Chapter 13: Crossing
Putting one foot
ahead of the other.
How much of my
life has become just putting one foot ahead of the other? Jimmy
thought, as he jerked his foot off the ground – the boot of the
heat resistant suits that he and Pix wore used some kind of
technology that made them stick to the ground, no matter how sheer
and slippery it was. That did mean that every time he lifted his
foot, he had to jerk and twist at it for a bit before the sole of his
shoe let go of the ground and he could put his foot forward, then
thump it down.
Jimmy kept his gaze
down on the ground – the less he looked ahead, the less he could
think about the vastness of the Foundry, the killing white heat that
was outside of the suit, and the uncertain peril that lurked beyond
it.
It felt as if the
Foundry had become his whole world – the memories of everything
before it fading into an indistinct dream – unreal against the heat
and the light and the faint buzzing sound that was the only noise
that came through his protective helmet.
Put one foot
ahead of the other... He thumped
his foot down, and then looked up.
Ahead, two Pix's
intersected, hazy and indistinct.
Jimmy shook himself,
slightly, blinking his eyes until Pix became one Pix once more.
"Let's take a
quick break," Jimmy said, his breath fogging up the faceplate of
his suit. He reached up and patted the side of his helmet, feeling it
shift against his head. He found the button that turned on the
comlink.
“Let's take a
quick break, Pix?”
Pix took another few
steps, stopped, then turned around.
“Zzzzzshhzzz
againzzzzzzzz?”
Jimmy winced a bit
as the buzzing static that came through his ear-piece added its
unpleasant note to the droning noise that he had been hearing for the
last few eternities.
"I said, let's
take a quick break," he said, again.
“Zzzzzzzzz hat?
Zzzzzzz”
Jimmy sighed,
closing his eyes. "Can. We. Take. A. Break."
Pix turned and –
by all the Architects, Jimmy wasn't sure he had ever seen a sight as
brave and heroic as her walking backwards. Not because it was
particularly hard. More that she had sacrificed five feet of ground
covered in this place. That would be five feet that she'd have to get
back!
She put her
faceplate against his and spoke without the comlink – the noise
sounding muffled, but audible.
“Sure,” she
said.
Jimmy grinned and
wished he could take this helmet off. Which lead to a round of
horrible itching feelings, a desire to rub his hair, and the stinging
of sweat dribbling into his eyes. He blinked it away, saying, “How
far do we have to go, you think?”
“Halfway,” Pix
said.
Jimmy closed his
eyes, slowly breathed in, breathed out, breathed in, breathed out.
Trying to calm himself, he said, “Pix, something's not right about
this Korban guy. I mean, beyond the racism thing."
Pix snorted. “Duh.
He's out here in the middle of nowhere, and he says he's here to
research the Foundry? Yeah. Right. Still, not much we can do about
him here.”
Jimmy nodded,
bumping his forehead against the faceplate a few times.
“Do you think he
might be a threat or something?” Pix asked.
“Not sure,”
Jimmy said. “But let's be cautious once we get out of the Foundry.”
Pix snorted. “As
if we didn't have a reason to before now!”
###
After another three
eternities of walking and trudging and drinking from a thin tube that
ran along the inside of the heat suit helmets, Jimmy and Pix came to
the other side of the Foundry. The wall grew larger and larger for
the last hour of the trek, and Jimmy felt his heart race and race as
the door on the wall got larger and larger, and then...finally, it
was done.
The two of them
stood before the door.
And...tt was locked.
"Oh by the
goddamn Architects!" Jimmy wrenched on the door handle, panting
and sweating. To feel as though rescue from this horrible suit was a
moment away, only to have it yanked away...well, let's just say it
was not something that Jimmy wanted to feel.
“Zzzz this is a
repeating message,” Edna said, her voice ringing through his
comlink. “Respond once you hear it you tzzz zzzz wo...”
“Edna?” Jimmy
asked. “Edna, we're reading you!”
“Oh good,”
Edna's voice – her non-recorded, non-repeated voice – came
through his com. “Checking your location. Uh. You've veered off on
your course. This door you're at is locked.”
“No DUH!” Pix
shouted.
“Just go along the
wallzzzzzzzzz-” Edna said, her voice fuzzing into static and
crackles. “Zzzzzz go zzzzz say agazzz Spinward.”
They did so, their
hands trailing against the wall – the white light was dazzling, and
Jimmy didn't want to veer away. Touching the wall might have been
overkill. But it worked. They came to the next door. Jimmy braced
himself, grabbing onto the handle and pushing. The door creaked open
and he laughed, ecstatically. Joy and fireworks exploded in his mind,
and together, he and Pix charged out of the Foundry.
The instant the door
closed, Pix yanked her helmet off, gasping loudly. “Praise all
those Gods I don't acutally believe in, WE MADE IT!”
Jimmy yanked off his
helmet a mere moment later. "That's us one, Foundry zero,” he
said, grinning as he shook his sweaty head, droplets flying off his
hair. He started to undo the straps on the suit, his knees shaking
with eagerness to get the damn thing off.
Pix used her teeth
to jerk her gloves off. Then her fingers grabbed the zipper on her
suit and she jerked it off. Jimmy bit his lip as he noticed how her
sweat caused her shirt to cling to her body like a second skin.
"So...my suit
was only loaded with half a water canteen, you got any extra?"
Pix asked, rubbing her throat with one hand.
With the suit off,
Jimmy kicked it away, then knelt and grabbed the duffel he had slung
around his shoulder. He jerked the zipper open and pulled out the
supplies that they had stored inside – including a canteen. He
grabbed it and underhanded it to Pix.
She knocked her
head back and drank the entire thing. Once she had finished gulping
and gasping, she wiped her mouth clean. “Oh...uh...sorry,” she
said, looking sheepish. “Do you need any?”
"Don't worry."
Jimmy felt faint. "I'll be fine."
They staggered to
the supply room that Edna claimed Korban had stocked nearby. Her
intel was good: The room was stocked with a water re-processor, a
bathroom, a crate of nutri-bars, a shotgun, everything a sentient
would need.
Jimmy slotted his
canteen into the reprocessor, humming as the water filled the metal
bottle, while Pix picked up the shotgun, looking it over. She nodded,
and set it down again, then made a second discovery: She pushed open
the thin door that was labeled BATHROOM and peeked inside.
She cooed. "Shower!"
"Shower?”
Jimmy asked. Pix's fingers tapped on a small console and the bathroom
whirred – cluing Jimmy into the fact that it was reconfigurable
bathroom.
"Showaaaaaaah!"
Pix said in a sing song. She tugged at her shirt, revealing her
belly. "Wait...can that processor handle the shower?”
Jimmy frowned. The
water re-processor was rated to four people. He nodded, slowly, then
asked a question of his own: "Can door lock?"
"Door lock
can." Pix nodded.
The door locked.
Sweaty clothes hit the ground, and Jimmy tripped into the shower
cubical.
###
The shower took
longer than expected, but what really surprised Jimmy was how much
noise the bed made. Korban really needed to change his springs.
###
Jimmy and Pix waited
until they were a good four or five corridor junctions away from the
safe room before sliding on their comlinks. The mini-map screens
folded out and Jimmy spoke into his comlink first.
“Edna, we're back
online,” Jimmy said.
Silence.
“Edna?”
"Mmph, one
sec." There was a fizzing pop sound, then a soft 'glug glug
glug'.
"Are you
eating?"
"Girls gotta
eat!" There was another glug, then a sigh. “And drink,
considering how you two go at it like rabbits...”
“Hey!” Pix said.
“Wait...I choose to take that as a compliment.”
"Sure you do,"
Edna said. "Now, I've been working out a route for you two. And,
well..." She paused for a long time. When she spoke again, it
was with a soft, almost shy tone to her voice. "This is going to
sound weird, but...I'm enjoying this a lot more than what Mom had me
doing before."
"What did she
have you do?" Pix asked, her voice gentle. Edna's mom was a
touchy subject, what with the whole...dead issue.
"Nevermind,”
Edna said.
"No, no, I want
to know!" Pix sounded plaintive, and even clasped her hands
together.
Edna sighed. "Fine.
She had me doing the accounts."
"Like an
accountant?"
"Yes." She
paused. "Stop giggling!"
"Okay, fine,
where do we go next?” Jimmy said – as Pix was too busy giggling.
Edna sounded like
she was grinning. "You'll be glad to hear this. The next bit is
easy...all you need to do is ask for directions.”
###
After three hours of
trooping through connecting corridors, Jimmy peeked around the corner
and nodded. "Yup! It's a Slor!"
The Slor sat on a
hovering bath of ooze. It sort of looked like a silvery bowl,
floating at about shin height (Which meant the Slor came up to about
Jimmy's chest). The Slor had two very small sensory organs which let
it see above ground. They were almost entirely vestigial in the
bygone era when the Slor had first evolved, but they were slowly
becoming larger as the race spent more and more time above ground and
thus, better eyes were a better survival option. At least, according
to Slor nature magazines. The much larger Slor sensory organ was,
well, their entire skin. Through their skin, they could feel
vibrations, gusts, drafts. They could taste chemicals on the air, and
could 'hear' voices. Now, the question was, did this one understand
Interlac?
"Uh, hello?"
Jimmy asked. The Slor turned its hovering device, its manipulator arm
barely visible against the folds of its skin. To Jimmy, the Slor
looked like a disgusting grubby thing stewing in its own pine-scented
juices. He had to force himself to remember that to another Slor,
this Slor would be a young, handsome, healthy male. At least, Jimmy
thought it was male. And really, it'd have to-
"Questioning
Greeting: Hello humans. Worried question: Are you lost?"
"Uh, no."
Jimmy looked around for the translator. He spotted it a moment later
– built into the hover-seat itself. Nice touch. "Well, sort
of."
The hoverpad ghosted
forward. "Eager to please: Please. Welcome to Slor Corridors."
Jimmy grinned. "Uh,
smiling pleasantly: My friend and I would like the best directions to
the nearest bus station."
"Bus station?"
The Slor and Pix asked at the same time.
"Aside to
Friend: Do you really want to walk the rest of the way?" Jimmy
asked Pix.
"Graceful
Admission: Good point," Pix said, sounding as if she was
enjoying the qualifiers that the Slor – and any people who would
want to talk to a Slore – had to use.
The Slor's body
rippled, and then a thick, viscous green ooze sprayed from every pore
of the creature, splattering Jimmy and Pix with a layer half an inch
thick.
"Mournful: I
don't have legs,” the Slor said via translator.
"Restraining
Irritation: I noticed." Jimmy said, trying to keep his lips
closed as Slor mucus slid down his face. He slowly wiped his arm off
on his sleeve, only to find that said sleeve was soaked as well.
###
"Ick, ick..."
Pix wiped at her hair. "I hope this doesn't gunk up my hair..."
Jimmy looked at her,
then shook his head. "It's okay."
"You sure?"
"Sure!"
"Uugh."
She shuddered. "I feel all icky. When do we get a shower again?
"When we get to
the Upper Levels," Jimmy said, throwing another towel away –
there was a single towel dispenser in the survival gear. It was
running low after their run in with the Slor. "Also, and this is
just a theory so don't take it to court or anything, we're both icky,
so does that cancel it out?"
She mulled that one
over as she wiped off the bits of the comlink that had gotten gunk on
them with a towel.
They continued
walking towards the bus station for a few moments.
"You know,"
Pix said, closing her eyes, fingertips trailing along the wall. "I
was thinking about what I want from life. See, I've figured it out. I
want to find a small house in the middle of nowhere. Maybe a little
hydropnics bay so we don't need to buy food. And then I just want to
lay down in bed and never ever let you out."
“Remarkably
similar to my idea,” Jimmy said, grinning. “After this is over,
I'm going to get you that bed. But we're gonna have to set up near a
Orx and Crakes. I can't grow food to save my life."
Pix grinned. "And
we could steal your dad's set of a hundred and one classic action
movies."
"Sounds like a
date."
Pix's smile faded
slightly. "We haven't actually gone on a date."
"I know. It's
pathetic, isn't it? True loves really should go on at least one
date."
"And what makes
you think this is true love?" Pix grinned. "How do you know
the euphoria of your first physical relationship isn't making you
mentally repress all my minor flaws, flaws that will become readily
apparent after a few months of our relationship?"
"Cause you're
my best friend." Jimmy poked her nose. "You've been my best
friend for ten years and you're going to keep on being my best friend
no matter how many times I have sex with you."
Pix giggled, then
grabbed his hand. "Okay! Well, now we've got that out of the
way...on with the adventure?"
"On with the
adventure!"
They walked in
silence for a bit.
“This adventure
kinda sucks, you know,” Pix said. “There's been no dragons, no
princesses, no nothing...”
###
At the prow-ward
part of Slor territory, where their civilization started to integrate
with one of the oldest civilizations on Harbinger – the
Tette<click><click>, the architecture started to take on
the same look. That was why, as Jimmy and Pix walked along the main
street of whatever Slor city this was, there were actual...well,
streets to walk down, not just tunnels burrowed through imported
biomass. That didn't mean the buildings surrounding them weren't
amorphous, reddish brown masses of lumpy tissue – which made low,
steady breathing noises as they expanded and contracted.
Jimmy just wished
it did.
The bus station
proper, though, was all Tette<click><click>: The
structure was crafted out of multiple layers of organic extrusions,
which created a flowing, smooth structure that managed to disguise
the utilitarian harshness that would have dominated a human bus stop.
The benches were configured for all the local races.
Meaning
none of them were comfortable for Jimmy and Pix. One had
fifteen slots at the bottom for the Tette<click><click>'s
legs. The other was a curved trough, full of a viscous, bubbling ooze
that smelled strongly of acid.
Jimmy and Pix
decided to stand and look at the curved bus schedules. They did so
for about five, six seconds, before Jimmy spoke up.
“Pix,” he said.
“Yeah?” Pix
asked.
“I do believe
we're looking at a decoration and not the bus schedules,” he said.
“Yeah,” Pix
said. Slowly, they turned, until they saw a booth holding a Slor –
who was currently partially deflated and snoring softly. Jimmy and
Pix walked over, looking at the space above the booth.
"So."
Jimmy tapped his foot. "Which bus should we take?"
"Uh, are you
asking me?" Edna asked after a moment of silence.
"Well, seeing
as how neither of us can read Slor or Tette<click><click>..."
Pix trailed off.
Edna sighed. "And
how exactly do you expect me to read languages that are transcribed
non-visually? Tette<click><click> imprint information
psionically, and psi doesn't go through a camera. And the Slor
language, you need to lick to-"
"Ah!"
Jimmy snapped his fingers. He stepped up, then focused on a single
word: INTERLAC. As he thought that word, the wall shimmered,
and words in the interstellar language slowly formed out of
nothingness – words that spelled out the bus schedule!
"Okay, Pix,
there's a bus that will hit the Traverse heading out in about twenty
minutes."
Pix tapped her chin
and opened her mouth, then closed it. She thought about it for a few
more seconds, while Jimmy watched – wondering what the hell it was
she was thinking about. Then, grinning, he said. "No, that's not
enough time to have sex. More's the pity."
"Actually,
Jimmy, you horrible, sexist person you, I was going to ask if you
knew where the bathroom was?"
"Oh! Um..."
He frowned. "I don't know if they have human bathrooms here."
They both looked at
the Slor attendant, who remained deflated. Jimmy carefully knocked on
the window pane. The Slor filled up with a loud squelching noise, and
then spoke.
"Quivery: How
can I help yea twice?" The Slor had a translator built right
into the desk and it was one that had not been updated in a long
time. A long long time.
"Uh..."
Jimmy blinked. "Is there a human compatible bathroom here?"
"Afferimnation!"
the Slor said. “Reconfigurmation begun!”
"Thanks! Where
is it?" Pix leaned on the desk, her antennas sparking. Her knees
knocked together slightly, the unique Pix 'need to pee' signal.
"Right around
the corner. Take this key." The Slor extruded a single tendril,
to handed her what looked like a chain of beads, that had been
smeared with mucus.
"Uh...right."
Pix held it as gingerly as possible, then walked around said corner,
making small 'ew' and 'gross' noises under her voice.
Jimmy tapped his
fingers on the desk. How does one make small talk with a Slor?
The door to the bus
station opened. Jimmy glanced over his shoulder.
And froze.
The Xorquin.
That. Was.
Impossible.
He wore the same
jacket. It was a bit more stained now. His right arm was wrapped up
in one of those inteli-casts, with the blue liquid in contained in a
glass outer shell. The liquid seeped into wounds and healed them
quicker than naturally. He walked slowly, with a limp, but he still
had a definite presence. Like he could still rip Jimmy's spinal
column out. The only thing going for Jimmy was the Xorquin had a big
strip of cloth wrapped sideways over his head, covering two out of
three eyes.
Jimmy shuffled
slowly to the corner of the room, hands in his pockets, head away
from the Xorquin. Don't turn. Don't turn.
The Xorquin stepped
up to the desk and rattled at the clerk.
The clerk's
translator rattled back.
The Xorquin held out
his non wounded arm. The Slor dropped...a strong of mucus covered
beads into that palm. Shit shit shit shit shit.
Jimmy shuffled
towards the entrance, keeping himself behind the Xorquin (who was
turning, slowly, to the corner that lead to the bathrooms).
Jimmy ducked out of
the place. He drew his gun, gulping as he did so. Okay, okay, run
run. He ran to the alleyway behind the bus stop, ducked around a
dumpster that looked shockingly human, and then burst out in the
back, where the bathrooms jutted out of the back of the bus-stop like
a tumor.
Okay, maybe it
wasn't so unlike a human bus stop.
The Xorquin was
trying to thread the beads through the lock of the bathroom door, but
he was having trouble getting them through the lock. Jimmy never
thought he would thank the Slor for their fiddly, pointlessly complex
keys. He reached for his gun, planning to-
Then the door
opened. "Hey, Jimmy look what I found."
The Xorquin looked
at Pix. Pix looked at the Xorquin. In her hand was...a lighter, a
human style lighter, the silvery top popped off, Pix's thumb on the
button to start the sparker.
The Xorquin reached
into his jacket.
Pix blinked as his
hand vanished into his jacket, then took advantage of having a
computerized brain. Where Jimmy would have thought through every
option and then gotten shot before making a decision, Pix came to the
best decision, then...did it.
She clicked the
lighter on and stuck her hand in the Xorquin's jacket, flames licking
at the bandages the Xorquin had used to patch up his ribs, chest, arm
and neck.
Jimmy did not know
bandages were that flammable. The Xorquin jerked back, his shredder
pistol hitting the ground with a clank, his hands beating at the
flames on his chest. He backed into the wall of the bus station.
Pix blinked. The
Xorquin tossed his jacket off, slapping himself with it.
"Run."
Jimmy grabbed her arm. Pix was staring at the Xorquin, eyes widening.
Widest. She didn't look away from the Xorquin, even as he was
wreathed in smoke and a horribly familiar smell touched both Jimmy
and Pix's nose.
BBQ.
Pix put her hand
over her mouth. "Oh god, oh god," she whispered. "No,
no, not again!"
"PIX!"
Jimmy yanked on her. She blinked.
The Xorquin grabbed
his jacket, his chest a big bunch of burnt scales. He ignored them,
even as some popped off with the flexing of his muscles. They popped
off and revealed burnt, raw flesh.
He yanked a second
shredder from his jacket, cocked the safety back, aimed. Jimmy
dragged Pix behind the bathroom. Shredder bolts peppered the wall,
blowing hunks out of the material. A dark shadow passed overhead.
Jimmy and Pix looked up and saw the bus!
It landed at the
front. Jimmy fired his gun around the corner wildly. The Xorquin shot
back, but then there was a pause. A rattle...a magazine hitting the
ground?
Jimmy took the
chance, dragging Pix towards the bus. The door opened. People –
Slor and Tette<click><click> started getting out. The
Xorquin slapped a new magazine into the shredder, aimed, and opened
fire.
Jimmy and Pix were
almost on the bus by then. People screamed and other people dropped
and screamed louder, in ways that made Jimmy want to scream too. The
bus doors closed and the bus driver slammed his foot down. He was an
Urtish, so he had a LOT of foot to slam.
The bus lurched
forward, those still on screaming and panicking and pointing at
Jimmy. Jimmy realized he was still holding his gun. "Uh, I-"
he started.
Pinkpinkpinktwinkclang!
Shredder bolts
thudded into the bottom of the bus.
"Whaz going
on!?" The Urtish shouted, his translator shouting as well a
moment later.
"Drive!"
Jimmy shouted, aiming his gun in the vague direction of the Urtish
(but not before flicking on the safety on). "NOW!"
The bus lurched into
a higher speed, listing slightly to the side as it did so. Pix leaned
against the wall, eyes still unfocused.
"Pix!"
Jimmy grabbed her, looking into her eyes.
He paused. "Pix,
snap out of it!
Pix kept staring
over his shoulder.
Then bus jerked to
the side and she whacked her head against the glass. "Shit!"
Jimmy half wanted to
tell her to watch her language. But this was no school bus...even if
it was Monday again. One week, and everything had changed.
"Jimmy, what
the heck is going on!?" Edna shouted, startling him as
effectively as the bus jerking to the side.
Something was
smashing against the bus. The Urtish yelped. Jimmy looked at the side
and saw that a large hover-car, painted bright red, was slamming into
the side of the bus, the driver seat occupied by a still smoking,
still badly burned, Xorquin.
Jimmy ignored Edna
and brought his gun up and fired a few times out the window. That
didn't do much.
At his side, Pix sat
on the floor, trying to get her gun out, but her hands were shaking.
Jimmy braced himself
and aimed, firing. Bang bang bang.
The Xorquin's car
started to spurt smoke from the hood. The Xorquin kicked the door
open with one foot as the hover-car started to lose speed.
"Oh you gotta
be kidding me." Jimmy whispered.
The Xorquin jumped
out of the car, which rolled off to the side, losing altitude faster
than it lost speed. It smashed into the road and exploded, bits of
shrapnel flying in every direction, some pinking off the bottom of
the bus, which lurched to a forty five degree angle as the Xorquin
grabbed onto the rim of the bus roof with his uninjured hand. He
hauled himself up, cocked his leg up, then he was ontop of the bus.
Jimmy and Pix –
who had picked up her gun from the floor - aimed up and fired. They
blew holes in the top of the bus, but neither could tell if they were
doing anything more than scaring what was left of the heck out of the
other passengers.
A siren cut through
the screaming and shouting and gunshots. A Slor police craft, sleek
and rounded – like one of the flying saucers of ancient legend –
came alongside the bus. It started to use the Slor's audio language,
which was rather similar to the Xorquin's clicking and rattling, if
only much much less complicated.
The Xorquin's claws
grabbed the roof and started to rip it up through sheer brute
strength. Jimmy gaped up at him. Pix shouted and slapped Jimmy
shoulder: “Look!”
Jimmy looked. The
Urtish was driving straight for a tunnel. The tunnel was very wide,
but the Urtish was aiming so that...
Jimmy did not know
whether to cheer for the Urtish, or to scream like everyone else.
The
bus' roof smashed into the lip of the tunnel.
The bus jerked and a
scream of metal filled the air as the roof was peeled up and back
like the bus was being attacked by a giant can opener.
Then they were in
the tunnel and wind roared through the roof. Alarms blared from the
Urtish's console. The passengers kept up their versions of screaming
their heads off.
The bus burst from
the tunnel and shot out into the Traverse
###
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