by Stephan Knox
There really was no other way, if she didn’t take Stew out, he’d likely fight to keep the prisoner from escaping. Then Tannin would kill him, and likely her along with him, just as he had the others. She could survive most attacks, but she wasn’t entirely immortal. The broken necks Lancey and his shotgun died of had her particularly uneasy.
She remembered, as a little girl at the temple and from learning there at the base, the Guillotine Hunters killed the Symbiote by severing their spinal cords. She just wasn’t sure if a broken neck was equally effective.
She would have to plan it out carefully. Certain Stew would have some form of weakness she could use to her advantage, but that meant having to talk with him more than she cared to. She was just gonna have to act fast and take advantage of the first opportunity that came. But for not he slept, leaving her to scheme in quiet.
She drove silently through the night with few interruptions or rest stops. Only once, when she picked up a communication signal, did she seek out nearby ruins to tuck away for a rest.
She pulled off the road, driving the truck directly into the collapsed walls of an old dilapidated building, then covered the scamper with the drop nets attached to the roof for camouflage that also served to block its heat signature.
“Friends of yours?” Stew asked as they watched the convoy pass by on their viewing screen.
Aari didn’t answer. She did know the vehicles, but her agenda was on the prisoner, and if she was to set him loose, she wanted to avoid anyone else being capable of reporting her location. Information that, should she get investigated, would triangulate her timeline and find her guilty of conspiring against the Skaddary.
She watched in silence as the convoy of three vehicles moved down road on the infrared screen. When she was certain they were out of range, she hopped out, undressed the scamper, and then headed out once again, undetected. While she was successful in keeping their location unseen from others, Stew was another matter, he kept a tight vigil with the prisoner, not even letting her get anywhere close to him. But it had only been one night, by day break it would be Stew’s turn to drive. She might have a better chance at getting to Tannin once her shotgun grew weary at the end of his shift.
For the next couple hundred miles the road was good, so she kept their speed up to gain distance just in case things went sour when it was Stew’s turn to drive.
Stew seemed to have other plans for their next leg for the night, helping himself to her dashboard, pulling up various windows of information on the dash monitor.
“Do you mind? What are you doing?”
Stew shot a raised brow her way like she was the disruption in his plans, then silently went back to the screen, his fingers tapping away on the small QWERTY keyboard.
“Are you always this rude?”
“It’s this or sex, which do you prefer? I’m good for both.”
Men. She rolled her eyes at him, trying to keep her focus on the infrared imaging of the road ahead of her. But the way he continued to meddle in their computer system, she had to wonder if he was up to something himself. Whatever it was he found, or wanted to, a half turn of a clock hour later, he turned the small seven-inch screen off, letting it retract back into its hiding slot in the dash.
He twisted around, reaching for something in back, then sat back returning with an apple in his hand.
Aari let out a hard sigh, if it wasn’t one annoying thing it was another as the loud crunch of his chewing filled the cab. Once more disrupting her wish to just mentally zone out while she drove.
Stew seemed to care little, no matter what noises she made to drop hints of her annoyance with him. But when the apple was devoured, core and all, he finally sat back, returned the bit of cloth over the lower part of his face, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. If she thought she would finally have peace, she’d been wrong. As it turned out, Stew snored in his second round of sleeping— like a rusty chain motor running inside a tunnel. Loud and constant. Her only respite from it was the occasional pot holes that tossed him about; however brief, before the sawing grind started back up again.
She made a pit stop just as the sky shifted to the yellowish gray of dawn arriving on the horizon. They were out in the middle of nowhere with nothing more than the skeleton of an old flying machine, buried nose down in a field of cracked playa mud. Some of the smarter men she’d known said the area was once a great body of water, and the mass of metal, towering up into the air had once been called aero-planes from the old-world. It was now a road marker. Its nose dug deep into the cracked clay with its broad silver wings spreading outward from its sides while the long body and tail wing pointed up into the air. It wasn’t likely anyone would be in it, even though it was an excellent look out. But the area was entirely barren here with nothing else for miles. She circled around its perimeter nonetheless, until she felt secure enough no one was going to highjack her scamper or gun her down before stopping for a break.
She hopped out, not even bothering to wake Stew, but just as she was heading around the other side of the monolithic structure for some privacy, she heard him coming up behind her. She snapped around, one hand out, and the other resting on her gun halter. “What are you doing?”
He stopped and eyed her suspiciously, “I was going to ask you the same.”
“I need to relieve myself and I don’t need your help.” She glared then continued around to the far side of the aero plane. But she caught his shadow seeing he wasn’t leaving, “You know, you could let the prisoner out for the same thing!” she called out, then finding a section of the metal body cut away, she slipped in to ensure her privacy.
“Yep, he’s good!”
She heard him call back, followed by the steady stream of his own piss on the side of the aero plane’s body.
When she stepped out she nearly collided right into Stew and she let out a yelp. “By Destiny! Do you always plan to shadow me this way?”
“Odd expression for a Skaddary.” He gave her a strange look.
It was hard to read his face given the dim morning twilight that still surrounded them, and the desert cloth still wrapped around his head and scooped under his chin.
“Just because I’m Skaddary, doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the Keepers of Destiny.” She turned, heading back to the truck. “We should keep going. We need the distance. I don’t want to be in this region when the sun reaches the high sky.”
“Need me to take a shift?”
She stopped just as she was about to get in the driver’s seat, realizing she was actually tired, but didn’t bother to answer, just moved around to the passenger side and climbed in.
Stew, after considerable adjustments to her seat, took his shift place behind the wheel and off they went, much to the pace she had. Keeping the scamper going at a familiar rev and jostle. Before long, she drifted off to sleep.
Tannin couldn’t figure her out. He held no love for the Skaddary, and here he was traveling with one. Even if she was the breeder he’d been searching for, she was also Skaddary, and he found himself struggling to unearth where her loyalties laid. After all, the Skaddary were the ones who had created the Guillotine Hunters, the very ones who killed more Symbiotai than any other hunters of their kind. They’d also ventured into the northern hills and killed many of his own.
But while his mind anguished over her, his sym, and his body, had other ideas. Such as sex and union. Not that he was looking forward to being bonded to any one female, but he needed her union for her gift. After that, it was just sex. And the fact that she smelled so tantalizing, he knew his need for sex with her would be often. Then again, the plan was to just drop her off someplace safe after they’d bonded and then leave. Dragging her around just to fill his cock’s needs was not part of his destiny.
He kept to the road for the time being, he wanted as much distance as he could between them and the base, as well as get as far north as possible before changing their course. He wasn’t entirely sure how the
union would affect them, so the last thing he wanted to worry about was an army of Skaddary and Guillotine Hunters on their trail.
They made a short stop around mid-day to stretch and eat, then right back at it again. Aari had slept most of the time, though he refused her when she made a few attempts to crawl in back to stretch out. On their last stop, he pulled one of the blanket-rolls up and laid it over the console, offering her more room to sleep.
“See?” He patted the folded blanket next to him, “You can lay here and be just as comfortable.”
“Not just as.” She scowled at him and for the first time since they left, she actually looked cute in her tired expressions. “I don’t see why you’re so against me sleeping in the back?”
“Because, if he breaks loose, he’ll be able to reach you, and either kill you right away or use you as a hostage. In that case, I have to kill you both. And I’d hate to do that. He’s starting to grow on me.”
Aari, for all her defiance, threw her body back in her seat in the opposite direction of the blanket. Pressing tightly into the corner between seat and door. In further defiance, she parked her arms across her chest, and glared out the window until exhaustion finally took over again and she slumped where she was and fell sound asleep.
After some time passed, and she failed to stir even after he hit a pot hole, Tannin felt it was safe enough to reposition her to actually sleep on the blanket. He reached over, curling his fingers into her oversized shirt and gently pulled her over. He used his knee to manage the steering wheel just long enough, so he had a hand to catch her head, and gently ease her down on his leg.
It was an odd feeling, this tiny-sized female, sound asleep, trusting far more than she should, or just too exhausted to keep fighting, and here she was, in his lap. Causing an overwhelming need to protect her.
“Knock it off, old man,” he cuffed under his breath.
There was little in the way of scenery outside the scamper as he sped by stretch after stretch of barren flat land. The mountain range seeming so distant, they hardly moved on the horizon. But in his lap was a treasure, though one wouldn’t know it from just looking at her.
A few of the locks of hair, which had so far escaped her hacking, lay haphazardly over her face and he reached down to lightly brush them aside. He had a strange yearning to look at the back of her neck, to see her insertion scar, but decided against it, willing himself to keep both hands on the wheel.
~~ Aari dreamt— but where she dreamt of being, she wasn’t sure just yet. All around her it was green with splashes of colors. It seemed blurry at first, like looking at everything from under the water. She heard someone talking, but it, too, seemed filtered by layers of water.
“Aari,” the voice spoke her name so gently. “That’s it, little one, wake up. It’s time you and your Symbiote started learning how to move about together.”
Aari blinked her eyes open several times, trying to focus on the face that hovered over her, and when her vision finally cleared, she realized it was her sister who was talking to her.
Her sister was so much older than she, yet beautiful like one of those angel people that came to meet with the priests every once in a while. “Where am I?” she asked, straining her eyes to look about her, but the stiffness in her neck made it impossible to do more. She saw green vines climbing up the stone walls, bursting with flowers that honeyed the air with a sweet fragrance.
“In the garden of waking. You’ve been asleep for a very long time. We were beginning to worry the two of you weren’t going to make it,” her sister spoke softly, sharing only a fragment of her deep concerns but a note of pride was there too.
“Are we okay now? Did my symbi-oti make it?”
“Yes, sweet little Aari, your Symbiote did wonderfully. As did you and you both are fine.” Her sister smiled, but then something sad came over her face.
“What’s wrong, something happened, didn’t it?”
“I have to go. It’s not safe for anyone if I stay.”
“What? Nooooo, don’t leave me,” Aari begged. She tried to push up but couldn’t gather the strength to do so.
“I must, I shouldn’t have stayed this long, but I couldn’t leave until I knew for certain you were going to be okay. And I wanted to say good-bye.”
“You’re coming back, aren’t you?”
Her sister shook her head, and dropped her eyes, “I’m afraid I can’t. I may have very well risked you too much as it is by staying this long. Nevertheless, you’re awake now. And I can go, knowing you will forever be safe.”
“But I don’t want you to go,” Aari whimpered.
“I know. Trust me, it will all work out. You’ll see. You’re awake now.” ~~
The last few words echoed eerily in Aari’s mind, stirring her. There was a strange bump that thumped against her head, prodding her awake. It was then she realized she’d been dreaming of her past. She blinked her eyes, but something wasn’t right, and she flashed them open to find her head resting on a pair of fatigue pants. She glanced around seeing two hands on the steering wheel above her head and then it dawned on her where exactly she was.
Another pot hole and the scamper jumped, a hand rested on her shoulder and she moved with the trained reaction. Reach and aim. Her hands coming up with her pulse pistol, locked in her grip, and aiming straight up Stew’s chin.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he called out— the hand that had landed on her shoulder now up in the air in a sign of surrender.
Intermittent with glances out to the road ahead, she could see the strain in his face as his eyes went from road to her, looking down his cheeks and into the barrel of her gun. “I can splatter your brains right here and now, and it won’t make any difference to me.”
“I didn’t touch you, just let you sleep, is all.”
“Pull over.”
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“Give me a reason not to.”
“I’m a nice guy?”
His legs shifted slightly under her and she felt the scamper slow.
“You want to lower that?”
“No.”
It was apparently the wrong answer for him. Suddenly the scamper slammed to a stop, throwing her forward. The last thing she was conscious of was the under-dash slamming against her head like a hammer, followed by the pain that flashed white behind her eyelids before becoming nothing.
TOUR OF RUINS
It was amazing, though he’d been told of her gift, it wasn’t the same as watching as the nail long cut on her forehead slowly stitched itself back together, right before his eyes. He had felt badly about the dirty move, but it’d been worth it to see this. If this much was true about her then he had to trust that so was the rest of his destiny. He tipped the canteen to wet a rag and wiped the small amount of blood from her skin. All that was left was a thin pink line of raised skin and within a few moments it too was gone as if she had never gotten cut from the metal edge of the dash.
He stood, glancing down at her. Time to wake up, breeder. He dumped the remaining water from the canteen over her head.
The little woman bolted upright in a fiery flash of rage, her hands going for the pulse rifle he’d since rid her of.
She didn’t much like it when her reach came up empty. “Where the drenn is my side arm?”
“Yeah, about that. I had to take them away from you.” He edged back, not putting it past her to try to kick him in the shin or his nuts out of spite.
She twisted, coming up on hands and knees, and taking in her surroundings.
Tannin chanced a glance as well to see what she saw. It wasn’t much. The support towers that once held a bridge over the river now lay crumpled at its bases. On the other side, a few old structures, but nothing moving that he’d manage to pick up on.
She peered up at him, her hand going to the absent cut on her head, rubbed at her forehead then shielded her eyes from the burning sunlight as she glared up at him. “What did you
do to me?”
“Other than slam your head into the dash then drag you out here while I put the fire out in the radio? Nothing.”
“My head?”
“Just a bump. Must be that hard shell of yours.”
She rubbed at it more, her eye darting uneasily. She knew, or she feared what he’d seen. Then she shot a heated glare up at him with as much mirth on her lips. “You were going to—”
“And yet, here you are, with all your rags of clothes still on.” Tannin cut her off before she could even say the accusation. Drenn, if she didn’t look down at her body, as if seeing for the first time she was, in fact, still dressed.
She sat back on her heels then, reconsidering, still looking at him and rubbing her forehead. “You still might have, then pulled my pants backup,” she went on with only half of the conviction behind her conjectures.
He dropped a knee to the ground and rested his arms on the other with a heavy sigh. “Ever see a man rape a woman?”
Her eyes diverted away, saying nothing. Not even a nod. No matter how hardened, rape was a word no woman could be comfortable with.
“Ever see a man redress her when he was finished?”
This time she shook her head, though the movement was so minute he almost didn’t catch it.
“Just because I offered to help pass the time on this trip with some fun doesn’t mean I want to rape you while you’re unconscious. I prefer my women moving and eager.” He pushed up and turned to head back to the scamper, considering the conversation finished.
“Have you ever?” she called out after him.
The very insinuation the question looked to discover had his insides growling furiously and he spun shooting a glaring of his own at her. He was about to say something but stopped himself when she just sat there, not even a flinch, however her expression was anything but accusing. More numbness just looked back at him. He’d seen that face before. Everywhere he went, he saw it. The price of surviving had stolen the vibrancy of life itself from them. There was nothing in their lives to justify the hardships. She was Symbiote, she should not possibly feel so empty or worthless. But it told him there was a chance she was not Skaddary after all. The very look on her face stole the heat from his anger. “No. I have not. What I have done, is seen to it many of the violators felt the end of my swo—” he stopped reminding himself who he was not supposed to be right now. “—swift judgment.” He turned away once more only to be called back again.