Watching Yute

by Joseph Picard

  When she got to the top of the stairs, her worst fears were confirmed. There lay Marcus, still and lifeless. Next to him sat one of the guards. He looked at Cipriana and pointed at her first aid kit. “Much too late for that. I don’t think he had a chance.”

  A few metres away was Cheryl, just as motionless, except that Cassidy was crumpled up by her side, sobbing against Cheryl’s shoulder.

  “I told her to leave Cheryl's body alone,” the guard sitting by Marcus morosely said, “for evidence and stuff... you know. But she wasn’t about to listen to me.”

  Both Marcus and Cheryl had terrible abdominal wounds, and there was considerable amounts of blood on the stone floor. Some on Cassidy, too.

  Cipriana lowered herself onto her knees, before her knees decided to do that for her. She found her hands were shaking. She closed her eyes. Evidently now in charge, she tried to think. Speaking to no one in particular, she asked. “Who did this?”

  “Some guy who came with the storm. Had a knife. Left with the storm. It didn’t seem to slow him much. Cassidy and Jim chased him, but the storm wouldn’t let them get too far.”

  Cipriana sighed deeply, and slowly made her way over to Marcus. “Jim and Maxine went to base to call for some kind of backup. Please go and make sure they call Colonel Calvert and the Grand Elder.” “Yes Sir.” Cipriana stared at Marcus as the sound of boots on sandy stone ran off to follow her orders.

  Cipriana got closer to Marcus, and looked at him for a bit. Either he died with his eyes closed, or someone had closed them for him out of respect. He looked more troubled that she had ever seen him in life, which was understandable. Even still, being closer to him helped her hands shake less. Wake up, you crazy bastard. Open your eyes, walk it off, then make some charmingly folksy comment about it all, and make it alright.

  It didn’t happen. Cipriana leaned in closer. “Sir.” She whispered, then gave the tip of his nose a gentle, slow little kiss.

  :::Core Nanite Colony Log:::

  :::Heat differential detected. Possible potential host.

  :::Confirmed potential host.

  :::Satellite nanite colony detected in potential host

  :::Dispatch Core colony command information.

  :::Core colony command information successfully sent.

  :::Deactivating deceased host nanites for self disassembly.

  ~~~

  Maxine had just gotten off the radio. Jim had helped her get the relevant information, but it didn’t seem real.

  Everyone at the base was now concerned, many going to the temple to provide any support they could.

  Maxine saw a lot of eyes on her. If Cipriana was now the acting C.O., maybe that made Maxine the acting den mother. She gathered her calm. “Wanda, stay with Jim for a while. I’m going to wait at the helipad.” It seemed more helpful than sitting in the base, and she didn’t really want to go to the temple. “If anyone needs me, that’s where I’ll be until backup lands.”

  “I’m coming with-” came the voice of someone else.

  “No. Stay here.” She needed some space. A little quiet. Who would get to the helipad first, her or the incoming backup?

  ~~~

  Cipriana sat kneeling by Cheryl and Cassidy for a while. Cassidy had stopped sobbing more or less, still breathing heavily, face hidden. What the hell do you say? Cipriana just put her hand on Cassidy’s shoulder.

  Cassidy jerked her shoulder free with an unintelligible moan. “Go away!” Her sobbing made another surge.

  Cipriana gave another deep sigh, and wiped another tear off her face. She kind of wished she had been here for the attack, as if maybe she could have made a difference. Maybe they should have been carrying guns after the previous attack, even if they had to be outside the temple. She looked over to Marcus. He probably never would have gone for that. Him and his damned ghost.

  Cipriana stood, and wandered over towards the statue, and looked the giant stone dog in the face. Well? Do you have any bright ideas? Any great folksy wisdom that you’d whisper to Marcus?

  Didn’t think so.

  ~~~

  Maxine hadn’t been at the helipad very long before Grand Elder Armil’s airlimb approached, and landed. When the side door opened, the black-suited G.E.G. Storm soldiers poured out with their usual speedy grace, but in larger numbers, flowing around Armil like a river around a boulder. The female Colonel assumed position a few paces behind Armil.

  The solders made a sizable formation, two blocks of roughly fifty on either side of the doorway as Armil walked forward to Maxine, with a worried expression.

  “I have more soldiers searching the area,” Armil said, cutting right to business, “and Colonel Calvert has many of his own men in on the effort in the region. I was gong to send half of my fellows to the temple, and the rest around the base.”

  Maxine wasn’t really hearing any of it. Seeing the mass of troops and Armil suddenly made it a little more real. She felt her body tremble, and without really realizing it, she slumped to her knees. She put her hand over her mouth, as if it would help her maintain her calm.

  Armil knelt in front of Maxine, and put his arms around her, with those long traditional sleeves. Maxine couldn't hold it back anymore, and started crying. “Why? How? I don’t…” Armil just squeezed her, gesturing to the troops to go on ahead.

  Once the troops were gone, Maxine calmed down enough that she heard another person, and raised her head from Armil’s shoulder to see a thin man in his late thirties, with a couple knee-height metal cases beside him.

  “Oh. Uhm. Hello.” He said. “I’m Doctor Andrew Brock. The ah..”

  Armil stood with Maxine. “I’m borrowing him from Colonel Calvert. He’s going to run a few tests, just in case.”

  Maxine tried to collect herself. Amazing what a nice hug from the world leader of your people can do for you. She looked at ‘Brock’. “Oh. Hi. Sorry, I’m Maxine. I’m sorry about”

  Brock interrupted. “No need to apologize. I understand.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  The female Colonel spoke up. “There was some intelligence suggesting some nanite-related technologies were operating without any sort of clearance.”

  Brock chimed in again. “My speciality in recent years has become just that. Colonel Calvert has had me very busy looking for any signs of them.”

  Nanites. Brock. A light went off in Maxine's head. “Oh, you! Doc Brock! You were involved with the whole Erebus mess!”

  Doc Brock held back a smirk. The little bit of fame he had gained since then always amused him. “Yes. It doesn’t look like anything quite as nasty is happening here, but given today’s events, it was decided I may as well come here sooner, rather than later.”

  Nanites. Well, Maxine certainly hadn’t seen any microscopic robots, but that’s the point, isn’t it? She certainly hadn’t seen anything like what had happened in Autar. “So what now?” she asked the three of them- Doc Brock, the female Colonel, and Armil.

  Armil looked down the path to the outpost. “I suppose I should talk to Cipriana, I assume she’s in charge now?”

  Maxine nodded “That’s right.”

  “And we can leave Doctor Brock to his testing.”

  Brock nodded, and looked at his bulky cases. “should have kept a couple soldiers to help me with these.”

  Maxine stepped up to the cases before the Colonel ha a chance, and picked the cases up by the handles on top. “I have them, Colonel… I never got your name, if I may ask, Sir?”

  The middle aged Colonel smiled slightly with a nod. “Colonel Judith Nafim. Very well, soldier.”

  Brock smirked. “Well, if anyone tells me non-coms are wimps, I can now tell them otherwise with authority.”

  It was then that the wind decided to pick up a little, providing them with the usual ‘dusting’ that arrivals usually got.

  “It’s a bit late.” Maxine said. Almost immediately, something in one of the cases started beeping.

  “Put it down!” Brock said with
quiet urgency. As if it were a bomb, Maxine put both cases down quickly, and stepped back. Brock opened the beeping one, and pushed some buttons, and read a display inside. “There we are. We’re covered in the little suckers now!” He stood and dusted the sand off of him. “You said it was ‘a bit late’?”

  Maxine replied quietly. “Any time someone lands and visits, a tiny dust storm like that…” Colonel Nafim dusted off her clothes, as if that might be enough to at least get some of the nanites off of her.

  “And that never struck you as odd?!”

  Maxine stared into the ground, feeling scolded. Sure, if you put it that way, it was quite odd. She started to realize that a lot of things were odd around here. “You’re saying... somehow nanites are...”

  Brock fiddled with the equipment in his case more. “It would seem so. The ones we just got coated in… I don’t know what they do yet... but it seems I have my work cut out for me.”

  ~~~

  Cassidy and Cipriana walked down the temple steps side by side as Armil’s soldiers rushed around. Some of them brought a couple rigid body canisters to load Cheryl and Marcus into. The bottom halves of these canisters were often used as stretchers, but when they had the lids with them, they were as unmistakable as a black civilian body bag.

  Cipriana looked over to Cassidy to see if she had taken any notice. If she did, Cassidy wasn’t giving any signs of it. She just kept staring at the ground in front of them as they walked, eyes wide and arms crossed but trembling.

  Most of the others from the shift had left a while ago, directly after answering some basic questions, but it had still been extremely difficult to get Cassidy to leave Cheryl.

  Despite the occasional soldier running by, the walk back to the base had a crushing silence about it. The only sound that registered to Cipriana was the occasional trembling breaths that would come from Cassidy when she had to try harder not to sob outright.

  About halfway back, Cassidy stopped, and looked out at the horizon. Cipriana waited, and looked between Cassidy, and whatever she was looking at.

  Cassidy took a deep breath, and said in a fragile voice, “I should get the stuff from the... from the camp.”

  Cipriana took Cassidy’s hand. “No. You don’t need anything from there right now. In fact, you don’t need to go there at all. I’ll get the things. But later. Not now.”

  “… but… the camp…! It…”

  Cipriana grabbed Cassidy into a hug, and squeezed. Cassidy responded by squeezing back, hard. She burst into full sobbing, and would have fallen if Cipriana hadn’t been helping her stand. Cipriana considered for a moment that being there for Cassidy was easier than thinking about the deaths directly. It was slightly less painful to help than to mourn. Slightly. It was hard not to be swept up by Cassidy’s uncontrolled sobs. She found herself again wishing she had something useful to say.

  They heard a couple soldiers jogging closer. Cassidy let Cipriana go, and stepped back, trying hard to contain herself. The soldiers were going to just jog by, but looking at Cipriana and Cassidy, they stopped. “Are you two alright?”

  What a stupid question. “Yes, wh-” her voice only now making her realize that she herself was still trembling, Cipriana noticed where the soldiers were looking. Cassidy had a lot of Cheryl’s blood on her, and Cipriana had smears of blood from both her fallen friends. “It’s not our blood. Go.”

  “Yes Sir.” The soldiers continued on, but having her attention drawn to the blood sent Cassidy to the ground on her knees with a weak little scream.

  Cipriana knelt down by her, and put her arm around her. “We should get going. When we get back to the outpost, we can… we can get cleaned up, and lie down.”

  Cassidy’s trembling became somehow more rigid. She leaned forward, away from Cipriana’s arm, and put her hands on the ground, grabbing at it. Quietly, angrily, almost in a hiss, she asked “Why bother?”

  Cipriana could only re-assert the arm around Cassidy’s shoulders and wait. They sat there for a while, and Cipriana watched as one salty droplet after another impacted the dusty ground.

  Cassidy wiped her fingertips across her abdomen, and brought a smear of Cheryl’s blood to her lips, and gave it a small kiss. She clenched her fist, and let out a painful sound. The sound was swallowed into the surrounding silence as if it had never existed. Time continued for a while, ignorant of anything else.

  :::Core Nanite Colony Log:::

  :::New host established

  :::New host identified: [Cipriana]

  :::Attempting direct host communication...

  ::: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

  :::[!]

  Cipriana suddenly raised her head and looked around. “Cassidy, did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” bitterness not intended for Cipriana laced her voice.

  “You don’t hear that at all? It’s rather quiet, but it’s there…” Cipriana stood slowly, and faced the temple. “It doesn’t sound... like sound.”

  Cassidy stood, still trembling. “There’s nothing.” A thought crossed her mind that seemed too obvious to say. That might seem disrespectful to say. That might just plain piss her off too much to say, or to think about too closely. “Let’s get going. We can...” she looked at the blood again. “we can get cleaned up. Like you said.”

  Cipriana didn’t respond, so Cassidy took her by the hand and pulled slightly until Cipriana turned away from the temple and started walking again. Every few metres or so, a mumbling sound would come from Cipriana. Sometimes it came out a little more intelligible. “No…” She sounded fit to be institutionalized, and the look in her eyes matched. Cassidy stopped. “Cip. What the hell’s wrong? I mean, I know what’s wrong, but you…”

  “Cassidy, do you think Marcus was crazy?”

  Tough question. She hadn’t really decided. “I dunno, Cip, why?”

  Cipriana looked towards the temple again. “I think I hear it now. I think I hear the ghost. It’s like Marcus said... it’s more like a feeling, and…”

  “…and?”

  “Part of it feels like Marcus.”

  They stood there for a while, with Cassidy staring at Cipriana, and Cipriana staring towards the temple. “Part of it feels a lot like being around Marcus. I don’t understand. What is this? Cassidy, what is this?”

  ~~~~~

  :::C /30

  ~~~~~

  Doc Brock wandered around the base with a device about the size of a loaf of bread, using it to take readings from anyone he came across, asking their names, and comparing his readout to information on a large crumpled print-out he carried.

  He was intensely focused, and when anyone asked why they were having this device pointed at them, he merely mumbled something vaguely apologetic and moved on.

  Armil’s G.E.G. soldiers came and went, but Armil himself remained fairly stationary. He merely stood in the large doorway to the mess hall in his big traditional robe, hoping that his presence would somehow be of some small comfort to the people who work here, live here, and were now stricken with shock and grief.

  Maxine wandered over to Armil. “What do we do now?” She would have known the answer if her mind would stop spinning long enough to consider it, but the question just came from her as if the Grand Elder should have some magical answer that would make everything okay.

  Armil stood solemnly and sighed. “We are doing everything we can. The search for the attacker is underway, and we will tend to those we’ve lost. Marcus has told me in the past that he would like to be laid to rest somewhere in the ruins, but Cheryl?”

  It took a while for it to sink into Maxine’s head. “Cheryl. Her parents would make that decision, I guess. Maybe we should ask Cassidy. Oh my god, Cassidy. She must be a wreck.”

  Grand Elder Armil gave another deep sigh. “Cassidy and Cheryl. They were close?”

  Maxine nodded meekly. “Very much.”

  “I think I need to see her when she’s ready.” He folded his hands across the front of his robe and stared
down at them. “Cipriana as well.”

  It wasn’t long after that Cipriana and Cassidy arrived at the base. It was hard to decide which of them looked the worse for wear. They passed the threshold and just stopped, directionless.

  Maxine walked over to them, and looked them both in their tired eyes. Having no words, she just wrapped her arms around them and pulled them into a hug. Cassidy squeezed back as her breathing betrayed her efforts to not cry.

  Sisters and brothers of the base wandered over one by one, most of them joining the growing hug.

  Armil stood back and admired the kinship he saw. It was nearly heartwarming, until Cassidy's sobbing from the middle of the group broke any semblance of quiet. The sound ripped mercilessly at any peace. The sound of hopelessness, of defeat, and of pain unmeasured.

  ~~~~~

  :::C /31

  ~~~~~

  Another buggy was coming. Kirison went to the engine of his own rented buggy and pretended to be working on it. The approaching buggy sped by, kicking up sand. The driver called out “Better luck on race day, pal!”

  If Kirison had known that this was an area that buggy racers frequented, he would have picked a different rendezvous point, but it was too late for that. Horad would be along soon with any luck, and they could get the heck out of the open desert.

  What twist of logic had convinced Kirison to bother helping Horad get out, anyway? He could have as easily just vanished and never talk to the creep again.

  Why help him? Well, for one thing, he had to get that suit back. If Horad got picked up with that thing on, it would be a significant step towards crap coming back at him.

  For another thing, Kirison wanted to have confirmation that the second ‘chant’ had been delivered. The storm had been visible from quite a distance, so he knew Horad had successfully broken the first, turning on a signal to the vast nanite fleet in the sands around the temple, and inciting the first ‘magic’.