Free Radicals

by S E Zbasnik

  The female voice sputtering out of the end of the gun had no lilt to it, though it was full up on the crazy, “Impure slut, kill them both.”

  “Right,” the merc agreed to his boss’ orders, and did exactly what Variel knew he would. As his hand dropped from the gun to close the comm, she hurled her shoe at him. He fell back, as terrified as if it were a bird clawing for his eyes. The tree licker scooped up the toy and rose to his feet just as Variel threw her second shoe, scattering the merc even more.

  As his hand batted away at the shoe, an unbreakable elven grip latched onto the gun arm, yanking the man forward. Taliesin smashed his elbow into the helmet, lifting the chin of the helmet just enough to expose the gap of a pink neck. He shoved his makeshift weapon next to the throat and pinched the trigger. The merc shrieked as the blades bit into his throat, blood dribbling down a black metal chest. With a twist of his wrist, the elf drove the blades deep into the vulnerable neck, slicing off the trachea. Yanking back, the merc’s body tumbled to its knees, the mutilated neck faceplanting into the carpet. The elf inspected the toy cooly as the blood shifted to a green sheen in the presence of a foreign metal.

  “What is this used for?” he asked the world.

  Variel didn’t answer him as she rose to her feet. She poked at the back of the uniform their dead friend wore. “I’ve seen this before,” she muttered, “there’s something…something wrong.”

  “Humans do not regularly threaten to kill ‘fornicators’ while dressed as if they escaped from the League of Evil’s formal ball? What a curious species.”

  “Who taught you sarcasm?” Variel asked as she poked at the set of tubes running down the back. The pair of oxygen and CO2 regulators met right beside the left shoulder. That was strange.

  “I am taking an ether course,” Taliesin quipped as he rolled the corpse over. “No identification.”

  “You expected them to be stupid enough to have a ‘Hello I Am With Fill In Blank of Evil Terrorist Group’ sticker on his chest?”

  The elf thought over how easily he was dispatched, “An iota, yes.”

  Variel smirked, it was a rather pathetic showing, when she heard a noise down the hall. Taliesin paused as well, his eyes narrowing as he turned towards the splintered door. Sighing dramatically, she picked up the fruit knife, the phallic handle fitting snugly in her fingers and she stepped towards the right of the door frame to hide. Only Taliesin was visible from the hallway, his face focused down upon the still helmeted man as his eyes watched through hair needing a trim.

  The noise grew louder. Boots, armored ones not allowed on gym floors, stomped down the hall as a voice called through a woosh of onboard oxygen, “Stanger!”

  He tramped down the hallway, trailing after his companion who’d kicked down three doors before finding a prize, and spotted a body laying across a threshold. As he turned the corner, the end of his gun leading the way, he spotted one of the pointed bastards leaning over it as if he were about to gnaw on the bones.

  “Hey!” was as far as he got before one hand pushed his gun down towards the floor and another drove a knife towards his face. It didn’t cut his skin, the blade sliced through the gas tubes on the back. As blessed oxygen fled from the suit, the man flailed back, trying to plug up the hole.

  Variel stepped around the doorframe, shaking her head, “Killing a man with a knife shaped like a dwarf’s dong, and all while pantsless. This is why I don’t do romance,” she muttered as she watched the man flailing about to cap off the bleeding gas line.

  “Oh?”

  The merc struggled towards her and Variel kicked his stomach, sending him skittering down the hallway. “The last date I planned was supposed to be a picnic. Gun,” she ordered to Taliesin, who tossed her the shitty rifle.

  “What happened?”

  She checked the charge button, then the safety, and took aim. “The river caught on fire.”

  The mix of gasses pouring off the man’s back bloomed while his dancing back scraped across the wall. As she was about to squeeze the trigger, the spark flared to a flame and raced back along a very volatile combination mixing into the air. The fireball wasn’t as impressive as the river, but Variel dropped down, the explosion vestiges flying over her head. The merc disintegrated, taking the elevator and an 1/8th of the hallway with him. Taliesin spotted the flareback before the pop reached his ears. He dashed through the doorway to find his lover rising to her feet.

  “What did you do?”

  “Me?” she looked at the gun, “I didn’t do…” then she snapped her fingers, “That’s it! The armor…” Variel returned to the only intact body as fire foam sloshed out of the slots in the ceiling and walls, smothering the few still tender areas from the explosion. Taliesin surveyed the carnage for a moment before returning to her side.

  “These are old Crest uniforms, ancient.”

  “Ancient by your standards or mine?” the elf asked, but she ignored it.

  “But they were ‘discontinued,’ mulched for reef building on ocean planets when people kept snagging their O2 lines and exploding.” She pointed to the gas line on the body, then lowered to her knees. Handing the gun back to the elf from a crouch, she began to dismantle the armor, inspecting each edge for a number or symbol. If there was one thing Crests loved, it was slapping their chosen animal on every piece of equipment they owned.

  As she unscrewed a gauntlet, causing the body to flop back like a sack of wet sand, Taliesin asked, “What are you looking for?”

  “Serial number,” she grunted, tossing the gauntlet away. A familiar beeping noise rose in the room. Automatically, she checked her own hand, then the elf did as well. Finally her eyes turned down to the extracted left hand of the dead merc, flashing a message in red. Someone was calling.

  Pushing the button, she signaled the elf remain quiet. That same crazy voice broke through the room “-eports of fire in your area. Explain yourself! Malenson! Stanger? What are you doing?”

  Variel nudged it off with her thumb and picked up the fruit knife. She dipped the knife deep into the meat of the dead hand, brackish blood welling up in the hole. “Whoever they are, they’re tracking his movements and have access to security detail,” she said to herself as she slipped her nail below the skin, nudging the PALM chip free. The slimy electronic dropped into her hand and she stepped quickly to the bathroom.

  Trying to not eye up the promising bathtub, porcelain with a stack of varying bubble solutions on the side, she raised the lid on the expandable toilet and dropped the chip in it. Flushing, she wiped the grime of her work off on a pristine towel and said, “Good luck finding him now.”

  “Do you do this often?” Taliesin asked, uncertain if he was horrified or impressed.

  She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “At least it wasn’t one of them Eyescans,” and she shuddered at the thought.

  “Indeed.”

  Variel sighed, and rubbed her shoulder, “And I was hoping for a relaxing day.”

  “Relaxing?” the elven eyebrow arch was one of the marvels of the modern world.

  She smiled, “Compared to taking down an invading force on a space station…no, I suppose they’re comparably taxing.”

  A charming blush rose up Taliesin’s cheek. She loved getting that reaction, though it grew more challenging with time. Yanking her pants out from under the dead body, she got one leg in when a small mark caught her eye.

  Half pantsless, she picked up the dead man’s hand and caught the edge of a tattoo poking beneath a gauntlet. Her fingers picked at the edges of the armor, cracking it open. Raising up a thermal shirt, she exposed a twisting double helix done in four colors with the number 23 in block letters through the middle.

  “Party 23? Shit. What the fuck is a pro-human group doing here?”

  Taliesin stepped behind her and lifted the arm to inspect it. “Do all members of the party 23 grow these?”

  “Grow? It’s a tattoo,” she said, trying to parse through half memories of the batshit xenophobes who occasional
ly wanted to eradicate all alien life, but mostly wanted someone to pay them attention and give them free shit. It was a bit like a very sheltered shitzu given access to media coverage and, apparently, heavy weapons.

  “What is a tattoo?” the elf was hung up on the unimportant part.

  “Tattoo. You know, ink drawing, pictures done under the skin with needles. You’ve seen vids of humans with them, surely.”

  “Ah,” Taliesin thought back, “I’d believed they were a natural coloring, like your mole or freckles.”

  Variel laughed at the idea of it, “You thought I just sprouted a set of bear claws on my…”

  “It seemed as likely an explanation as any. Some elves will develop intricate designs across their skin. I assumed humans had a more evolved situation.”

  Her hand touched his cheek as she laughed, “If we get out of this alive, we’re getting you a tattoo.”

  Taliesin thought about her needle proclamation, “Oh. Joy.”

  Sliding her pants on and searching for her shoes she said, “One of these days, elf, you’ll figure out when I’m taking the piss out of you.”

  He extracted her other shoe from beneath the bed. “I fear the mountains shall have washed into the sea before that day arrives.”

  Variel slipped on her shoes and surveyed their situation, “Right. We have an untold number of Party-23 mercs walking around in explosive armor carrying shoddy weapons. At least one, perhaps more have gained access to the security systems and, we have at our disposal one piece of shit NP-35, shrapnel pieces of another NP-35…”

  “And one phallic knife,” Taliesin said, lifting up the three inch blade. It was a miracle the fruit knife could slice through the hoses, but then whoever designed the original armor seemed fully out of his mind.

  Variel put her arm around her lover’s shoulder in a momentary side hug, wishing she didn’t need to leave the once promising room. It'd been a few days since the pair had a chance to slink off along together and enjoy some close contact of the pantless kind. Sighing, she slipped into her Knight persona and stepped into the crackling hallway as the fire foam undulated from the forced air. “Well, the elevator’s right out,” she said.

  “What with you exploding it and all.”

  “If the Madame asks it was the mercs. What about the stairs? There have to be some around here.”

  The assassin slotted the knife into his waistband as he plucked at a small knob on the wall revealing a maintenance shaft just large enough for someone to get stuck inside, “Or…”

  “Oh hell no, I am not taking the gnome holes.”

  Taliesin let the door slip partially closed as he turned those plaintive eyes on her, “If they are wise they will have already reinforced the stairs or boarded them up.”

  “They were taken down by a fruit knife and a gargoyle chipper; we ain’t talking mage level genius here.”

  “The gnome hole is the more discreet option.”

  “It’s a terrible option,” Variel shouted, pacing as if moving would create a new option, “We’re not all as slender and tight as you.”

  A small smile twisted up his lips at her raging compliment, but he pressed, “They would not expect it.”

  “Because no one in their right mind would use it!” Sliding down three stories worth of ladders, across chutes and slotting in disturbing 90 degree turns was not Variel’s idea of fun. Unfortunately, she was sleeping with someone who did all that to pass time on her ship.

  “Fine, fine,” she said, throwing up her hands and admitting defeat. “We’ll do it your way. But you’ll pay for this later,” she said shattering his personal space.

  “Promises, promises,” Taliesin said, not a hint of sarcasm crossing those elven features. He was getting good. “Human’s first,” he said, lifting up the door.

  Grumbling under her breath, she climbed into the tiny gnome hole, “The things I do for a pretty face.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The girl clung to Brena’s hand as if she’d been the one to rescue her from her entrapment while Orn fussed about the shattered bones. All the dwarf’s horses and all the dwarf’s men couldn’t put shredded muscle back together again.

  “I should attempt to communicate with the authorities,” Brena said, her ears twitching in that slightly disturbing way that could throw even a few of her own species off balance.

  “Pretty fucking sure they know,” Orn said, then caught himself, “Oops, forget you heard that fuck, and that one.” The unruffled pilot seemed off his turf when beside his fellow countrywoman.

  “Yes…” Brena said, the young girl’s fingers still digging into hers. The piercing whine of alarms in the distance and one above their heads should indicate that security and station officials were monitoring the situation. But it’d been almost ten minutes since the explosion crumpled her to the ground and they’d yet to see a single Corps uniform. Something was off.

  Orn did not share her ruminations as he asked the elf, “What do you know about medicine?”

  “Shockingly little. My branch does not dabble in such exploits,” she answered, peering around the wreckage of the explosion. A few more souls began to move amongst the shrapnel, rising to staggering feet, asking the same questions of each other. What happened? Who would do this? What now?

  “So you wouldn’t know if this is shock or not?” Orn asked, pointing to the girl.

  Brena turned from her assessment to find black holes where the girl’s eyes should be. Only a sliver of white was visible from the expanding iris of the underground people. She dropped to her knees, and leaned into the girl’s face. “Hello,” Brena said as if she were phoning to order delivery, “are you all right?”

  “Course she’s not, there’s blood and chunky blood everywhere. We need a stasis stretcher ASAP!” Orn’s voice rose with each word, the fear growing palpable.

  The yellow elf eyes turned to him and he gulped at the emotionless pool, “As you stated, why are there no authorities yet? Surely their instruments would have read the destruction in structural support.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “It would be prudent for us to find shelter for the time being,” Brena explained as if she were talking to the dwarven child.

  Orn jerked his finger at the girl, “I may not know much medicine but moving’s always a bad idea.”

  “I suspect staying would be worse,” Brena responded. She couldn’t put to words what she felt rising in her core, but something was wrong. “Come, we are near this shop. Perhaps they have medical supplies and a place to sequester ourselves.”

  “I’ll take her from the back, you can uh, deal with the lower part,” Orn said, a pale green rising upon his dark flesh from glancing at the shredded wound.

  “Very well,” Brena said. Dropping down, she said to the bomb shocked girl, “We are moving you away from the damage. I will have to grip you around the hips. I hope that is okay.”

  The girl didn’t answer, her lips paling from the drain on her system. Together elf and dwarf raised her. Orn stretched on his toes while Brena hunched over, trying to keep the girl level. “Nah, ya batshit elf, higher! Keep the blood from draining out!”

  “Right, yes, that makes sense,” she said as she stood higher. It seemed to jolt a bit of pain as the girl sighed heavily, broken from a stupor. Inching backwards, they made it into the shop, climbing overtop crunching glass and fractured debris. Shiny gemstones scattered with their feet as they hunted for an area that wasn’t coated in shredding glass.

  “There,” Orn muttered, taking most of the weight on his left arm, “Put her on the desk.” He motioned to the customer sale area, his right arm swiping away any glass and sending the helpful inventory computer to shatter on the floor.

  Brena lowered her end carefully as Orn did his best, holding in a grunt. As he let go of her shoulder, he made it two steps before he doubled up and vomited a continuous ration of sugar snacks. Brena said nothing as she searched for a blanket to cover the girl’s legs, but jewelry stores
seemed surprisingly light on simple amenities.

  The dwarf returned, wiping his mouth off. He yanked off his top sweater and draped it across her legs, hiding the destruction from the girl. That seemed to revive her and her black eyes turned to the much older dwarf fawning over her. Her mouth opened but she didn’t say anything as Orn tried to not look at either the blood weeping into his sweater or the haunted face so close to death.

  “I will attempt to contact Monde. Perhaps the ship has a better appraisal of what occurred,” Brena said, tapping open her PALM. She jabbed at her hand a few times, shook it once, and then poked it again in such agitation her well manicured claws left a bloody dot. “There is no signal.”

  “That’s impossible,” Orn said, poking at his own good hand, “This is a station, how can there be no signal?”

  “AAAHHHHHH!” the girl screamed, her black eyes wide as coal.

  Orn covered his ears and shouted back at her, “What? Are you afraid of PALMs?”

  But the girl wasn’t looking at the dwarf. Her eyes focused behind him as a shadow loomed from the back room of the store, a menacing metal tube in his hands. Brena lifted her arms in the universal symbol of surrender as Orn turned to come face to barrel with a shotgun. His arms shot up over his head.

  “What are you doing here?” the voice asked, a bulbous head poking into the light.

  A small pucker of fabric rested upon the bald head, the brim decorated with pins denoting the owners various affiliations. Red-grey skin, the sharp horizontal nose, and the wide black eyes told the tale of this being a goblin -- probably from one of the desert ranges -- that was trying to gun them down.

  “We are not your enemy,” Brena stated.

  He jerked the barrel of his gun to his smashed windows, then back to the elf. “Gargoyle shit,” the sharp teeth gritted in the over extended chin.

  “Now, now, there’s no reason to do anything stupid,” Orn said, before adding, “Though you’re off to a great start.”

  The gun shifted to the dwarf who shrunk into his shoes, his arms still waving above his head. He should be getting used to being held at gunpoint, but there are some things one never properly adjusts to. Like sand down the underpants even after a lifetime lived on a beach.