Sylor

by Elin Wyn

  “Along with the rebuild, we can start growing and farming again. We’ll help your people eat, as well as with whatever can only be found up top, you help us with whatever we need that can only be found below ground,” he finished.

  I was pretty confident we could make it happen. “Okay,” I said. “I think we can work with that.”

  “Good. One caveat, however,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  He looked me square in the eyes, his look stern to show me he meant business. “There will be no illegal activities by your people. I will not hesitate to have them arrested and charged.”

  I shook my head and held up my hands. “No worries there, General. If I’m in charge of Sabre, I won’t run it anything like Odeon did. I want to make sure our people are cared for, not hustled.”

  “Good,” he said with a nod. “Once you’ve run this by your people, and you’ve figured out your command structure, we’ll negotiate trade and everything else we need to make this a success.”

  “Works for me,” I said. I reached over to his desk and grabbed the glass of water he had poured for me when I first came in. I took a drink, relishing how cold the water still was.

  “Very well,” he stood up, an indication the meeting was over. I stood up as well. “Thank you for your help, Nesta. We would not have been able to get through this without you.” He held out his hand.

  I took it and shook it, probably trying a little too hard to be firm with it. “Glad I could help. I’ll go talk to the underground and present your idea. I don’t think it’ll be much of a problem, though.”

  “I hope not. Thank you, again,” he said as he led me to his office door and walked me out. I left his office, walked down the hall, waved at Tobias, and left.

  About twenty minutes later, I was back underground with word going out that I was calling for a general meeting. A general meeting was basically a get-together where things were announced, sometimes voted on, and mostly a reason for everyone to be in one place to get drunk.

  Within an hour, the people I needed there were there, as were so many more. Of the nearly three hundred of us that lived underground, I counted only a few dozen that weren’t there.

  “What do you have to tell us?” a voice called out. I looked towards its source to see Topan standing with Stupid Joe. Joe still glared at me, even though I doubted he knew why he was angry with me. Topan actually smiled and nodded towards me.

  “Well,” I started. “General Rouhr, the alien boss guy in charge up there, has offered us a deal. Since we have access to weird, crazy, and rare things that they don’t up there, he wants to form a partnership with us.”

  “Why should we do that?” a voice from the back yelled out.

  I raised my voice a little louder so they could hear me everywhere. “Well, as soon as the vines are down, they can go back to growing their crops and raising their livestock. They’ll trade with us, which means food.”

  “Ah, he’s probably lying to you,” another voice yelled out. I looked over at the owner of said voice and wasn’t really that surprised to see that old man Samuel had said it.

  “Really, Samuel? And what do you know about truth?” I fired back. That brought a lot of laughs from the crowd and made Samuel get red-faced. But, he shut up and that was what I wanted. I turned back to the crowd. “Look, I don’t want to run things the way Odeon did. I want all of us to work together to help each other. If you have a skill, or know something, or know where to find something, we need to know. It might help us when we deal with above ground.”

  “What about the vines?” a female voice asked.

  “They’re working on that. We got some Kouldarc venom. They’re studying it right now and trying to find a way to get it into the vine,” I answered. When I had mentioned the Kouldarc, there were a lot of sudden nods of admiration and a few ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’. “Look, I want to make sure we all take care of one another and do better, and this is a way to do it. We need them, we really do.” It was true, the above-grounders had the food. “And, depending on what it is, they need us.”

  “What if we don’t have anything?” Stupid…no, shouldn’t call him that anymore, I need to be better. Ahem, Joe asked.

  “That’s just it, we do. How many herbs have we discovered down here that aren’t available up top?” I asked the crowd. I went on, not waiting for their answer. “We also got some of the prisms a few of you use, and, most importantly, we have a way out in case the venom doesn’t work. If the venom doesn’t work, the people up top are probably going to start wanting to leave, and right now, we have the exit.”

  “Why are we even talking about this?” Topan yelled out above the crowd. He picked his way through the crowd and jumped up on the small dais I was standing on. He winked at me. “Look, Nesta has brought us a proposition, and I think most of us agree that it’s a good one. Should we vote to approve it?”

  Without even calling for a vote, most of the crowd raised their left hand high in the air, a vote for ‘yes.’ Topan nodded knowingly. “Well, then the only thing left is to pick someone to lead us and make sure that everything that deals with up above is done right.”

  “Who, you?” Samuel called out derisively.

  “Nope. Nesta.”

  I knew that’s what General Rouhr wanted, but it still felt good to hear my name. The crowd started clapping and whistling, even Joe and Samuel joined in. They wanted me to be in charge.

  “Well, kiddo,” Topan said in my ear so I could hear him over the cheering. “Looks like you get to show us the right way to do things.” He took a step back, gave me a short bow, and came up smiling and clapping.

  I was overwhelmed. I had dreamt of this, but never like this. I always figured that if I took over Sabre, it would be after Odeon’s retirement and when I was a lot older. I was nervous, to be honest. What the hell did I know about being a boss and running things? What the hell did I know about being a liaison and negotiating between two groups of people?

  Oh well, guess I didn’t have much of a choice. Whatever I needed to learn, I’d learn on the job. It felt good to have everyone liking and respecting me. It was almost like I finally had my family back, minus the overbearing asshole that Odeon was.

  Everything was perfect.

  Almost.

  Sylor

  A week had passed since my return to Nyheim and the beginnings of Leena’s study of the toxin, which they had come to name Phokite. As they were studying it, and making a synthetic version of it, I had been busy, as well.

  During my time in the armory, I had taken apart four different rifles and used the various parts to build a new dart gun. During testing, the gun was able to put a dart nearly six inches into a rubber composite that Takar had made of the vine. While it wasn’t, in my opinion, a viable replacement for the vine, it did give me an idea about the capabilities of the gun and the darts that I had made.

  I spent a few days attempting to increase the power output, and the next set of tests put the dart nearly an entire foot into the composite.

  When I wasn’t working on the gun or the darts, I was with Nesta, helping her with the recreation of Sabre and the trade negotiations between the underground and the upper levels of Nyheim.

  Nesta’s return had been a moment of jubilation and enjoyment. I don’t believe I had ever felt as happy as I was when she had come back. She had spent a lot of time working with the general, learning how to lead and how to deal with politics. I was unsure of how much she could learn in only a week, but her venture with me and her discovery of Odeon’s lies had endeared her to her people.

  Besides, she was a natural, so I was assuming that she was merely learning nuances of the leadership game.

  “Hey!”

  I snapped my head up and looked away from my workbench to where the sound had come from. Tella was standing in the armory doorway, arms crossed and looking cross.

  “Seriously, are you deaf?” she asked me.

  “No, no I am not. My apologies,” I
returned. “I was preoccupied with the modifications to the gun.”

  “No shit,” she snapped as she came into the armory, my small case in her hands. “Here,” she said as she placed the case gently on my workbench. “Here’s the Phokite you brought back from Duvest. We’ve finished analyzing and synthesizing it.”

  “I thank you,” I said with a grateful nod.

  “Yeah, yeah. Listen and watch, okay,” she said. Despite her relationship with Rokul, she still seemed to be short with the rest of us, or at least with me. “To put the Phokite into your darts, you want to do this.” She opened the case and took out one of the vials of the original toxin. She took a small needle tip from the case and attached it to the vial. She then took the vial, grabbed one of my darts, and inserted the vial, making sure to put the small needle tip into the dart tip. “Now, when you fire it, it’ll compress and release the toxin.”

  “Thank you again,” I said. I proceeded to take the last three vials and repeated her technique.

  “Good work,” she commented nicely. I flashed her a quick look. “Okay, okay, I’m not always a bitch, you know.”

  “Oh, yes, yes, I am well aware of that,” I said, smiling. “Rokul has commented numerous times on how nice you are.”

  She looked at me in wide-eyed horror. She was truly speechless for the first time since I had made her acquaintance, and I savored the moment.

  It did not last long however, as I was unable to maintain my composure and started to convulse with barely repressed laughter.

  She caught on quickly and punched me in the shoulder. “You asshat,” she said without any of her normal malice towards me. “I can’t believe you just did that to me.”

  I shrugged. “I did tell you that I was not always so…how did you put it…prim and proper?”

  “Okay, okay. You got me,” she smiled. She quickly sobered and looked me in the eyes. “Good luck. I hope it works this time.”

  “As do I,” I agreed.

  “Oh, you do know that this wasn’t the toxin we originally sent you for, don’t you?” she asked.

  I was taken aback. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  She nodded and smiled. “Yeah, we were hoping for the Narrissi extract. It’s from a plant. You brought us something different.”

  “Then, how do we know this will work?” I asked. How could we have retrieved the wrong thing?

  “Whoa there, prim-n-proper. Hold your horses,” she said. What were horses? “This stuff is twice as potent as the Narrissi extract, so if this doesn’t work, the Narrissi extract wouldn’t have done anything.”

  The wave of relief that came over me was like a cold shower on a hot day. “Please do not cause me such anxiety like that again,” I said politely.

  “Really?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You just bullshitted me as a joke, and now you’re all proper and eloquent again,” she started. “Why can’t you just talk normally with me?”

  I nodded in understanding. “In that case, I offer you my apologies. I have been speaking like this for so long, that it is difficult for me to speak any other way.” I leaned back on my stool. “But, if you want me to speak plain, then I will.”

  “Oh?” she asked, crossing her arms and smirking.

  “Well,” I started with a half-shrug, “you have been a very difficult human to work with, and I don’t really understand what I’ve done to deserve it. But,” I put up a hand to stop her from commenting, “I like you. You’re good for Rokul, and you’ve gotten his pain-in-the-ass…I said that right, yes?”

  She nodded.

  “You got his pain-in-the-ass brother to stop being such an ass. Takar is finally interesting and fun to be around,” I finished.

  “Thanks.” She smiled at me as she playfully punched me in the shoulder before she left. I, in turn, loaded the darts into the clip, snapped the clip into the dart gun, and after making sure the safety was still on, left the armory and made my way towards where we had conducted all of our other tests.

  Along the way, General Rouhr, Strike Team One, and my team joined me.

  “You gonna flame out horribly?” Sakev smirked. I flashed him a death look, then winked. The shock and confusion on his face was enough for me. Let him figure out what I meant.

  “Sakev has a semi-valid question,” Vrehx commented. “What are your thoughts on this one?

  I shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure, but this is the best bet we have. If this fails, we’re going to have to start taking people out through the tunnels below.”

  “Well,” Axtin cut in, “at least we have a back-up plan.”

  “That we do,” Rouhr said. “Your friend has been a remarkable leader and liaison already. We’ve already gotten permission to use the tunnels if necessary, as well as a plan to get to Duvest. Since communications are back, we can talk to the people of Duvest. Apparently, someone named Viekat has been imprisoned and a Gamma Prym now runs the Duvest underground.”

  “Really?” I remarked. “That is fantastic.”

  “That it is,” came a voice from behind Rokul. Nesta peeked her head out from behind him and smiled at me. She made her way through to me and immediately snaked her arm around mine. “With Gamma and me coordinating things with Rouhr and Duvest’s bosses, we have a place to go.”

  I looked down at her and smiled. “I’m glad.”

  We arrived at the testing site, the home to eighteen-plus colossal failures to find a way out. This would be attempt number nineteen on my part, twenty-one in total counting Rokul and Takar’s two attempts. I took a deep breath as everyone held back. I stopped within two yards of the vine, clicked off the safety, and brought the rifle up to my shoulder.

  There was no way for me to miss, but I didn’t risk it. I took aim, lining up my sights and controlled my breathing. I took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly as I gently squeezed the trigger.

  Time seemed to slow. It’s an interesting sensation what you notice when time stops. The tiny, almost imperceptible breeze moving a leaf on the vine just slightly. The wrinkles and slight discolorations of the vine that made it different from the other vines around it, even how much effort I subconsciously used to blink and how dark my life became for the briefest of moments as my eyelids shut.

  The dart flew towards the vine, piercing the air with simplicity as it headed towards its target. The dart hit and embedded itself deep within the vine, the puncture mark almost closing in on itself with the power of the dart.

  Nothing happened. I counted three hundred heartbeats and nothing happened.

  “Welp,” I heard Sakev’s voice fill the air. “That sucked. Who’s hungry? I wanna eat something big before I go crawling through tunnels and stuff.”

  “Shut up, Sakev,” Axtin said.

  “What? Really? We have to be quiet right now?” Sakev fought back.

  “SHUT UP!” the two teams said collectively. I felt Nesta’s hands on my arm and heard her taking a breath in. Before she could speak, I stepped forward and looked intently at the puncture mark. It was turning gray.

  After another one hundred heartbeats, the gray began to spread and the vine started to shrivel. “MOVE!” I yelled as the vine shriveled faster and began to fall. There was a thunderous ‘thwump’ behind me as Nesta and I ran. I looked back to see maybe twenty feet of green vine had fallen off and crashed to the ground while the rest turned to a gray, shriveled husk.

  “Ah, hahaha,” I cried out in joy. I grabbed Nesta, picked her up, and kissed her passionately. I couldn’t care less if the others saw us. I heard the teams cheering. Whether they were cheering my kiss or the death of the vine, I wasn’t sure and I didn’t care.

  “We have an answer,” I said breathlessly as Nesta and I separated.

  “We need to start calculating trajectories to shoot so that the vines fall outward, so we don’t have collateral damage,” Sakev said.

  We all looked at him.

  “That is very true,” I replied. “I’m impressed.”
<
br />   He shrugged. “I can think seriously from time to time.”

  People went back to cheering and making plans. We slapped each other’s backs and gave shouts of victory.

  I turned back to Nesta.

  She had a smile on her face as she came back to me.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she said. “So proud.” She brought her lips to mine once again and I kissed her until our lips were raw.

  And still, I wanted more.

  Nesta

  So much had happened during the last week, I never got around to really figuring out where I was going to live. During the last week, I basically slept wherever I could find a bed because I had been so busy trying to restart Sabre with a proper management structure and real leadership.

  I had spent the last three days negotiating with Rouhr about trade and services that both sides would provide for one another if we managed to get the dome down.

  Then, yesterday, Sylor tried the toxin. I found the name that the girls had given it to be hilarious. It was called Phokite, but if you weren’t paying attention or it was said too fast, it sounded a bit like ‘fuck-it,’ and that was funny. Anyway, he tried the toxin and it had worked. The first vine he had shot withered and fell.

  We didn’t have a way out, not yet, since it was an interior vine, but he fired off the last three vials he had and we watched as the vines died. There was real sunlight streaming into the city now, and the ladies—what were their names? Leena and Tella, I think—were getting him some synthetic copies of the venom. He had been really confident that we would be able to have the vines down soon.

  “Give me a week, maybe two, and we’ll have the vines down and the city will be free once more,” he had said while we ate dinner last night. He had looked across the table at me and smiled. He looked so happy and proud. To see him happy made me feel happy inside.