by Ken Rivers
He swung me out over the precipice and held me there. Such incredible strength. “I won’t ask again. What are you!?”
“I’m just a guy who loves girls,” I grunted.
He studied me for a moment. “You don’t even know, do you?”
I was desperately racing through my mind for what to say, grasping for words. “Have you really thought this through? If you drop me, I’ll be gone and Yari will never agree to help you. Also, you’ll prove what a fucking pussy you are by not fighting me straight up, man to man. I’ll put your ass into ground for good!”
He brought me close to him. “No, you won’t. Not without her.”
The Life-Tech completely shattered in his hand when he tore it from my arm and the biting wrench of pain tore full bore through my stomach once more.
“Such suffering. Such weakness. Here, I shall give you the cure.” He hurled me out over the pit then thrust his hand into the stone. A sledgehammer of air planted me deep into the mists.
I thought of Yari being lied to. I thought of what would happen to my friends. I imagined an unforgiving jagged end to my life. I watched the ionized death swirl around me, and my stomach dropped into hell.
14
I flipped and turned and barrel-rolled. The light faded and the rush of the rocks around me came closer. It wouldn’t take too many ping-pong bounces off the walls to do me in before I stuck the landing.
I went through the scores I’d give myself. Head-first would end it fastest so that was a ‘9’. A belly flop for sure would’ve been a ‘2’. Any banging off the walls before hitting the ground would take a lot off the final tally because it would slow me down, hurt a lot, and I might just bounce off the ground and live. I didn’t score legs first very high. Less than a ‘5’.
The longer it took, the more I began to feed the small voice of hope for a perfect ‘10’. I smiled and kept that thought closest. Why go out worrying? That’s twice the pain. The pain while you worry, then the pain of the thing you worried about. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts…
Did I hear a voice? A song? Nope. I thought I felt something. Saw the walls slow down, maybe. I imagined my last moments and saw Yari’s face. A rush of air. A flash of light. Then, the impact.
But the end didn’t come, and the impact wasn’t anything like the hammer of death I’d made it out to be. I thought maybe I had stumbled into a dream where you walk away from falls. As I rubbed the cold from my face, the shadowy chasm spun. My hand found the ground, slipped, then caught. I wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t pleasant. It was like I had woken up from being over-served at a bar with company credits picking up the bill, dry-mouthed and haggard and hungover.
“A perfect 10…”
I had always wished to go home and simply be on a mountain somewhere, fishing. Slowly adding onto a log cabin, eventually I’d die as I worked. My whole life had been injected with tech. It was everywhere. Next to my face in bed, at my fingertips, banners in the toilet tracking my fecal cycles every minute, glowing rectangles floating among people who wanted to talk to me but were never there. I yearned for a simpler life, where everything available wasn’t digitally expressed to me. But in that hole, lost in the dark and heaving in pain, the rot flared up again. All I wanted was to be back on the job. Back to somewhere, anywhere off that rock.
I let all of those feelings out in an extended groan that echoed off into the techless dark with no one to answer me back.
“To think,” a weak and shaky voice echoed. I felt the vibrations on the wall ripple forth and bang past my throbbing head. “A human with the force of the Father in him.”
“Who’s there?” I asked, squinting through the dark.
“Sorry. Black as pitch down here. I’m well used to it by now.” The rock around me came alive in a soft orange glow. “How’s this?” A woman dressed in a dirty white gown, old but beautiful. Her silver hair hung ratty at her sides and spilled off the rock ledge she sat on. Behind her was a giant gash in the cavern wall, ten meters high. She leaned forward. “Well, this isn’t right at all. Not at all,” shaking her head.
“Where am I? I still can’t see very well.”
The soft glow grew brighter and the walls and rock became clear to me and the voice took shape. “Well, with that much light, I’m sure you can see you’re in a hole in the ground. You don’t need light to know that, though, do ya, boy?” she laughed. “Did you miss that on the way down?” She laughed more, then calmed herself. “Stupid even by human standards.”
“Seriously?”
“Now out with it. Are you alone?”
I looked around. “Wouldn’t you know if I was or not?”
“Oh,” she sounded disappointed. “It’s good to check. it gets so dark down here and I can’t go lighting the whole place all the time. I might turn it off right now if you’re not worth my time and time is everything. It flows slower down here, a side effect of the mists. Makes for a longer life than I ever wanted…”
“Look, I am super thankful—”
“Alone, then?” she pressed.
“Yup,” the stress of the day hissed out of my mouth, but I reeled it back in. “Thank you for saving me, but if you could also help me out of here, I could save my friends and get as far away from Levani territory as possible.”
“I didn’t save you. Almost left you to get lost and wander off into any number of pits down here, if you want the short side of it. But, save you? Nope.”
Brushing the dust and rock off my jacket, I stood. “Then who did?”
“Not who. What.” She pointed at me. “You came screaming down from above, then a burst of energy or air something like that, and bang, you landed right here.” She pointed to the smooth stone below me and looked up, trying to figure me out. “What’s your story, human?”
“Thought my story was over, a few minutes ago.” I ran my hand across my tech-belt for my Clear-Tech screen but it was gone, left connected to the rail-bike. My Surudo was there though so I took a little solace in that. “Any help getting out of here?”
“If, human, you tell me who you are and how you got here.”
“Fair enough.”
I went through the abridged story arc. B, then Yari, then Pusi, then Lana, then Tawa. She told me to skip the Tawa part and asked me to slow down and go over my time with Pusi and Lana in detail. Said she needed to check if I was lying or not. After I finished, she sat back and ran her hand through her silver hair.
“You need to know much before you go back up there. Sit and listen, but his story does not come for free. You will do as I ask at the end of it or I will throw you into a pit of my choosing.”
“Are threats really necessary right now? Trust me, I’m not going to do anything to a poor old lady—”
It was like someone flipped the switch on to a thunderstorm. My arms were flung out wide as I was lifted into the air and my eyes began to buckle and water under the force of her roar. Then a smaller voice cut through the booming fury, like a shelter from the chaos.
“Old, yes. Poor, no. I will offer you one more chance. How do you humans put it? Ah, don’t fuck with me? That’s it, isn’t it?”
I nodded once.
“DON’T FUCK WITH ME!” echoed off the ancient rock. “Now, you listen, or you can get in the pit. What’s it gonna be?” she loosed the energy that kept me frozen in place.
“Yup, sounds fair. I’m a good listener. I swear.”
The vacuum of silence was almost as jarring as the explosion of sound a few seconds earlier. Poking around in my ears didn’t help the ringing very much at all.
“Good answer. I used to be a High Maiden, the High Maiden, groomed for one purpose—to wield the power of the Mother and her Kaiju. With any power, of course, there is a price. For me, it was to stay underground and breed them to keep the mists balanced on the planet. In exchange for my service, the fates allowed the purest and strongest of bonds, a Mother and Father in love. The Kaiju and the planet are nothing without them.
“I thought about
the fate of the world and the Kaiju. But, for a young Levani woman, true love is not a small thing. I took up the mantle of responsibilities, but all I really wanted was to be loved. When I met him, I was certain he would love me forever, and I him. Every day I paid the price to have that love, birthing and taking care of Kaiju.
“We were wed at the Spire, where I saw my last sunrise. From that day forward, I was the Kaiju Queen, controller of their minds, and Tawa was my King. By sheer strength of will, he controlled their bodies. Together, we held the fates of the Kaiju and all who lived on the surface in our hands. For a time, life was perfect.
“I would do anything for him. It wasn’t the truest of perfect loves because he knew I loved him more than he cared for me. It slowly began to show. His lust for conquering other races fueled the need for more and more Kaiju. I pushed on and pretended everything was fine. I ignored him not being in my bed as much. I let him blame me for our children becoming either small and weak, or deformed and horrific. But in the end, I was only fooling myself. I knew what it meant. It meant our time was drawing to a close, and a new Maiden would come. To be honest, I welcomed it.
“Tawa knew this as well, but he refused to accept me or that his reign would come to an end. We both waited, slowly hating each other year by year, but the Maiden never came. Tawa began speaking of this as a sign that he must do something about the balance, that it wasn’t meant to be any longer.
“Then he pondered if it was possible for us to have a child, a real one from my womb. So, we tried. I was desperate for any attention from him, so I gave in. But he had other ideas. I made love to him, and he did his duty. We had two offspring. Beautiful and unique, but too small for him. He was used to instant power coming from the depths of the planet itself where the womb of the Mother lay. His anger came to head and he exploded on me in rage, but I held him back.
“He was unhappy and would say, ‘how can you, a Mother who hasn’t produced a healthy Kaiju in decades, still rival me in power?’ He said I disgusted him. He said that if I didn’t have the self-respect to produce a Kaiju worthy of the Mother, that he would bring every Kaiju out of the sky and rain death upon the galaxy. Again, I agreed.
“After putting things where things should never go, the mists grew thick around us and turned sour, but it came. Up through from the core of the world. Twisted and strong and infused with the gift of fire. Not many Kaiju had the gift, but one thing is for certain, they bring either riches or ruin for their rider. And since they mirror their rider’s true self…” she trailed off.
“He can ride that thing?”
“He can and will. It’s my fault. I needed but snap my fingers and could have sent it back into its contingent parts. Simply scattered it into the ether from whence it came. A merciful fate I took from the world because I still refused to let go of my hope for love. After its birth, my power began to diminish. I felt a shift in the balance between him and I. Then he turned against me completely. I left the cave-world above and came here, to tend to my last young. He came many times looking for me, but I hid from him. I hoped that he had given up.
“The last time he came here, he wasn’t alone. I sensed his power had been tainted and diminished as well, so he finally resolved to kill me. But when he, again, could not find me, he turned on what he could. Our children. He chose to find help in the resource-lusting humans. He agreed to the occupation of our people. He pulled out from a dozen planets and let the humans destroy what was left. But, everything didn’t happen as he foresaw it. The elders secretly signed him into exile underground forever. They feared what Tawa represented, a breaking of the sacred balance. In the end, the humans showed us that they had the power to defeat even Tawa if they wanted and agreed to his exile. The number of my children dwindled, then plummeted, and now…”
“Tawa wanted humans to kill the Kaiju?”
“Without your people’s help, he didn’t have the strength and would’ve failed in his revenge against me. It’s why I almost threw you down another hole. But, here you are, a human with the power of a new Father in him. It’s certainly weak, but it’s there. Maybe it’s for the better. You are not Levani, yet she chose you.”
“Who? Yari?
She spat on the floor in front of me. “If you don’t know that by now, an old hag just sitting here with her thumb up her arse waiting for the end can’t help you.”
“I guess it has to be her. When Tawa pinned us all on the ground, she did your screaming terror thing and stood right up to him. She has the same screaming ability as you, and—”
She spoke with an urgency in her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me that sooner! Here I am rambling on about love and shit...she is the next Maiden! He cannot be allowed to woo her. If he does, he will have what he needs to unleash our child’s full potential.”
“Then help me out of here. I’ll find a way to drive this ten-inch blade through his chest.” I could barely hold the blade in front of me.
She smiled at me for the first time. “Maybe a human’s reckless ways are exactly what’s needed. Your heart is in the right place, but you’re broken.” She stood and waited. “Come, you’re not going to save anyone with a wound like that. Give me your hand.”
15
I took her cold, thin hand in mine. She stood, and we looked eye to eye.
“I can see what she sees in you,” she exhaled while sliding her fingers under my shirt. I let my jacket fall to the floor as she slipped my shirt over my head and drew invisible signs on my wound. “You know, I’m old, and you’re human, but there’s a first time for everything…”
I swallowed hard and fast. “Can’t knock it till you try it.” I leaned in for a kiss then she jammed her thumb into me and I bent sideways.
“Sorry, thinking out loud, there. First time I’ve ever seen anything like this. She’s put part of herself inside you. I’m sure you don’t mind, though. You’ve put yourself in her a number of times, am I right?” She cackled.
“We actually haven’t done anything like that.”
“Everything working down here?” She cupped my balls and jiggled my junk around. “Wakey, wakey.”
I pushed her hand off my jewels. “Fully functional, yes.”
“Then, what’s the hold up? It falls off if ya don’t use it, ya know.”
“What is with Levani and parts falling off?”
She scoffed and jerked her head back. “A human with nuts enough to attack a Culler on impulse and yet you can’t get it up for a woman who saved your life? You must not understand Levani very well, then. The second you saved that girl’s life, she fell for you. She told you so, didn’t she?”
I shrugged my shoulders, “Yari mentioned the life-debt to me, sure. But nothing about love or anything like that.”
She pulled her hand back to slap me then simply scowled instead. “Such a thing means love to a Levani. She pledged her life to you, to protect you until she healed you. Which she didn’t or couldn’t know how long that might take. A debt that can never be repaid. FOREVER. How is that not love? No wonder she got pissed at you. You made her fall in love with you without knowing what had happened.”
“How forgiving are Levani, exactly?” Maybe I should’ve told her I loved her. It wouldn’t have been a lie.
“Undying faith, forever. There was a time I would’ve taken Tawa back, even after everything he did to me, if he came and apologized. But, he came to kill me, so now I’d nail his dick to a wall and throw rocks at it every day if I could.”
“So, you’re saying there’s still a chance?”
“I won’t say no. But if you haven’t had sex with her yet, I don’t know. Unless you don’t like vaginas.”
“Hey, I—”
She laughed, “Just a joke. I can tell you’re into them. The second I touched your stick down there, the blood started flowing. Impressive after such hit from Tawa and me being as old as I am.” She smiled. “I wouldn’t mind a go, actually. I’d like to see what a human who pissed off Tawa Yen can do.”
> I thought about it for a moment. Tinkering, experimenting, I loved seeing how things worked. A new woman or a new machine, they all had their beautiful parts. A Pusani, a lady bird, and now possibly a multi-centenarian who gave birth to skyscraper-sized monsters.
“How does the whole birthing thing work?”
“They start small, dear. No need to worry. If Tawa was enough for me, you have plenty of tool for the job.”
She playfully flicked my zipper, then her eyes lit up. “Wait, if you haven’t given her the member yet, Tawa can… We have to hurry. If he inserts before you, she’ll be aligned with him as Mother to Father forever. If he finds out about you and her, he won’t hesitate.”
She threw the heavy green robe off her delicate shoulders and fell to her knees, naked before me. The years had been incredibly good to her from the neck down. Smooth milky skin, all her parts where they should be. A centimeter of sag up top and down below where gravity’s toll had been taken, but still beautiful. She smelled like a mountain spring and fresh flowers. One finger-width strip of silver trail ran down to a thumb-sized clit. Looked like ears and fingernails weren’t the only things that keep growing with age.
“The power of the Father will only come to you when in a heightened state of emotion. It is why you are not dead. Almost dying tends to be an emotional experience. Let’s see if we can make the power inside you a bit more ‘on demand.’ Close your eyes,” she said, smiling.
Her shriek picked me up off the ground and slammed me into the wall, cracks in the rock spidering out all around me. She crawled toward me, the intensity of the waves increasing with every inch closer.
I could hear her in my mind as her mouth hurled the force of a hurricane at me. “Sorry, there’s no time for the other way. It would have been fun, though. So, you will either break free or paint the walls of my cave red. I pray for the former. Good luck!”