs, as though pleading with her to stop, beating time to the rhythm at which her feet pounded across the jagged dirt. Don’t stop. Don’t trip.
They reached the comparative safety of the trees just in time, with their pursuers a bare body length or so behind them. Out of the corner of her eye, Blink watched as Halli dove headlong into a tangled nest of brambles, heedless of the thorns that must have gouged a dozen bright, bleeding lines into her skin. The pursuing blight dropped anchor and skidded to a halt an inch or two shy of the wicked thorns, yelping as though it had been the one to fall into the vicious twisting vines.
Blink leapt wildly for an overhanging branch, snagging it in her fingertips. Fear lent her an unnatural strength; using the momentum from her leap to her advantage, she swung her feet up and managed to catch a branch with her claws, even as a pair of long jaws crashed together where her ankles had been a moment before. For an instant, she felt herself slipping back, losing her grip, falling back into those deadly jaws-
If they get you, they’ll probably eat you, and they won’t bother with pleasantries like waiting for you to die before they tuck in, her subconscious reminded. That one extra flash of alarm lent her just enough strength to flail herself securely over the branch, and claw her way into a precarious position straddling the branch, panting.
...great. NOW what are you going to do, genius? You’re stuck up a tree, with two hungry blights blocking your only route to safety.
At least, Blink consoled herself, if all the snapping and swearing and pacing in circles was anything to go by, they couldn’t reach her, so she had some room to think about things. The sound of scuffling feet and clop of jaws snapping closed on air reminded her of that very first night spent in the trees, where the unseen creature had spent several enthusiastic but fruitless minutes trying to yank her hammock down.
Perched on her high branch and well out of reach, sitting with her arms almost all the way around the bough for security, Blink at last got a good look at her pursuers. Two blights, as she’d imagined, and probably cognates – Blink still wasn’t sure how to tell the difference between a dull-witted cognate and a smart feral – but hunched over, and moving predominantly on all fours as they paced back and forth, frustrated by their inability to get to her. They bore a frightening resemblance to the feral blight that had taken a bite out of her arm on her way down the mountain, with their long limbs and protruding, animal faces, and aggressive, snappish behaviour.
“Come down here!” the smaller blight demanded, in a high, screechy male voice that bordered uncomfortably close to a scream, his wild gold eyes blazing up at her. He reared onto short, bent hindlegs and beckoned with his stubby little hands, showing off a set of uncomfortably long claws.
So you can bite me? Blink gave the narrow muzzle full of wickedly sharp yellow teeth an anxious glance, and shook her head. Not likely.
The small blight dropped back to all fours and barked his frustration at her, stamping at the dirt. The bigger of the two ignored its friend and continued to pace, menacingly, blending partway into the shadows with its pale, brindled pelt. It didn’t seem able to stop drooling, with great strands of saliva hanging down from its heavy maw; it would occasionally try and swipe them away with a massive, clumsy hand that looked more like an animal’s forepaw.
Now she’d had the chance to catch her breath and assess the situation, Blink realised there was still no sign of her travelling companion; the mass of leaves screened her perfectly from view. “Halli?” she called, hoarsely, still out of breath. “Halli!”
“No talking!” Gold Eyes shrilled. “Come down!”
Blink ignored him, bravely. “Are you all right, Halli? Speak to me!”
“I’m-… I’m fine,” Halli finally replied, although her voice was unusually strained and Blink wasn’t entirely sure she believed her. “Just a bit… scratched up.”
“Be more than a bit scratched if I get my claws on you!” Gold Eyes snapped, clawing impotently at the brambles as though trying to dig her out. “Stupid little sprat!”
“Got to come down sometime, girl,” Brindle snarled, pacing beneath the tree. “Y’can’t stay up there all night. Our friends will come to chase you down!”
“Fine! Let them!” Blink challenged, shakily, calling its bluff. “I’m not scared of you.”
In spite of the obvious lie, Brindle dropped back with a glare, and resumed muttering under its breath, its words sounding more like a slowly emptying bathtub.
Time limped past tortuously slowly. It took Blink only a few minutes to work out that she had absolutely zero chance of escape, unless help came along and fought off the blights, because the instant she dropped down into the long grass under the tree, they’d get her. For their part, the ugly pair didn’t look inclined to give up just yet, pacing and jumping and threatening, even occasionally trying to climb the trunk, claws rattling ineffectually over the bark. Blink had begun to despair of her and Halli ever escaping the two ravenous monsters prowling just out of reach when her friend at last spoke up once more. “...Bee?”
She sounded hurt, Blink realised. “Yes?” She boosted herself up a fraction, straining to see the injured zaar.
“…going to-… get help. Stay-... stay there... until I get back” Halli instructed, wheezily.
“No-… no, I can’t. You’re hurt!”
“Not hurt. Stay!”
Blink bit her lip, and closed her fingers on the branch, gathering herself to jump down. “No, I’m going to help you.”
The two blights both looked up at her, expectantly, jaws open in toothy laughs that exposed all their sharp teeth-
A rust-coloured bolt of lightning shot out of the brambles and leaped onto Brindle like a starving animal onto a free meal. Before the big creature knew what was happening, a set of needle-sharp teeth had attached to the scruff of its neck and were making quick work of tearing the skin it to bleeding ribbons. Brindle yelped in alarm, startled into a genuine betrayal how much it hurt.
Gold Eyes leaped to his friend’s rescue... and their diminutive assailant dodged at the last second, leaving the smaller blight to instead sink his claws into Brindle – who roared with anger and punched back, sending Gold Eyes sprawling into the brambles. Leaving the two blights bleeding, snarling and whimpering angrily by turns, the tiny blight shot back into the vegetation and vanished.
“Aigh!” Gold Eyes shrieked, furiously, clawing at the vegetation as though trying to burrow down to it, but just too big to get in after their attacker. “Come back here! Comebackhere!”
No, no, don’t go in there, Blink pleaded, silently, watching horror-struck, completely unable to help. Halli’s in there! What if the aggressive new creature decided the injured zaar would be a better meal than the two blights?
“Stop acting up, Tun. I’ll go get Tiny,” she heard Brindle mutter, quietly, into Gold Eyes’ pointed ear. “An’ we’ll bait her down that way instead. Stand watch, and no letting her escape.”
Fully aware that it was probably intentional, and that Brindle had meant for her to hear it, Blink couldn’t quite shake off a sudden clutch of fear, deep in her stomach. They wanted her badly enough to want to hurt Halli, just to get to her? This was more than two hungry blights – these were blights acting on instruction, and she had no doubt as to precisely who had given those instructions. She closed her hands into fists, again feeling the low thumps of her heart beating unsteadily in her chest.
Brindle moved carefully away, around the bramble patch with its head down, sniffing at the dirt. From her elevated vantage point, Blink watched as the vegetation rustled and swayed, pointing out the blight’s route as it pushed its way downhill.
Gold Eyes – no, Brindle had called him “Tun”, hadn’t it? - settled briefly at the base of the tree, side on to Blink, so he could keep one wary eye on her, and the other on the slope in the direction Brindle had gone. “Come down an’ we’ll not bite yer,” he offered, feet moving on the spot. He just couldn’t seem to keep still, as though nervous energy constantly bubbled under his fur.
Blink watched him, warily. “No thanks,” she confirmed, softly.
“Hrf.” Tun’s matted tail thumped the ground, just once, before he resumed pacing. “Better for you if you came down,” he suggested, again, after a few minutes of awkward silence. “Nicer for you, too, if we don’t have to drag you down the hill by your handles.”
Blink cringed back. “My friend will be back with help,” she said, more confidently than she felt.
“Ya ya.” Tun showed his teeth in a dismissive canine grin. “If Breg don’t eat her. Tasty little morsel, she’d be.”
His words left a sour feeling in Blink’s stomach. That Halli could defend herself, she had no doubts, but there was a giant of a blight on her tail, probably hungry, and she was hurt. Blink couldn’t just abandon her to her fate. She was just going to have to do it.
Do it.
Jump down, take her chances, make a stand.
Do it. You did it before – even outnumbered, outgunned, no shying away.
In spite of the fear beating a tempo inside her ribs, in spite of the way it felt like electricity was crackling in her veins, making it hard to think straight or control her twitching motors, she was going to have to do it. All with no weapons, and a strong, wiry blight blocking her only chance of escape.
You can do it!
Blink gathered herself, concentrating on the way her muscles coiled, ligaments tensed like coiled springs. The instant Tun turned his attention away, she dropped off her branch and square onto his back, slamming into the back of his head with her fists balled as tight as she could make them.
Tun gave a startled grunt and dropped flat on the dirt, as though poleaxed. Blink scrambled away; ‘needs must’ didn’t mean she couldn’t be horrified at the idea she might have killed him! She watched him for a second before his chest shuddered and she could reassure herself that he was still breathing.
Turning away from him, Blink peered into the vegetation. “Halli? Where are you?” she whispered, urgently. “We need to get out of here, before he wakes up!”
Nothing. No movement, no sound.
“Halli?”
Fear drew a cold line up her back and made her knees weak. She was too late. Poor Halli-... She couldn’t abandon her. She had to find something to get her through the thorns, to at least try and check for signs of life.
She turned and came face to face with the fierce, diminutive blight that had attacked Brindle.
Blink staggered backwards with a squeak of alarm and promptly fell into the briars. “Ow-!” She lurched in the opposite direction and only succeeded in tangling herself further into the thorns. “Oh, skeida, ow-!”
“Why not run?!” the blight demanded, in a strange, chirping but eerily familiar voice. “Get out of here!”
“I-... what?” Blink stared at the unfamiliar-familiar creature, and felt a weird jerk of horrible recognition in her chest. Couldn’t possibly be... could it? A blight it may be, covered from nose to tail in stiff fur, with an odd, beaky face and four-limbed gait, but there was just something, about the pale mask across the cheeks and the knowing in the bright eyes...
Blink could barely believe she was thinking it. “…Halli?” Her words emerged as a broken whisper, aghast.
“Stop talk. Must run!” the blight commanded, wild eyed. “They come, they catch, they hurt.”
“But-... Halli?”
The once-zaar latched abnormally long fingers around her arm and hauled backwards. “Stupid, Stupid! Run! Breg returns, losing time! You they want, you they catch!”
“But what about you?”
“Drew them off for you, don’t waste time!” Halli snapped her tiny jaws at Blink, almost skinning a finger, and at last the fessine got the hint. She fled.
72344 ♥ 100000
“I can imagine.” Halli pulled the drawstring open. “I’m so glad lunch isn’t going to go to waste. I actually made it myself!” She felt around inside until she found the foil-wrapped parcel she was looking for. “My cooking might not be anywhere as good as Aron’s, but at least it’ll keep you going for a while.”
Blink peeled back the foil, and giggled at the ‘sandwich’ she’d revealed - thickly layered with slices of cold meat and a sweet, tangy chutney, the doorwedge-sized slices of grainy brown bread clearly hadn’t been cut by Aron’s delicate hand. “Thank you. I’m not sure I can manage a whole loaf, though.”
Halli smiled, sheepishly, unfolding her own parcel. “I was a little enthusiastic with the breadknife. A-and the chutney. I hope it tastes all right.”
Blink took a big bite out of the soft bread, and sighed, happily. “It’s delicious,” she reassured. One of the few aspects of being biological that she was growing to like, eating. If only it didn’t have such unpleasant consequences.
For a while, they sat and ate in comfortable silence. Small avian scavengers scampered through the grass around their feet, begging for crumbs; both took turns to throw them scraps of crust, which the small creatures fought over in a whirl of white fur and membranous wings.
“The Institute is a lot bigger than I was expecting,” Blink admitted, around her last mouthful of bread. “I think I imagined a couple of little old university buildings, maybe a little like the shops and offices at the centre of Kust. All... ostentatious stonework and dusty corners, stuffy academics.”
“Why do you think they chose to do the research into a cure for heff here? They were the best we had, and even they couldn’t beat it.” Halli sighed, and propped her head on her hands, elbows on her knees. “Not sure what Sadie thinks we can achieve when we’re not even smart enough to get in. Yet.”
Blink shot her a look. “Is that the only reason you wanted to come out here?” she wondered, cautiously. “Make me lose faith, convince me it’s a bad idea? ‘Stop rocking the boat, Bee, just do as Odati says’?”
Halli shook her head, with a sad smile, chin still cupped between her hands. “I hoped it’d give you some ideas. Maybe start to work out how to get in. I had a go at it myself, back in the day, but it was too big for my little brain to crack.”
Hesitantly, Blink put her hand on Halli’s small shoulder.
“I’ve not been down here in years,” the fal went on. “Wanted to see it again. Good to see it’s all still ticking over, exactly the same as I remember it doing.” She straightened, covering Blink’s long fingers with her deformed ones, and shot her a grateful glance. “How are you doing?”
“My feet are sore, and I’m tired.” Blink smiled. “But I don’t mind. I’m glad we came out here.”
Halli studied her friend’s flexing toes for a second before correcting herself. “I-I meant, not your feet... how are you feeling? I mean... are you... more used to being laima, now? You look a tiny bit more comfortable...”
Blink’s smile faltered, flickered away from her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Halli apologised, hastily. “I didn’t mean-”
“It’s all right.” Blink forced a smile for her. “I’m... learning. Coping. Just-...” She waved her hands, trying to magic an explanation out of the air. “I’m not used to the lack of control I have over my body.”
“How do you mean?”
Blink sighed. “If there’s something not right, for instance, it won’t tell me what, exactly, it just makes it uncomfortable. I have to, to... guess what I have to do to fix it.” She gestured with her crust. “Like refuelling! Why would it make sense to make my tan- my stomach hurt when it needs to be filled?”
“Your old body didn’t give you a signal when you were low on energy?”
“Well... yes! But-... it didn’t hurt. It was useful, it was informative, it told me what was wrong and why I needed to pay attention to it-!” She threw the last bit of crust at the chirping scavengers, frustratedly; they swarmed over it, hungrily. “Not just... abstract sensations that you have to work out the meaning of before you can act on them.”
Halli returned Blink’s earlier gesture, squeezing her shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, you look like you’re adjusting well,” she offered, quietly. “I know it’s not easy, having to relearn everything you used to know how to do.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t-... thank you.” Blink sighed, faintly, and leaned slightly into her friend’s hand. The small female seemed to have got the hang of making her feel guilty for her words, without actively scolding her. Perhaps it was seeing that sad, deformed little left hand – a deformity that had probably forced Halli into relearning everything just as acutely as she herself was doing. At least for Blink, everything still worked properly.
“Don’t be sorry.” Halli gave her a fleeting little smile. “Just don’t let it beat you. If you do that, then no matter what happens, you’ll come out stronger at the end.”
Once lunch was finished, and the containers stowed safely away in Halli’s backpack, Blink fished her journal out of her satchel and spread it over her lap, thoughtfully. Need to make some notes. While Halli investigated the perimeter, checking for any weak points in the supply grid, Blink began to jot down ideas.
With both so wrapped up in something they enjoyed doing, time crept stealthily past without either woman really noticing it, but eventually the shadows got just long enough for Halli to become twitchy.
“Are you at a point you can finish? Because we ought to be heading back, soon. If we leave it any later, it’ll be getting dark before we reach the perimeter.” Halli peeked over Blink’s shoulder; a quick, fairly accurate diagram of the Institute spread across two pages, surrounded by arrows and little bubbles full of notes.
“Mm-hmm, I’m nearly done.” The fessine’s pen never stopped moving over the paper. “You can sit down.”
“You’re busy. I didn’t really want to intrude-”
Blink patted the grass, with a reproachful little smile. “It’s not intruding if I’m inviting you to sit.”
Halli took the hint, and settled next to her, cross legged. “So… have you had any ideas?”
Blink nodded, head perked and ears forwards. “Well, I’d started wondering about the little machines.”
Halli waited for her to elaborate, but no more words were immediately forthcoming. “In what way?” she prompted.
Blink tapped her pen against her lips, rethinking the idea. “Well… if we could get hold of one of those little bots, I reckon we could reprogram it, and get through the fence that way. We might even be able to use it to change the settings on the security field, to permit bigger objects through.”
Halli frowned. “Sorry... ‘bots’?”
“Oh, uh. The little cleaning, repairing machines.” Blink pointed down at the six-legged blob in the centre of her page. “If we damaged the fence, we could try and grab it when it comes out through.”
“How do you know it can even get out through the field?”
“Well, something’ll have to be able to, otherwise damage on the outside of the fence will just... stay there, getting worse until the whole defensive grid fails.”
Halli nodded, albeit warily. “It’s worth a try. I just hope there’s not a giant patrol-guard machine in there,” she demurred. “To prevent people stealing the little... ‘bots’. They seem to have thought about everything else.” She pointed up at the sun. “Now we really ought to start back. So long as we get to the suburbs while we have plenty of light left, we’ll be back in the Library with no trouble.”
After checking her ink was dry, Blink stowed her journal carefully away in her satchel. “I saw we had the floor plans of the Institute, back at the Library,” she said, getting to her feet. “Do we have anything else? Like... I don’t know, technical diagrams?”
Halli nodded, thoughtfully. “We have some,” she confirmed, hefting her pack over her shoulder. “We even have one for the field controls – not that it’s done us any good, because the controls are inside the fence. What in particular were you thinking of, the little machines?”
They set out down the coast road, back towards Kust. “Mostly. They look fairly basic, compared to what I’m used to.”
Halli snorted a rueful laugh. “Don’t be rude; they were the pinnacle of our technology, at the time.”
“What? Oh-... oh!” Blink winced, apologetically. “I didn’t realise that’d be an insult-”
Halli gave her a gentle punch on the arm. “I was playing with you, Blink. Please try not to take everything so seriously.”
Blink felt the heat rise in her cheeks, and sheepishly agreed to try not to.
It was purely by chance that they elected to take a slightly different route back to Kust, but it was probably what saved them from the impending disaster that was gearing up to jump them. Instead of travelling down the road, they took an older footpath, lower on the headland and closer to the cliffs.
“I can see why they picked the headland,” Blink commented, peering warily over the cliffs. The waves lapped gently at the rocks, today, but the jagged teeth of the coast were unpleasantly visible, and only just beneath the surface of the inviting blue water. “Good defensive position, nice and private. No way for anyone to sneak up on you and steal your research.”
“It’d take a braver person than me to try and land a boat here,” Halli agreed. “I’m sure there’s places it’s safe to do it, in calm weather, but I wouldn’t want to try and find them.”
Somewhere above them, a distant voice floated down on the breeze. And it didn’t sound friendly. “There they are!”
Blink froze. “Hal? Did-… did you hear that?”
“I heard it, I heard it.” Halli was already backing up, shaking her head urgently. “Don’t ask questions, just follow me, and make it a run.”
“Run?”
“Run!”
Halli bolted, forcing Blink into a sprint to catch up. The taller female had longer legs, granted, but she’d never had to run like this before! Flat out, pushing hard, almost over-reaching on the gentle downwards slope. Twice she nearly fell.
They raced down the track together, aiming for the skirt of trees, hoping to lose them in the undergrowth. Blink chanced a look back over her shoulder; two pursuers, both blights, both running on all fours, although one was significantly bigger than the other. Their impossibly long stride had already decimated the distance between them; only a few hundred yards behind, now. The fessine could hear their breathing as clearly as if they were only a stride behind her, harsh and panting with exertion.
“Stand still, girl!” The smaller one’s hideous, shrieking bark echoed down the hillside. “Stand STILL!”
“Don’t make us bite out your ankles!” its friend added, punctuating itself with heavy, breathless snarls.
How anyone thought that would ever get a runner to stop, Blink had no idea. With every breath raw in her lungs, like she’d inhaled hot ash, and a burning pain that blazed through her thighs, she forced herself to keep running, through the pain, spurred on to greater efforts by the thought of what they’d do to her if they caught her. Her heart fairly thundered behind her ribs, as though pleading with her to stop, beating time to the rhythm at which her feet pounded across the jagged dirt. Don’t stop. Don’t trip.
They reached the comparative safety of the trees just in time, with their pursuers a bare body length or so behind them. Out of the corner of her eye, Blink watched as Halli dove headlong into a tangled nest of brambles, heedless of the thorns that must have gouged a dozen bright, bleeding lines into her skin. The pursuing blight dropped anchor and skidded to a halt an inch or two shy of the wicked thorns, yelping as though it had been the one to fall into the vicious twisting vines.
Blink leapt wildly for an overhanging branch, snagging it in her fingertips. Fear lent her an unnatural strength; using the momentum from her leap to her advantage, she swung her feet up and managed to catch a branch with her claws, even as a pair of long jaws crashed together where her ankles had been a moment before. For an instant, she felt herself slipping back, losing her grip, falling back into those deadly jaws-
If they get you, they’ll probably eat you, and they won’t bother with pleasantries like waiting for you to die before they tuck in, her subconscious reminded. That one extra flash of alarm lent her just enough strength to flail herself securely over the branch, and claw her way into a precarious position straddling the branch, panting.
...great. NOW what are you going to do, genius? You’re stuck up a tree, with two hungry blights blocking your only route to safety.
At least, Blink consoled herself, if all the snapping and swearing and pacing in circles was anything to go by, they couldn’t reach her, so she had some room to think about things. The sound of scuffling feet and clop of jaws snapping closed on air reminded her of that very first night spent in the trees, where the unseen creature had spent several enthusiastic but fruitless minutes trying to yank her hammock down.
Perched on her high branch and well out of reach, sitting with her arms almost all the way around the bough for security, Blink at last got a good look at her pursuers. Two blights, as she’d imagined, and probably cognates – Blink still wasn’t sure how to tell the difference between a dull-witted cognate and a smart feral – but hunched over, and moving predominantly on all fours as they paced back and forth, frustrated by their inability to get to her. They bore a frightening resemblance to the feral blight that had taken a bite out of her arm on her way down the mountain, with their long limbs and protruding, animal faces, and aggressive, snappish behaviour.
“Come down here!” the smaller blight demanded, in a high, screechy male voice that bordered uncomfortably close to a scream, his wild gold eyes blazing up at her. He reared onto short, bent hindlegs and beckoned with his stubby little hands, showing off a set of uncomfortably long claws.
So you can bite me? Blink gave the narrow muzzle full of wickedly sharp yellow teeth an anxious glance, and shook her head. Not likely.
The small blight dropped back to all fours and barked his frustration at her, stamping at the dirt. The bigger of the two ignored its friend and continued to pace, menacingly, blending partway into the shadows with its pale, brindled pelt. It didn’t seem able to stop drooling, with great strands of saliva hanging down from its heavy maw; it would occasionally try and swipe them away with a massive, clumsy hand that looked more like an animal’s forepaw.
Now she’d had the chance to catch her breath and assess the situation, Blink realised there was still no sign of her travelling companion; the mass of leaves screened her perfectly from view. “Halli?” she called, hoarsely, still out of breath. “Halli!”
“No talking!” Gold Eyes shrilled. “Come down!”
Blink ignored him, bravely. “Are you all right, Halli? Speak to me!”
“I’m-… I’m fine,” Halli finally replied, although her voice was unusually strained and Blink wasn’t entirely sure she believed her. “Just a bit… scratched up.”
“Be more than a bit scratched if I get my claws on you!” Gold Eyes snapped, clawing impotently at the brambles as though trying to dig her out. “Stupid little sprat!”
“Got to come down sometime, girl,” Brindle snarled, pacing beneath the tree. “Y’can’t stay up there all night. Our friends will come to chase you down!”
“Fine! Let them!” Blink challenged, shakily, calling its bluff. “I’m not scared of you.”
In spite of the obvious lie, Brindle dropped back with a glare, and resumed muttering under its breath, its words sounding more like a slowly emptying bathtub.
Time limped past tortuously slowly. It took Blink only a few minutes to work out that she had absolutely zero chance of escape, unless help came along and fought off the blights, because the instant she dropped down into the long grass under the tree, they’d get her. For their part, the ugly pair didn’t look inclined to give up just yet, pacing and jumping and threatening, even occasionally trying to climb the trunk, claws rattling ineffectually over the bark. Blink had begun to despair of her and Halli ever escaping the two ravenous monsters prowling just out of reach when her friend at last spoke up once more. “...Bee?”
She sounded hurt, Blink realised. “Yes?” She boosted herself up a fraction, straining to see the injured zaar.
“…going to-… get help. Stay-... stay there... until I get back” Halli instructed, wheezily.
“No-… no, I can’t. You’re hurt!”
“Not hurt. Stay!”
Blink bit her lip, and closed her fingers on the branch, gathering herself to jump down. “No, I’m going to help you.”
The two blights both looked up at her, expectantly, jaws open in toothy laughs that exposed all their sharp teeth-
A rust-coloured bolt of lightning shot out of the brambles and leaped onto Brindle like a starving animal onto a free meal. Before the big creature knew what was happening, a set of needle-sharp teeth had attached to the scruff of its neck and were making quick work of tearing the skin it to bleeding ribbons. Brindle yelped in alarm, startled into a genuine betrayal how much it hurt.
Gold Eyes leaped to his friend’s rescue... and their diminutive assailant dodged at the last second, leaving the smaller blight to instead sink his claws into Brindle – who roared with anger and punched back, sending Gold Eyes sprawling into the brambles. Leaving the two blights bleeding, snarling and whimpering angrily by turns, the tiny blight shot back into the vegetation and vanished.
“Aigh!” Gold Eyes shrieked, furiously, clawing at the vegetation as though trying to burrow down to it, but just too big to get in after their attacker. “Come back here! Comebackhere!”
No, no, don’t go in there, Blink pleaded, silently, watching horror-struck, completely unable to help. Halli’s in there! What if the aggressive new creature decided the injured zaar would be a better meal than the two blights?
“Stop acting up, Tun. I’ll go get Tiny,” she heard Brindle mutter, quietly, into Gold Eyes’ pointed ear. “An’ we’ll bait her down that way instead. Stand watch, and no letting her escape.”
Fully aware that it was probably intentional, and that Brindle had meant for her to hear it, Blink couldn’t quite shake off a sudden clutch of fear, deep in her stomach. They wanted her badly enough to want to hurt Halli, just to get to her? This was more than two hungry blights – these were blights acting on instruction, and she had no doubt as to precisely who had given those instructions. She closed her hands into fists, again feeling the low thumps of her heart beating unsteadily in her chest.
Brindle moved carefully away, around the bramble patch with its head down, sniffing at the dirt. From her elevated vantage point, Blink watched as the vegetation rustled and swayed, pointing out the blight’s route as it pushed its way downhill.
Gold Eyes – no, Brindle had called him “Tun”, hadn’t it? - settled briefly at the base of the tree, side on to Blink, so he could keep one wary eye on her, and the other on the slope in the direction Brindle had gone. “Come down an’ we’ll not bite yer,” he offered, feet moving on the spot. He just couldn’t seem to keep still, as though nervous energy constantly bubbled under his fur.
Blink watched him, warily. “No thanks,” she confirmed, softly.
“Hrf.” Tun’s matted tail thumped the ground, just once, before he resumed pacing. “Better for you if you came down,” he suggested, again, after a few minutes of awkward silence. “Nicer for you, too, if we don’t have to drag you down the hill by your handles.”
Blink cringed back. “My friend will be back with help,” she said, more confidently than she felt.
“Ya ya.” Tun showed his teeth in a dismissive canine grin. “If Breg don’t eat her. Tasty little morsel, she’d be.”
His words left a sour feeling in Blink’s stomach. That Halli could defend herself, she had no doubts, but there was a giant of a blight on her tail, probably hungry, and she was hurt. Blink couldn’t just abandon her to her fate. She was just going to have to do it.
Do it.
Jump down, take her chances, make a stand.
Do it. You did it before – even outnumbered, outgunned, no shying away.
In spite of the fear beating a tempo inside her ribs, in spite of the way it felt like electricity was crackling in her veins, making it hard to think straight or control her twitching motors, she was going to have to do it. All with no weapons, and a strong, wiry blight blocking her only chance of escape.
You can do it!
Blink gathered herself, concentrating on the way her muscles coiled, ligaments tensed like coiled springs. The instant Tun turned his attention away, she dropped off her branch and square onto his back, slamming into the back of his head with her fists balled as tight as she could make them.
Tun gave a startled grunt and dropped flat on the dirt, as though poleaxed. Blink scrambled away; ‘needs must’ didn’t mean she couldn’t be horrified at the idea she might have killed him! She watched him for a second before his chest shuddered and she could reassure herself that he was still breathing.
Turning away from him, Blink peered into the vegetation. “Halli? Where are you?” she whispered, urgently. “We need to get out of here, before he wakes up!”
Nothing. No movement, no sound.
“Halli?”
Fear drew a cold line up her back and made her knees weak. She was too late. Poor Halli-... She couldn’t abandon her. She had to find something to get her through the thorns, to at least try and check for signs of life.
She turned and came face to face with the fierce, diminutive blight that had attacked Brindle.
Blink staggered backwards with a squeak of alarm and promptly fell into the briars. “Ow-!” She lurched in the opposite direction and only succeeded in tangling herself further into the thorns. “Oh, skeida, ow-!”
“Why not run?!” the blight demanded, in a strange, chirping but eerily familiar voice. “Get out of here!”
“I-... what?” Blink stared at the unfamiliar-familiar creature, and felt a weird jerk of horrible recognition in her chest. Couldn’t possibly be... could it? A blight it may be, covered from nose to tail in stiff fur, with an odd, beaky face and four-limbed gait, but there was just something, about the pale mask across the cheeks and the knowing in the bright eyes...
Blink could barely believe she was thinking it. “…Halli?” Her words emerged as a broken whisper, aghast.
“Stop talk. Must run!” the blight commanded, wild eyed. “They come, they catch, they hurt.”
“But-... Halli?”
The once-zaar latched abnormally long fingers around her arm and hauled backwards. “Stupid, Stupid! Run! Breg returns, losing time! You they want, you they catch!”
“But what about you?”
“Drew them off for you, don’t waste time!” Halli snapped her tiny jaws at Blink, almost skinning a finger, and at last the fessine got the hint. She fled.