Innocence Lost

by O. J. Lowe

  “What are you thinking about?” Aubemaya asked, cutting into his thoughts. He didn’t even know how to respond to that. What else could he be thinking about? Their expedition had been wiped out, only the four of them remained from their original number, Brendan lay dead in the back of the cockpit, a shroud covering his body, and they’d just nearly been murdered by things that shouldn’t exist by right. What else could he be thinking about at a time like this?

  The look he gave her must have said it all, she held her hands up in apology. “Sorry, sorry. My bad. Stupid question.”

  “What did they do to you?” Wilsin asked. “When they took you?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t really remember too much of it. They dragged us away through the jungle, eventually picked us up because we were resisting. Suniro kept screaming, he was in horrible pain, Brendan kept trying to fight them, even though they beat him.” Wilsin glanced back towards the body. “Tough old bastard, no?”

  “The toughest,” Wilsin said. He didn’t look again. The back part of the ship had been made up into a medical area, Brendan laid in state and Suchiga blissfully under the effects of drugs they’d fed into him. They didn’t have much aboard, but they’d made do with what they did have. Such was the Unisco way, it was drummed into them early in their career and Divines help them if they complained. “And then what?”

  He saw her hesitate, didn’t let up on her. “Come on, Tiana. This could be important. Tell me now.” Just enough force laced his words to impose the urgency on her. This entire situation felt messy to him, something not right and he wanted to be sure of the details before he started to explain it to anyone outranking him. That was something they always, always, always encouraged in the academy. Any Unisco agent worth their salt stuck by it.

  “They took us to… Was that really Cradle Rock? Looked like it in the pictures, right?” she said. He glanced into her eyes, saw her pull away from his gaze. That was suspicious by itself. The only people who didn’t like eye contact were liars and people uncomfortable with human interaction and she’d given no indication to him she’d ever suffered from the latter.

  “You’d have had to have asked Fazarn,” Wilsin said. “He was the one who loved the stories about them.” Or Brendan, he wanted to add. Brendan would have known. “Mythology isn’t my strong subject.”

  “They took us there,” she said. “Dragged us to the base of the rock, thousands of them surrounding us, all watching us in silence.” She gulped. “Total silence. Couldn’t even hear the birds or the bugs. Only sounds were when they moved, that horrible damn rustling.”

  “Uh-huh.” That part he could believe. He’d seen them with his own eyes. Thousands more than they’d been able to effectively deal with. Individually, they weren’t unstoppable, but he’d found them tough to beat one-on-one, never mind a thousand-on-one. Fire had turned out effective, he knew that much. Not surprising for something that looked like a walking plant.

  “And then the big one stepped out of the crowd. The one who said he was their king.”

  “Blut,” Wilsin said softly. Only a small word but he put real feeling into it. That that son of a bitch should still be alive and at the head of an army was a considerable worry. He’d not been a particularly pleasant man when he was human according to the reports he’d read. When he and Roper had confronted Blut on Carcaradis Island, Roper had thrown him into a portal, offered him up as sacrifice if Wilsin remembered rightly and he wasn’t likely to bloody forget it. There’d been a big investigation after it, he should remember the details. Brendan had been part of it. He wondered if the Green King had introduced himself as such to the man charged with investigating his murderer. He doubted it.

  “Huh?”

  “Jeremiah Blut,” Wilsin said. “He was…”

  “An academic,” she said. “I remember Doctor Fazarn talking about him a lot. He was part of that story, remember? The prophecy.”

  Wilsin blinked. Hadn’t there been a line in there about the Green overcoming? He wasn’t sure. He’d slept very little over the last few days, he’d been more than tempted to follow Reeves’ lead and curl up in one of the seats, he’d spent more adrenaline in recent hours than the rest of his life put together, it felt. He tried to piece it together, couldn’t recall. Something sounded familiar.

  “That big green guy was Blut,” Wilsin said eventually. “Or so he claimed to me. Be it true or not, I can’t say. He knew stuff Blut did.” Or someone who’d had access to the Unisco investigation files, he wanted to add. Either option was considerably disturbing.

  “How is that possible? Wait, you knew Blut?”

  “I met him once,” Wilsin said. “Shortly before he disappeared.” About five minutes before, if memory served. No point breaching ancient history with Tiana. It was a need-to-know thing, and she didn’t. If she had her teachers worship of Blut, it might drive her against him, knowing he’d been involved in what they’d all thought was his death until now. “Thought he was crazier than a sack of cats.”

  “Genius and madness,” Tiana said. “Aren’t they supposed to be the same impulses?”

  “I don’t know, you’d have to ask someone smarter or crazier than me,” he smiled at her. “I don’t know how it’s possible either. What did he say to you?”

  “Just that…” She screwed up her face in concentration, he didn’t think that she was faking it either. Unisco agents were trained to recall things, pick up on every little detail and store it away for further use. Sometimes that unconscious memory took time to throw things up but there it remained beneath the surface of the mind until something dislodged it.

  “Come on Tiana, it’s important.” He smiled at her, looked at her sat filthy and dishevelled on a seat too big for her, hands resting on her lap. She looked like she’d been through the wars, but still she’d survived, determined they wouldn’t break her.

  “Something about us being there to bear witness to the future in progress. We were the first living mortals to witness the birth of the Green Kingdom and the first to hear the words of their magnificent king.” She made a face. “His words, not mine.”

  Wilsin nodded, he’d already gotten that impression. Blut had been a grandstander, a believer in his own importance. Maybe he wasn’t so difference now than he was before.

  “We were to carry back word, tell them all of their might and that they’d soon submit to the Green.”

  “Huh,” Wilsin said. “He gave us the same message. Me and Ben. Wonder if he didn’t expect all of us to make it out or something.”

  “Brendan tried to get him,” she said, her face twitching with disgust as the memories came back to her. “He lunged at him, they beat him some more, clubbed him down.” Her eyes glistened. “I thought they’d turn on the rest of us when they’d killed him, but they didn’t. They just kicked the fight out of him and then stepped back, let him carry on with his speech.”

  “Anything interesting? Or more of the same?”

  “Pretty much. Just that he wasn’t interested in fighting both the kingdoms and Coppinger at the same time, that he didn’t trust Coppinger anymore… Why would a man like Blut know someone like her?” Wilsin said nothing, just looked at her to continue. “When he’d finished, he added that we were bait, more would come to try and save us. I wondered if he meant the rest of you. Keep in mind, we didn’t know what had happened to the camp, who’d made it out of there and who hadn’t. I saw some bodies fall, wasn’t sure who though. Did anyone else make it or just you and Reeves?”

  “Just us,” Wilsin said. “I think the three of you were lucky. I wonder why they wanted us all though.”

  “He said bait.”

  “Yeah but he already had you to try and deliver the message. Why lure us in as well? Me and Reeves.”

  “Maybe they tried to kill you and failed the first time and thought they stood a better chance with all of them around you like they did. Or maybe he wanted your autograph.”

  “I doubt that,” Wilsin said.

/>   “Mystery then. All that trouble just to lure you in like you said and then try to kill you.”

  “I did antagonise him,” Wilsin admitted. “Maybe in hindsight, not such a smart idea really.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “Clearly. What the hells were you thinking?”

  “I don’t like bullies,” Wilsin said. “I don’t like being intimidated.”

  “Do you like the idea of dying even more?” she asked. “Because that’s what could have happened.” She didn’t sound angry, more upset than anything. Wilsin shook his head, tried to clear it. Not easy, as weary as his body was, his mind wouldn’t stop running up and down, thinking of all he’d seen.

  “All of us die eventually,” he said. “Just a case of when, not if.”

  “I hear that argument way too often!” she said, he could see her eyes were leaking now. “It doesn’t mean that you have to rush it forward! Let something happen in its own time, or have you got a complete death wish?!”

  “Where’s all this coming from?” he asked, holding his hands up. It felt like a surrender, he didn’t know why.

  “We all could have died down there, nobody would ever have known what happened to us! Do you know what that would have been like for them?! Our families? Our friends! They’d have missed us, we’d have been cleaning the jungle floor all because you decided you were going to sass an eight-foot tree man.”

  “Some of us did die down there,” Wilsin said, his voice deadly serious. He wasn’t justifying himself to her. He made the dangerous decisions, so others didn’t have to. “Bryce and Fazarn and Nmecha, Ballard, they’re all no longer with us. They’re gone! Brendan’s gone! One of the best damn men I ever knew! Suchiga might not make it!” He hadn’t realised he was shouting until he saw her shrink back in terror, her eyes wide. She looked scared, scared of him, scared of the situation she’d found herself unwillingly involved in.

  He couldn’t blame her, now he could hear his thoughts above the roar of the blood through his veins, the beating of his heart no longer a constant dull drum inside his head. He relaxed, unclenched fists he hadn’t realised he’d made.

  “It’s natural,” he said. “You’re in shock, Tiana. It’s not something you’ll ever have experienced before.” This time, he tried to be gentle. “At least, I don’t think you have given your reaction. Different people deal with different events in different ways, you know?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, he raised a hand to silence her. He wanted her to listen for now, hear what he had to say. “You’ll think you can deal with an event like this in the aftermath. The adrenaline is pumping through you. Hells, maybe you’ll even feel alive. More alive than you ever have before. Natural elation, there’s nothing like it and survival makes it kick in like a mule. You made it. You shouldn’t have, but you did. Survived against all odds. Whatever it took, you made it, every inch of your being knows that, and it can’t help but celebrate.”

  He knew she’d felt this. Everyone did. Nothing got the nerves firing on all cylinders like a narrow escape from sudden death. He felt it every time he completed a mission like this, the feeling of invincibility. Wilsin wondered if Brendan had felt it in the moments before the missile had penetrated his back, ruptured his organs, killed him in front of his eyes. Had death come like an orgasm, arrived during the moment of jubilation, only for exhilarating joy to be torn away? At least he’d have died happy.

  “Then there’s the next part,” he said. He reached out, took her hand, smiled at her, looked her in the eyes. Eye contact was important. It built trust, developed bonds, made words seem sincerer with their impact. She’d avoided it before. Maybe she didn’t trust him. He couldn’t blame her. When you see people you know die, being taken hostage, it all added up for the sort of traumatic experience not many shook off without some sort of fight. “What you’re feeling now. Survival comes with a price. Guilt. Sorrow. Regret. All of it hits you at once and it’s not a fight you can win right away. You have to let them punch you. You have to let them whale on you. That’s the price you pay for survival. You get everything in the aftermath you should have got earlier.”

  He sighed, let his head sink back against his seat. He’d broken eye contact, but he wasn’t bothered. He’d made his point, he’d seen it in her face. “It’s like acid on your soul, Tiana. You’ll feel like things will never be the same again, and you know what, you’ll be right. They won’t. The experience makes you grow, it empowers you, changes you for the better if you don’t weaken under it.” Again, he patted her hand, gave her a weak grin. “We are all human, Tiana. Just human. People like him…” He pointed at Reeves. “They make out they’re more. Look at him now. He’s fucked himself pushing past his limits.”

  Reeves snorted in his sleep, almost indignant with the noise. If Wilsin hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn it could have been deliberate. “We all try to cope however we can,” he said eventually. “You might not agree with what I did, but it can’t be changed now. You did what you could…” Not a whole lot, he wanted to add, but it felt like he might destroy his own efforts of trying to bring her around if he did. “And I did what I’ve been trained to do for a very long time.”

  “And it might not have been enough,” she said simply. “You know that, right? One day, everything you know won’t be enough.”

  “You make it sound like prophecy,” Wilsin said, gave her a grin. “Don’t do that. I like to take each day as it comes, not worry about tomorrow.”

  “I noticed,” she said. “You carry on the way you’re going, you won’t reach tomorrow.” She smiled though as she said it. “Are all you Unisco guys this reckless?”

  “I’m probably pretty calm by standards,” Wilsin admitted. “Some of our guys are crazy. Real tickled in the head. None of them were like that when they started either. The job twists people up, I’ve got to say. Some take longer to crack than others.”

  She gave him a pointed expression as he said it, he cocked his head to the side and looked at her curiously. “What?”

  “How long you reckon you’ve got left before you do?” she asked. She sounded serious as well, nice of her to ask though, he thought. Assuming he hadn’t already, he thought with a smile. An expression she frowned at. “I’m not joking. If it fucks you all up that bad, why do you do it?”

  “Someone has to, my dear. Someone needs to stand up and be counted. Always there are the battles to be fought…”

  The beeping interrupted him, he glanced up to the closest speaker, realised immediately that it was getting louder, had started off tender and worked its way up the noise scale into something almost deafening. “The hells?” he asked, couldn’t hear his own voice above the noise. He turned, made a break for the cockpit, Aubemaya on his heels.

  Wilsin broke through the door, saw Little fighting with the controls, the aeroship lurched clumsily to the side and he had to grab hold of the nearest doorframe to support himself. “What the hells is going on, Commander?” he asked, would have demanded the answers to the question had the fight not been knocked out of him by the turbulence kicking them about like a randy mule. “Turbulence?”

  “I wish!” Little shouted. “Some sod’s shooting at us, just launched a Skysweeper at us!”

  Wilsin’s immediate reaction was to move to the window, try to peer out and see who had the nerve to do this. Vazaran Sun’s maybe, even if they’d already waved the Nadine’s Grace through onto their airspace, it didn’t mean that they were above taking a few pot shots at them in hope of garnering some retaliation.

  Skysweepers, he knew about. They were surface to air missiles, usually launched in barrages of four to try and corner a rapidly moved target, making them evade increasingly desperately until eventually they’d run out of tricks. No pilot could jink back and forth forever, either the efforts of their manoeuvres would get to them and they’d hesitate just long enough to be tagged by a missile, or the exertions would make their ship give up on them just long enough for them to give them the sweet kiss i
nto oblivion. Any pilot he’d spoken to about them hated the bastard things.

  “Why’s someone shooting Skysweepers in the middle of the desert?” he asked, more wondering aloud than expecting a serious answer. Regardless, he heard a snarl of bitter laughter slip from the commander.

  “Son get the hells out and let me work,” he said. “I’ve got this. Go. Get yourselves strapped in. Worst case scenario, we hit the desert with a pretty big bang and I don’t mean from the impact.”

  A sobering thought. Wilsin nodded, bowed his head and turned back towards the exit, Welsh and Boyle moving through the ship to check everything was secured. Little was the pilot, Wilsin thought. He knew what he was doing. Best to just leave him be, get on with it and don’t worry about any possible consequences. If they died, they died.

  Like he’d said to Tiana, they all had to go at some point. That saying might as well be emblazoned on the Unisco logo, he’d always thought. He wasn’t the only one who had that idea, the thought wasn’t an original one. He didn’t want to go now though, didn’t want to die in the middle of the desert, his flesh burned away by the explosion of fire and gas, bones picked clean by the birds and the desert creatures. They had to eat too, it didn’t bother him. You couldn’t change what you couldn’t change, and nothing was more appropriate to that than the circle of life.

  He moved over to Reeves where he slept, pulled the straps over his body, gave him a pat on the shoulder, moved it into a shake. “Come on, buddy, might need you to wake up!” The Vedo grunted in his sleep, let his head loll to the side limply, not moving, not stirring. Wilsin swore under his breath. Damn, he was in it deep. “Picked a great time to slip into a trance, Reeves,” Wilsin muttered. “Damn you.” He toyed with slapping him, wondered if it’d really be the best use of his time. Maybe it’d rouse him. Maybe he’d just snap a hand up and stop his blow without even waking up. He was a Vedo, they could probably do that. It wouldn’t be any stranger than the rest of the stuff he’d seen from Reeves over the course of this excursion.