In A Flash – Part 3

It’s been a heck of a roller coaster this year.  

No ups without attendant downs, no progress without another unyielding monolith of impediment directly in front of the last one that took so long to get around.  Sometimes life is like that: two steps forward, two steps back.  

As usual, the answer is simple; just keep trying.  Sadly, simple isn’t the same thing as easy, and while it is one thing to say to someone else ‘walk it off’, it is far harder to actually do it when it’s your backside upon the dirt.  

Pardon me if this post is a little dusty, because I’ve had to do more than the usual amount of picking myself up of late.  

Let’s do this.

(This gets a little dark.  If I miss the mark, let me know.)

In A Flash – Part 3

Merryl bounced on her feet she walked towards the main generator.  There wasn’t much of the modest base she hadn’t yet checked, but despite her lack of familiarity, there were only so many places it could be.  She hummed the Mars planetary anthem, making sure that uptown was well and truly funked as she went past rooms already inspected and dismissed.

She was smiling as she opened the door.   The smile froze upon her lips as she stood stock still.  The light was hammering down on a scene ripped from the darkest pages of human history.  

There was a power generator alright, as well as a hydro-electric tank big enough to keep it running for a good long while.  However, the room had no tanks of fluid stacked in the corner.  There wasn’t even an empty container she could use to try and siphon what she could from the power generator.

Instead, chained to a tiny bed, was a young girl no older than eight.  She had dishwater blonde hair caked with grime and dried blood.  Her dress had long since changed from any recognizable color to the color of bruised flesh.  Her arms, and sickeningly her back, bore thin red scars and horrible sores.  Upon hearing the door open, the young girl wet herself.  The stains upon the bed and upon the floor showed this wasn’t the first time. Sobbing and pleading that she would be a good girl and listen, she scrambled over to the tank, holding out her hands over the curiously open tank as though she were cupping water.  

“P-please don’t hurt me anymore.  Please, I’ll be good.  Please, please, please..” 

The pleas trailed off into whimpering, the young woman convinced her appeal for mercy would be ignored, which meant they always had been.  Blind with her panic, the whimpering turned into murmurs.  From the bottom of her empty cupped hands, fluid began to bubble and well.  Her hands filled and when they could hold no more, the fluid overflowed her tiny fingers to fall into the tank in a thin, steady stream.  

It was hydro-electric fluid, the energy contained within it reacting to the atmosphere inside the base with tiny zaps and pops as it fell.

Merryl’s hand had shot to her bag, and she was turning around to have another go at the deceased thugs before the import of her actions registered.  The girl was looking at her, eyes stretched in even more terror as someone whose face she couldn’t see began pulling out an enormous wrench at a time she expected to be hurt.  

Merryl mouthed every curse she could think of as she replaced the wrench with glacial slowness.  She took the pack off her back, moved it to the ground as though it were traveling through molasses, and slid the bag into the middle of the room.  Reaching up with care, she removed her helmet.  A smell like a thousand latrines on a blazing summer day slammed into her, and she nearly retched.  She forced herself not to gag, making sure none of her internal struggle showed on her face.  Focusing on the havoc she would bring to bear on this tiny hellhole let her take her helmet and gloves off and slide them towards the center of the room after the pack.

Then, moving with deliberate care, she sat down inside the room just far enough that the door could close behind her while giving the young woman as much space between them as she could.  She said nothing, wearing an expression of concern and holding her hands in full view of the terrified eyes across the room.

Merryl wasn’t an evil woman.  Well, not much of one at any rate.  Sure, she’d just turned several skulls into bloody pulp, but in her defense they had tried to kill her first.  She’d been a mercenary for a long time, and before that she’d been in the United Earth Ground Defense Force as a mech pilot.  She’d done things that kept her up at night and made her overly attached to the mechs she piloted.

Nothing she had seen, nothing she had done, could have prepared her for this moment.  This child, barely more than skin and bones, who had wet herself with terror at the idea of another human being entering the room, was being enslaved by a group of morons like she was nothing more than a tank of fluid on feet.

“Oh blackness above, they found the dragon’s hoard and only took a handful.”

Tears accompanied the words.  This young woman was a priceless gift.  This poor girl could rule the whole red dust-ball before she turned twelve.  And some thick-witted meat-slab had tried to break her into being a subservient gas station.  That explained the well maintained look of the place.  They weren’t successful pirates; they were towering morons.  She was going to blow this whole dump to smithereens on her way back to Vega.  First, she had to make sure she wasn’t going back alone.  

“Hi.  My name is Merryl Lindwin.  What’s your name?”

The water slowed to a trickle, then came to a stop.  The cupped fingers emptied, although the fluid did not seem to be draining anywhere that Merryl could see.  The girl, eyes wide, let her mouth fall open a little.  Her teeth were cracked and broken from the beatings she had absorbed.  Her eyes were a delicate aquamarine the exact shade of hydro-electric fluid and her face was a sea of freckles with a pointy nose stuck in the middle almost absentmindedly.  

After a few minutes where the girls chest rose and fell like a trapped mouse, she seemed to realize it was no trap.  There was no trick, no one waiting in the wings to begin beating her again as soon as she let her guard down.  Her chest rose and fell with growing calm, and she tilted her head slightly as she regarded the woman across the room.

She sank to her knees, pulling them close to her as she studied Merryl.  The girl chewed on a nail long since nibbled to the quick, and rocked a little as she considered answering the question. 

“My name is Abigail, but Mama always called me Abby.”

Merryl forced herself to smile.  Her cheeks were still wet with tears, but she put all of her considerable personality into it.  The tiny girl was so overwhelmed by all the life in it that by pure reflex she wore a shy smile of her own.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Abby.  You wouldn’t be hungry, by any chance, would you?”

Reaching into the pack on the floor between them like a person who wasn’t going to pull out an enormous wrench, Merryl grabbed not one but three nutristicks and flashed them at the young girl like a magician who had just produced a rabbit from a hat.  

Aquamarine eyes went wide, and the room filled with an almighty gurgle as Abigail’s stomach roared its approval.  She paled and hugged herself tighter, afraid she had offended the older woman with the sound.  Merryl let out a short bark of laughter as she peeled all three sticks and set them on their wrappers, doing everything she could to let Abigail know she hadn’t been miffed about the gurgling.  Careful not to let them touch the floor, she slid the sticks over to Abigail. 

Then there was nothing but the sound of feverish chewing and joyful yummy noises.  Laughing again, Merryl brought out her small canteen from its place within the pack and slid it over to the young woman as well.

To be continued…

Gurglefully,

The Unsheathed Quill