by Elin Wyn
“You sit up here, acting all high and mighty, thinking you’re better than everyone else, and you don’t have a single clue as to what is really happening around here. You think I wanted to steal?” she was soon directly in front of me, poking me in the chest as she spoke. “I stole because I had to, not because I wanted to. I need to eat. You don’t look like you’ve ever gone hungry, so I don’t expect you to understand. You’re just a typical fat cat that already has everything. I doubt you even have a clue what it means to go hungry.”
If she only knew. I could feel my ire growing as she ranted, but I did my best to remain calm. “Everyone has a choice. Instead of doing what was right and honorable, you instead chose to steal. Your actions are what brought you here.”
“My actions?!” she screamed. “If you knew why I had to steal, you wouldn’t be such an asshole.”
Having been around the humans long enough to learn their vernacular, I knew what ‘asshole’ meant, and I didn’t appreciate it.
“I don’t care what your reasoning is,” I yelled at her, my voice echoing off the walls. “You broke the law, you made a choice, you screwed up!” I took a deep breath and brought my voice back down to a normal volume. “You have no reason that will convince me that stealing was a necessity. You’re nothing but a simple thief with no skills or abilities. You’re a coward.”
She tried to slap me, but I was prepared for it. I blocked her attempt and grabbed both of her wrists. I moved my face close to hers. “You have wasted enough of my time with your insolence and I will not stand for it. If I am called back in here to deal with you, I will forcefully remove you from here and throw you into the smallest, darkest, most forgotten cell available and forget that you’ve ever existed. When you’re on the verge of starving to death, I’ll come back, feed you, then force you to work until you break. Do you understand me?”
I should have known better than to get close to her. She swung her head forward, headbutting me in the chin. She laughed as I stumbled back, but I still had one of her wrists in my hand. I yanked her up in the air, shook her, and grabbed her. I walked her over to her bunk and slammed her down on it. “Don’t make me come back.”
“When can I get out of here?” she asked. “You can’t lock me up indefinitely just because of a few apples.”
Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to leave her to rot in here, she was correct. The penalty for stealing a few fruits was essentially a slap on the hand. She had already been in a cell much longer than she normally should have been.
“You need to make a change in your life. When you are capable of convincing me that you are ready to be a necessary and contributing member of society, I’ll let you out. Until then, you stay…quietly,” I said, making sure that the growl in my voice was enough to scare her.
“You’re a dick,” she spat at me. Not knowing what she had just said, I merely nodded and sighed.
“Very well. Enjoy your small accommodations, I’m sure your bucket will hold enough waste to prevent a mess in here,” I indicated the small bucket in the corner. I walked away, the door closing behind me. Her curses chased me until I left the building.
Nesta
“Sylor is a dick!” I sang, banging my tin cup against the door. “Sylor is the king of dicks, and so say all of us!” I continued repeating my improvised verses for the good part of an hour, hoping that the guards would go crazy. It didn’t take much longer before one of them was standing before my cell.
“Would you mind shutting up for a second?” he asked, looking at me through the small window, and I retreated a few steps to recline on the bed. This one was a Valorni, as well, and, judging by the expression on his face, he looked like he was nursing a headache. Mission accomplished. I’d had my doubts if those alien bastards could get headaches, but now I was sure of it.
“What? Don’t like the song?” I asked politely, jumping off my bunk and heading toward the door. I offered him a polite smile and then bit the corner of my lip. “What’s your name, guard?”
“It’s Nover,” he growled, massaging his temples.
“NOVER IS A DICK!” I started as loudly as I could. “NOVER IS THE KING OF DICKS, SO SAY ALL OF US!”
“For fuck’s sake,” he shook his head, stalking away from my cell to his post.
“Who taught you those bad human words?” I cried out, banging on the door with my cup. “Your mom would be disappointed!”
“SHUT UP!” he shouted, and I couldn’t resist but shout right back at him.
“YOU SHUT UP, YOU GREEN BASTARD!”
This time, he was smart enough not to reply. He just sat at his desk, looking down at his datapad while he jammed his enormous thumbs inside his ears. That, of course, only made me bang louder. I only gave up when my arms started getting tired, and returned to my bunk to think of new verses for my song.
I had always liked being alone, but being in a prison cell was a totally different experience. I wasn’t there of my own volition, and I had to depend on others to survive. If any of those bastards decided to starve me out, there’d be little I could do to stop them. I could sing louder, yes, but I figured that’d only piss them off more.
I remained in bed for the next few hours, occasionally practicing my song at the top of my lungs, and I only shut up when I started hearing voices outside. I climbed out of bed and immediately peeked out the window. My first thought was that the guards had complained to Sylor again, and that he was coming back to guilt-trip me again. I didn’t exactly like him, but at least his presence distracted me from the bare walls I now had to call home.
Sylor was nowhere to be seen, of course, nor was Nover. He was in one of the adjacent corridors, apparently, and he seemed to be talking with one of the human guards. Humans sounded much softer than the Valorni, so it was easy to distinguish their voices.
“...a waste of time, really,” the man was saying. “Sylor has been at it ever since the vines went crazy. And still, nothing.”
“Sylor is smart,” Nover replied, his tone harsh. “He’s about the best weapons engineer we have. You’ll see. He’ll find a way to blow the damn things.”
“Maybe it isn’t a weapon we need,” the other guy said, and I could almost imagine him shrugging by the tone of his voice. “I heard that the chemist we have working in the lab has some kind of toxin that works on the vines.”
“A toxin,” the Valorni snorted. “What we need is to blow through the vines, not give them medicine.”
“A toxin isn’t medicine,” the man protested.
“Then why don’t we use that medicine right now, huh?”
“The toxin we have isn’t enough,” the guy continued, correcting the Valorni dumbass. “Apparently, they only have half a vial, which is not enough to synthesize. They need more of it, but being that we’re trapped inside the city—”
“Exactly,” Nover cut the man short, his tone a triumphant one. “We have to go with an explosion. That toxin is a waste of time.”
“Man, you Valorni really are thick.”
“Yeah, they are,” I finally joined the conversation, raising my voice. “Aside from creating useless weapons, there’s not much they’re good at.”
“Don’t you ever shut up?” Nover said, finally walking into view with his colleague, a lanky man with thin hair that didn’t look older than thirty. There was a nametag on his uniform jacket, one that told me he was called Sam. “Are all women this annoying?” Nover asked.
“If you marry them, yes,” Sam laughed, looking at me with a smug grin.
I was about to continue mocking those two when I remembered why I had joined the conversation in the first place. If Leena and Sylor were looking for a specific toxin, I knew exactly the place to go. The underground existed in more places than just Nyheim, and one of the underground marketplaces I knew was renowned for its unlicensed apothecaries, illicit substances traffickers, and all sorts of fun family-related activities. I was willing to bet that the toxin, whatever it was, could be found in such a place. Eve
n if no one had the toxin, I was pretty sure I could find someone that would know where to look for it.
Now, if I could convince Sylor I could take him to the toxin...
“Get Sylor for me,” I said to the two guards. “There’s something I need to tell him.”
“Get out of here,” Sam laughed. “I’ve heard about you. I’m not going to fall for one of your pranks. If I get Sylor down here because of you, he’s going to rip my head off.”
“So what?” I snorted. “Your face needs to be rearranged anyway. Or could it be that you’re keeping something valuable inside that skull of yours?”
“She called you stupid,” Nover nodded sagely, probably proud that his limited knowledge of our language was enough to pick up on my sarcasm.
“You keep this up and I’ll make sure you won’t get fed for a week,” Sam frowned, folding his arms over his chest. Employing my best diplomatic skills, I just gave him the finger.
“Get Sylor, dumbass,” I repeated. “Because if you don’t, I can assure you...next time he sees you, he’s going to rip your head off for real.”
“Yeah? And why would that be?”
“Because I know exactly where to find that toxin of his,” I grinned, enjoying the way both the man and the Valorni stared at me, surprise taking over their faces. “Now don’t waste my time and go get Sylor.”
“You little…” He trailed off then, and I could see that he was struggling with what to do next. Shaking his head, he raked one hand over his face. “Wanda!” he called out, and a few seconds later another guard appeared, this time a woman that couldn’t be much older than me.
“Sir…?”
“Go get Sylor,” Sam whispered begrudgingly. “Tell him our new prisoner has some information concerning the dome he might find useful. It’s about the toxin.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I smiled, and then just blew him a kiss. Without waiting for his reply, I just kept my smug grin on and returned to my bunk.
Lying down, I laced my fingers behind my head and waited.
Sylor
I was headed out for the testing site when a guard came running to get me. Apparently, communications were still problematic.
“Sir,” she said as she attempted to catch her breath. “The prisoner wishes to speak with you.”
“And?” I was not interested in speaking with her again. My connection to that woman was over, for all I cared.
She was barely able to hide her impatience, as well as her skepticism, as she spoke. “She claims to have information that is vital to our attempt to escape the dome.”
This caught me by surprise. While it was no secret that we were attempting to find a way to escape, to hear that she had a potential plan had me intrigued. Of course, I was apprehensive, as well. This could all be a ploy to simply annoy me yet again. “Did she say what this information was?”
“Not exactly, sir,” she said with a quick shake of her head. “But she did mention something about a toxin.” That bit of news was a virtual slap in the face. How could she possibly know about the toxin? “Will you come to speak with her, sir?”
I stared at the guard for so long she became uncomfortable and began shifting her weight from foot to foot. I was unsure of the bit of information this guard had for me. Was Nesta telling the truth and she truthfully knew about the toxin, or was she playing games with me…again?
“Very well,” I relented, with a tremendously deep sigh. I found myself more annoyed than anything, sure that this was just another game that I did not have time for. “Lead on.”
With a nod, she turned sharply on her heel and led me back to the jail. I traveled through the second door, walked down the hall to the fourth door, and had it opened for me. Inside, standing next to her cot, Nesta seemed to be waiting for me. She seemed to perk up as I walked in.
“You’re going to let me out of here, and you’re going to let me out soon.” The sense of accomplishment in her voice was almost entertaining. She truly felt as though she had something that would get her out of this small room.
Keeping my own amusement hidden, I put on a scowl. “I don’t have time for games and lies. What information do you have?”
She grinned and folded her arms in front of her. “Maybe I won’t tell you, with that attitude.”
I shrugged, knocked on the door, and began to leave when the guard opened it for me.
“Wait. Please.”
I smiled, winked at the guard, and stepped back into the room, the door closing again behind me. “Well?”
She sat down on her cot, all smugness out of her expression. “I overheard some of the guards talking about your attempt to get through the vines, and they mentioned something about a toxin that could kill plants.”
While I wasn’t happy to hear about our failed attempts being the talk of the town, I kept my face passive. “And?”
“I know where to find that toxin,” she said.
“What makes you think we need it?” I countered as I attempted to keep myself calm. If she knew where to get more of the toxin we needed, we might have a chance to get out.
Here is where the smugness returned. “Oh, you’re trying to be calm and not show any sort of emotion, aren’t you? I’m going to assume, correctly I might add, that you’re about to tell me that you don’t need the toxin because you already have enough, aren’t you?”
I paused and looked at her stoically.
“So what if I am?” I asked.
She chuckled. “Then why did your eyes light up when I mentioned that I could find more of that toxin?”
Skrell. She was right. No matter how passive I had been able to keep my face, I knew that if she had been watching my eyes, my emotions would have been plain. The idea that she knew where there was more toxin was something that we had to look into. This was something that needed to be pursued.
“Very well,” I sighed. “You have information about the toxin, and you would be correct in assuming that we need it.”
“Ha!”
I waved her enthusiasm off. “Tell me what you know.”
“Well, like I said, I know where to get more of this toxin you need.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Nuh-uh,” she shook her head. “Not that easy. I want out of here.”
“Give me the information I want, and we’ll see if it’s worth releasing you for,” I said.
She shook her head again. “No. I get out, then you get the information. Besides, it’s not here in Nyheim.”
I did a double take at that bit of information. “Not in Nyheim?” She shook her head. “Then what good is your information? We can’t get out, the toxin is needed so we can get out, but the toxin is outside…so, therefore, your information is useless, and you’ve wasted my time. Hope you enjoy being forgotten until we need to clean up your skeleton.”
I turned to knock on the door. Behind me, I could hear Nesta jump to her feet and rush over. “No. I can get us out of town. I know a way.”
I looked down at her, my face blank.
“I know a way out of town,” she repeated quietly, her face staring up at mine, an almost pleading look in her eyes. “I swear.”
“You know how to get out of town, out of the dome, and get the toxin we need?” I asked, looking for clarification.
She nodded vigorously. “If I can get you out of the city, take you to the toxin, and help you get it, I get released.” It was her attempt at negotiation, and I had to say that her release would be a small payment for finding a way out and getting the toxin.
“Slight amendment to your suggestion,” I said, a finger held up. “You show me how to get out of the city, help me get the toxin, bring it back, and if it works, we let you go. If it doesn’t, at least you got to see the outside one more time.”
“Whoa, so if it doesn’t work, I stay in here?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I need to run this past my commander, anyway, so I’ll get back to you soon enough.”
“I noticed you weren’t
completely prim and proper that time,” she shot at me with some sass as I left the cell.
I took the suggested deal and information to Rouhr.
“Do you think she’s telling us the truth?” he asked.
“I wish I knew, sir,” I answered. “She did seem to be confident in what she was saying, so there may be a chance that she’s right.”
“What if she’s not?” he countered.
“Do we have any other choices?” I asked. “I’ve tried eighteen different methods, nineteen if I include Rokul and Takar’s burn and cut attempt, and each one has failed. This could be something that works.”
He sat in his chair, his hands steepled in front of his face, and thought about what I had told him. If Nesta was correct, and she seemed confident enough in herself to believe that she was correct, this was the best chance we had of freeing ourselves from this creature’s hold. She had, in a very unusual way, impressed me.
After a long time of thinking, Rouhr finally ran his hands through his hair as he sat back at his desk. “Do you trust her?”
“No.”
He nodded, then fluttered his lips as he blew out a breath. “If you feel that she is truthful, that she honestly can find a way out of the city and direct us to where the toxin is, then proceed. However,” he added as I began to rise, “you just said that you don’t trust her, correct?”
“Correct,” I answered.
“Then find out where the toxin is. Find a way to make her tell you,” he ordered.
“When she finds the way out of the city, I can put her back in the cell to investigate whether her claims are valid. When I return, we’ll let her go free if she was telling the truth.”
“Are you sure that isn’t a bit harsh?” he questioned.
“Not particularly, sir,” I said slowly. “However, if her information is correct…”
“Then you can signal us when you have the toxin and we’ll release her,” he interrupted. “You were the one that captured her in the act, you were the one that arrested her, you were the one that recommended the harsh sentence. I took your advice because you wanted her to learn a lesson, and you wanted her to change her ways.”