Cass thought at me, “Good enough?”
I pretended to mull it over as if we really had options and said out loud, “Done.”
The looming bureaucrat turned at our assent and began to walk away towards a section of wall that looked just as seamless as the rest. He waved a nutmeg hand in the air and the granite turned malleable, sucking inward like a wormhole, creating an oblong tunnel long and tall enough to accommodate someone of his size with half a foot to spare. Pez took a step inside the newly formed exit and waved impatiently for us to join him.
I couldn’t seem to help the image of intestines, fleshy and glistening inside a giant beast as it flashed in the forefront of my mind and Cass mentally grumbled as we stepped forward, “Thanks for the visual.”
“Anytime, Sister. Anytime.”
CHANGELING (Sneak Peek)
Chapter Two: Down the Rabbit Hole
We could see light far off like a pinpoint.
The disturbing susurrating sound of sand came from behind us and Cassandra turned to look. The tunnel was sealing closed at our back and when Pez realized we had slowed he yanked us forward by our wrist and warned, “It would not be wise to linger.”
As a demonstration he flicked something from his sash at the igneous swirling soup of reforming granite and it was absorbed instantly, most likely crushed to bits or at the very least sealed in.
I thought at my twin as Pez ushered us forward again, “You may want to reorganize your top five ways not to bite it list.”
Cass would have responded but we were both distracted by the barren clinical looking room the tunnel seamlessly led us to. She turned our body again and risked a glance at the wall behind us. Nothing hinted at a way in or out on the porous gray surface.
Pez snapped his fingers or some other such rude noise and I turned our head back to say, “You’re a terrible tour guide. Curiosity denotes intelligence. If we just blindly followed you everywhere and obeyed your instructions without pause you’d be justified in your assumption of your superiority over humanity. Obviously you’re just a jerk.”
From across the room a booming laugh carried to our ears and turned Pez’s face sour.
The darkest colored Axsian yet, with skin so pigmented it reminded us of Malcolm and Melody’s blue black complexion, rose from a sitting position at a work station to saunter our way. His clothing brought to mind a much classier version of scrubs with a many pocketed vest thrown over the top. The cloth was done in varying shades of taupe with the pants and the vest being the darkest garments. Slicked back light brown hair hit his shoulders and his eyes had a kindness to them, though they almost blended into his dark face. This new Axsian’s overall demeanor was playful and less officious. As he drew even with our position he touched three fingers to his forehead, giving a head bow to each of us respectively.
His voice when he spoke was fluid and melodious. “I see you are making friends far and wide, Guild Member Pez. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Sil, and I will conduct your examination today. First, before we start, let me say it is a pleasure to meet someone as curious as you. Ask any question you like while you are here and I will answer it.”
Sil turned sideways and motioned like a flight attendant toward a dull metallic examination table. I took over to walk us past both ‘men’ but when we reached the table I gave over control to my twin since I didn’t trust myself to do something as complicated as jumping our body onto the table, gracefully at least. The floor was made from the same gray porous looking rock as the walls and it absorbed sound better than carpet. A darkly foreboding feeling started to coalesce as we pictured the terrible things that could be done in here without anyone to hear us scream. Sil was charming enough but was that all just an act to get us where he wanted us without a fuss?
The alien in question approached the side of the table and hit a few buttons on its edge. Immediately we began to rise and when we were at a height that was more on a level with Sil’s standing position the table stopped gently. From one of the many pockets in his vest a midnight fingered hand produced a rectangular flat device that reminded us of a ruler only it was smooth with a screen on one side.
He saw our interest and held out the tool for our review as he explained, “This will let me take a tiny amount of you, microscopically, and examine it. No pain should be experienced and please let me know if anything I do today causes you discomfort.”
The words seemed genuine and he wasn’t afraid of direct eye contact as he smiled. We gave a head jerk in response so he proceeded to wave the device over our forearm.
In an absently curious way Sil said, “You have not introduced yourself as I have.”
As he tapped the screen of the beeping tool and frowned, Pez responded to the physician’s query unbidden.
“I was given two names. They claim to be more than one person although I only see one.” Big Bad’s tone was huffy.
Sil set the malfunctioning or at least puzzling device on the table next to us and pulled out a new larger square tool about the size of a small slim book and slowly drifted it in front of our face without an explanation. His expression was wholly absorbed in the data he was receiving and we pictured him as a mad alien scientist on the verge of some great discovery.
Probably not the most humble way to think of ourselves.
Sil’s eyes popped up from his instrument, gleaming with intentness as he asked, “Tell me your names, please?”
Guild Member Pez snorted dismissively at the question.
A feeling stole over my sister and I, the same singularity of purpose that filled us in the infirmary right before we hit Malcolm in a fit of temper; we could admit it now that we were light years away from Maggie’s disapproval. We took a breath in as one and said together in vibrating double timbre, “Cassandra and Silver Rainbow. We are chimera.”
Well that was new.
Our heart beat a little faster with a twisted tangle of fear and anticipation.
Pez made a noise of disbelief, voice shrill as he nearly shouted, “You are not giving credence to this?”
Sil’s eye’s had never left ours as we spoke and they still held steady as he said in a fascinated dreamy tone, “This condition requires further study.”
In our normal voice Cass asserted, “We won’t be your lab rat.”
He shook his head as if to clear it and said softly, “No of course not…of course not.”
Abruptly he turned away and barked at Pez, “Bring me the Agent who brought her home to us.”
Pez just stood doing nothing until Sil’s voice hardened in anger. “Now!”
A puff of that same ozone scent we had caught earlier and Big Bad was simply gone. Sil turned to us and smiled angelically—which is hard to do when your teeth are jaggedly sharp—before he asked, “Are there any others like you on your planet of origin?”
I shrugged our shoulders and Cass responded, “Not that we know of.”
His eyes seemed to light with excitement at our answer as they picked up and reflected back the illumination in the room. We watched closely this time as a lens flicked across his orbs, shining wetly like a saturated sheet of malleable plastic.
Sil mumbled under his breath and pinched his lower lip with his index finger and thumb as he considered us. After a moment he asked, “Are you amenable to staying on Axsa for a period of time? What I mean to say is, were you brought here against your will?”
My sister dipped our head at his question before answering truthfully. “We came willingly and with the understanding that Kal would be our guardian during our time here. He didn’t seem to think there would be an issue since we’re a vector.”
Our avid physician’s hair looked to have the consistency of straw and his roots showed black in an even millimeter close to his scalp. His eyes widened and his fingers released his lip to drop to his chin as he said, “Who informed you of your Vector status?”
Flatly Cass returned, “Kal.”
The way he’d said Vector had suggested it should b
e presented like a title with a capital ‘V’. Sil’s reaction to our mention of being a Vector made us also wonder if what he was all in a dither about was an entirely different matter. Truthfully we might have overstepped ourselves by even mentioning what Kal had described us as before he convinced us to leave Earth. Our chimerism had been plenty enough to pique Sil’s interest and elevate our status.
It was hard to pick your steps in an unmarked landmine field.
A gust of ozone, stronger than what had remained after Pez’s departure hit our nose. Sil turned, to address the newcomers, two Axsian’s I didn’t recognize, and a splash of warm wetness hit our cheek and chest right before the physician fell sideways like a limp tree.
I put a hand to our cheek and came away with a reddish tacky substance that smelled like blood. Cass pushed us off the table backward, which barely landed us on our feet, crouched down with a grip on to the lip of the table for balance. It was useless to flee because we couldn’t out run a Bender but we weren’t going to die quietly.
Just as we anticipated they would, one of the silent attackers ‘ported in front of us and came forward with some sort of dull bone white weapon in his hand. Desperately we kicked out at his knee with the combined force of our will.
It worked better than we’d hoped.
We hit the joint of the leg his body weight was centered on and felt the tear then pop of the hyper extension. His scream was more of a shriek as his upper body collapsed forward, almost trapping our leg as we folded it back under our hip and scrambled under the table like a crab in fast forward. The other assailant was nowhere to be seen.
Cass tried to aim our eyes everywhere all at once and it made me feel like we might vibrate to pieces with adrenaline and panic. Air rushed in and out of our mouth in short hard pants as we both strained to listen over the rushing blood in our head and the ringing in our ears.
The atmosphere was thick with the anticipation of violence.
Our ears popped and we could hear two different groans emanating from the floor in stereo sound. Sil it seemed was not yet dead although the gush of blood had been enough that we assumed he was. The other audible complaint of pain came from our downed attacker as he struggled to sit upright on the floor.
A voice came from nothing and nowhere, deep and grim, “Some do fall for the betterment of all.”
Sil was moving behind us, the rustle of his clothing against the floor a soft soothing sound out of order with our racing minds. Anger warmed our gut and oozed up our throat like acid as I yelled back nonsensically, “Poet and didn’t know it? Go back to rhyme school you coward. I’ve got one for you, ‘Roses are red, and violets are blue, quit hiding so we can kill you!’”
The hair at the back of our neck stood on end as did every follicle planted in our skin. Ozone blasted our flared nostrils and an unseen hand gripped one of our ankles and dragged us from under the table with impressive strength. We dangled head down as the room swam.
Still cloaked from our sight, the Axsian holding our ankle in a grip so crushing it felt like our bones were being ground together for flour, shook us and then lifted us higher. Cass flung out a leg at where we thought his head might be but it was caught before we connected by another massive transparent hand. Tears burned in our eyes now as the pain shot out sharp and debilitating from the bony part of our held ankles.
Our rhyming assailant switched his grip easily holding both of our legs with one huge mitt. I worried what his unseen free hand was about to do, the bone white weapon the other downed Axsian had lunged at us with sprang to mind, so Cass arched our body at the waist in a frenzied pendulum motion.
This ass wipe was a dude, alien or not, and most males had privates, so on what we thought might be the backswing, I thrust out a fist in the direction, I hoped, of the invisible poet’s groin. Our balled hand hit something soft and fleshy then momentum sucked us outward again. At the peak of our upswing the steel banded fingers around our ankles released and we flopped like a landed salmon onto the metal examination table before rolling uncontrollably over its edge.
We fell head and shoulders first, graceless but alive onto something soft that exhaled in pain at the collision. Scrambling with as much care as she could muster my sister extricated us from our position across Sil’s abdomen. His eyes were alert, but he’d lost a lot of blood. If black hued skin could look pale, his did. Ashy might be the best possible word. A red patch covered a wound on his neck and Sil lifted a weak arm over his stomach to grasp our forearm as he whispered in a thready voice, “Help is coming. Pez knows.”
The question begged to be answered, if Big Bad knew, where the hell was he?
I zipped our gaze to the other side of the table. The first attacker with the back kicked knee was struggling to stand. When he was fully upright, hopping on one leg for balance, he closed his wide set tar black eyes then disappeared seconds later. The scent of ozone was different than the other times, less intense with a hint of something else in it.
Invisible poet boy was still here and visible. Perhaps the pain of our groin punch had caused him to temporarily lose the ability to bend light? We’d only gotten a glimpse, a visual flash, when they’d ‘ported into the room, but our attackers’ features were altered from that first impression. Our eyes locked before his closed and then he was gone as well.
Cass released a rattled breath as if she’d strung a series of pants together to make one long exhale. The inhale wasn’t much smoother, like our lungs were being run over a washboard. Our hands shook as she thought to me, “Do you think they’re really gone?”
I considered for a moment and then answered, “For now, but we saw their real faces, Sister.”
With feeling and out loud my twin yelled at the wall, “Shit!”
A black speck formed on the gray granite directly across the room. The speck grew quickly and I realized we were seeing a tunnel form. The hole enlarged with impressive rapidity and once it was large enough to accommodate travelers Pez emerged with Kal in tow.
Our guardian’s eyes raked the room and he took in a deep breath before his black gaze went in our direction and he actually ran our way. Pez took in Sil’s downed form and calmly closed his eyes to communicate with someone in the Web.
Kal grabbed our bicep and yanked us up from the floor. When he saw we weren’t injured and the blood on our face wasn’t our own he demanded, “What happened?”
Sil spoke up from his prone position in a hoarse voice, “Resistance strike.”
Pez objected loudly from where he stood by the wall. “That is impossible. How did they get past the genetic pass codes on this level? Bending should have been impossible without clearance. Besides, if it was really a resistance strike you would both be dead.”
I yelled back matter-of-fact, “Maybe you should look up the definition for impossible, ‘cause you’re using that word wrong. According to The Law of Infinite Probability anything can happen. Nothing is truly out of the realm of the possible on any given day.”
Kal let go of our arm to kneel down by Sil. Just as he bent at the waist to get a closer view at the bandaged wound on his neck, our nose was assaulted with another wave of ozone. Three Axsian’s who were dressed much the same as Sil, with scrub-like clothing and pocketed vests, popped into sight next to Pez then moved across the room with long efficient strides. Nothing more than discreet body language was used but Kal and I ended up out of the way next to the examination table.
Cass tugged on the cuff of Kal’s duster, and grazed the warmth of the skin on the back of his hand in passing. Truthfully we could both use one of Maggie’s hugs right now and we weren’t going to get anything of the sort. Mentally I gathered the essence of my love for my twin and pushed it her way for reassurance. She answered back in kind and we felt a peace.
Kal cocked his head at our bid for attention and my sister hissed, “What took you so long? We had to fend them off by ourselves and Sil is almost dead. How come Pez couldn’t get anyone here sooner?”
His eye
s unfocused and his attention wandered as our mentor stared across the room at Big Bad but he answered, “I’ve been…restricted…pending my trial. It seems I overestimated my constituents’ dedication to the tenets of the oath I took to become an Agent and by which they should also abide. My ability to bend is no longer available to me.”
We blinked and a sinking feeling formed in our gut like a tumor.
Kal continued, “Pez was with me and we were in a tunnel when Sil regained consciousness and hailed for assistance. If he had left forthwith I would have been sealed and crushed so we stayed the course. There are reasons that access is restricted to this room. Pez had to be present to allow anyone else to enter, which begs the question…how did your attackers get in at all?”
The ‘men’ treating Sil rose and shuffled our direction to place the injured physician on the table’s surface and we moved away to give them space. Sil’s arm flung out and he grabbed ours so tightly that his caregivers had to stop. His eyes weren’t focused on us but at one of his cohorts as he said in a stronger, commanding voice, “This human saved my life and her own. She held off two rebels by herself and injured them. Call Fid Tal here now.”
Sil made us sound all awesome but we’d gotten lucky. Luck was fickle.
One of the other physicians, one with lighter hair like Sil but skin the shade of milk chocolate, scoffed, “You are delirious, Master.”
They got Sil on the table easily but we were dragged forward because he refused to release the hold on our forearm. Our shoulder bumped into the Axsian who’d laughed off Sil and he frowned down in annoyance.
Sil’s voice was losing its strength but he made one last statement that changed everything, “If preliminary tests are correct we have an Anomaly headed for a Singularity.”
With those words he released his death grip on our arm.
All eyes in the room turned our way with a suddenly interested shine to them. The only person who looked unsurprised and unimpressed was Kal. Cassandra backed us up to stand by our guardian’s side and I murmured out of the corner of our mouth, “What’s he on about? I thought you said we’re a Vector?”
Chimera (The Weaver Series Book 1) Page 29