11.22
Someone drags me, and I don’t have the wherewithal to do anything about it.
Voices drift somewhere far off, and more hands grab onto me, hauling me another few feet. My skin crawls, and I try to yank my arm away without success. I can hear when they give up, my body too heavy for humans to move with ease.
What are they doing?
I blink, trying to see anything, but all I’m getting are painful flashes of heat signatures against the blues of the cold walls. I struggle again, trying to wiggle sideways, an unintentional groan slipping out as someone crushes their knee down against my neck. Throwing off humans shouldn’t be a problem, but I’m not only just about human right now, I’m weaker than a human.
Something presses my face roughly into the stony ground, and I momentarily lose my grip on consciousness, unable to stay awake each time I manage to crawl my way back to the waking world. Water roars nearby, buzzing my new hearing aids, considerable dampness in the air, as well as the whir of what my hazy mind considers to be the turbine. Or a different one? I was definitely dragged to a different spot before they gave up on trying to move me. I shouldn’t be able to hear it from here.
My eyes hurt, and what few blobs of heat I’ve been able to pick up suddenly snap out of sight. What’s happening? What are they doing to me?
Vaguely, over all the noise and clawing they’re doing to my clothes, I hear, “…get…ears…”
Oh.
Oh no.
They’re trying to rip out my useful augmentations. Like my ears. And my eyes. And probably others I can’t even grasp.
Struggling, I bite at what I’m assuming is the closest hand holding me down, my teeth sinking into soft flesh. There’s a scream in my still-functioning ears, and I use my less injured leg to push myself back, but more hands replace the one that left. Blinking as hard as I can, I still can’t see a thing, and I hope they didn’t manage to do permanent damage to any of my implants.
They’re doing something to my ear, and I yank sideways, momentarily freeing my arm enough to shove and claw at the people atop me, hearing their voices as they shout and scramble to secure me. Some of them speak a language I can’t understand. How did I even run into these types of people down here? Hiding down here because even what they’re doing is vastly illegal? A sharp pain overriding everything else shoots through the left side of my skull, behind my ear, as if someone is driving a needle through the back of it. Someone screams, probably me, and I only hear it on my right side. I can’t see them, where are they?
My hand comes free of one of the bodies crushing it, splashing into water. Drown. I could down if I try to get away in whatever waterway is down here. How else do I get out? What do I do?
No one’s going to help me.
No one’s come looking for me. No one’s going to help.
Someone grabs a handful of my hair, yanking me to the side, away from the water. I’ve let it grow too long, I think offhandedly. I flail out at them, kicking as hard as I can, another yell tearing out my throat. It hurts, but not as much as it will if I can’t get away from them. My broken arm is useless and screaming, more so when someone’s weight falls on it, trying to keep me pinned.
I shove will every ounce of strength I have left backward, crashing into the water.
It’s faster than I anticipated and my limbs are too heavy to move properly, finally truly feeling as if they’re full of metal, never quite going the way I want them to. Water swallows me. My head smacks into something hard and unforgiving, and I realize what it is too late to avoid being dragged by the current down into the tunnel. I scrape at the top of the stone, searching for gaps of air and finding none. My lungs are already burning. I should be able to hold my breath for ages, but I wasn’t prepared and something is seriously, seriously wrong.
Nothing reaches my eyes, and what remains of my hearing flickers in and out with the overwhelming roar of too much swirling water. I try uselessly to right myself in the current, knocked into the side of the tunnel as it changes course.
I’m going to drown.
I scrap my one usable hand along the walls, trying to find something, anything, unconsciousness wavering at the corners of my thoughts. Air wraps around my failing arm, and my head breaks the surface momentarily. I choke in a breath, coughing before the current slams me into the next wall. A harsh cry is shoved out of my lungs, and my legs find no purchase as the water tries to drag me into another tunnel. I claw at the wall, pressed against it so hard I’m pinned above the entrance. My eyes aren’t working. They aren’t working at all, and I feel to my side until I find the floor of this new tunnel, dragging myself toward it, hearing my harsh breath in momentary blips when my one functioning hearing aid tries to work.
Shivering and choking up water, I scrub at my eyes, trying to figure out what’s broken, desperate to turn them back on. My fingers find partially empty slots where they should be, the implants in my skin still there but bleeding, the actually seeing, most valuable part of my eyes gone.
Panic chokes up my throat, what little breath my damaged chest can take nearly cut off. I’m going to die. Slowly, one way or another, whether those humans find me again or not.
They’re going to pull me to pieces and not bother to kill me first—
A hand grabs my shoulder. I yelp, lashing out and making direct contact with something, trying to scramble back. My body won’t do it, won’t move correctly, and the set of hands fumble with mine. I can hear the blips of voices in my remaining ear, and claw at where it’s coming from, locking my fingers around the scavenger’s throat, shoving him back away from me, into the ground. Any other time, and I’d crush his windpipe easily, but I can barely keep it off me now. Two hands fumble with mine, trying to pry my fingers away from its neck. I can’t put up much of a fight.
My knife.
Dragging myself back, I fumble in my pocket, hoping and praying I didn’t drop it in all the scuffle or lose it to these thieves. My fingers find its hilt, and I flip it on as the hand touches my leg again, trying to drag me back—
“Aaron!”
I go still, breathe still coming in harsh whimpers, the heat of the knife flickering over my fingers.
My name?
The hand leaves my leg, then touches my wrist carefully. I flinch, dragging myself back, hearing only fragments of words being spoken.
“…okay…Aaron…”
I pause, back trapped against the wall, the knife slipping through my trembling fingers. I catch the quick sound of movement along the stones, and two hands rest carefully on my shoulders. Not expecting him to be so close, I cower back, putting my hand out and unintentionally shoving against a thick jacket. My hand knocks into their face, and a scruffy start of a beard.
“Aaron…”
I know that voice.
“Zane?” I whisper, unable to hear myself but hoping my voice forms the word.
The face nods, hands on my shoulders tightening gently. His hand touches my remaining hearing aid, but nothing he does clears the sound. I hear him saying something but the words are nothing more than a fragmented drum of noise. My head spins. It’s not possible. He can’t be here. They came looking for me?
“Zane…?” I ask again, unable to believe it.
Another nod, and his hand messing with my ear rubs the back of my neck. “…found you…”
My breath hitches. Remembering my eyes, I cover my mutilated face with my hand. Another sob chokes up my chest I can’t manage to shove down. I don’t want to cry, can’t start crying over this. Telling myself not to isn’t very effective.
Zane tugs at my hand before giving up and pulling me off the wall, hugging me so tight every one of my injuries screams at me. Relief makes it difficult to breathe. I grab around his shoulders with my usable arm, clinging to him. At least I don’t have to hear myself cry. A few words filter through my damaged ears I still don’t pick up. He gives my hair a ruffle gentle enough to doesn’t aggravate any of my injuries.
Another set of hands touches my shoulder, smaller this time, and I start. Two more arms wrap around us. Vaguely, I recall the perfume Lalia wears, barely recognizable until my other senses are denied to me. I press my face against Zane’s shoulder, hiding it from her though I know it’s unreasonable. Neither pushes me away or tries to drag me up, holding me so tight I think it might actually be doing me some damage, but I can’t bring myself to struggle out of it. Both of them are so much warmer than I am.
Lalia releases us first, her soft hands fluttering over my hand and temple with the gentlest touch. The echo of their voices reaches my ears, but I can’t hear what they’re saying.
I try to say, “I can’t…hear. I…”
I don’t know how to continue, don’t know what I’m trying to say. Zane rubs my back. Lalia touches my ears as Zane had, her fingers brushing gently under my eyes, smoothing back my hair. They can’t do anything for me. I’m not even sure if Bat can do anything for me. All they can do is keep me safe. Which is more than enough. Wrapping his arms under mine, Zane tugs on me gently, and I realize what they’re trying to do. I’m too heavy for a human to carry with any ease. Zane might be able to, but I remember him hitting his injured side on the metal platform and don’t think he’ll manage it.
I try to get my legs under me, leaning on him completely for balance, head spinning so bad I don’t think I’d be able to stand straight even if I could see. Lalia helps hold me up on the other side, easing my broken arm gently over her shoulder.
My thoughts finally start catching up to me, and more panic along with it, “Bat?”
If he came down here, those people after me will catch him. They’ll—
Zane is saying something to me, and I catch the word, “safe,” in all of it.
“Scavengers,” I tell him, and he gives me a reassuring squeeze. He puts something back in my pocket I realize is the hilt of my dropped knife. It’s the only thing I haven’t lost in all this, and I’m grateful he picked it up. I don’t have a hope or dream of figuring out where we’re going or which direction we’re heading, or even how they got down here or are going to manage to get back to the surface. I don’t really care.
They came looking for me.
I squeeze Zane’s shoulder with my hand I can still move. He grabs it, keeping it secure over his shoulder, the two of them taking a lot more of my weight than I’d expect. I manage to stumble along, leaning on them, for longer than I believed possible before unconsciousness claws at me. It’s getting more and more difficult to breathe, even as slow as we’re going. My chest is tight, arms and legs numb. My head won’t stop pounding.
Finally, the two of them stumble under my weight. Lalia releases me for a moment, and I can’t hear more than snippets of movement. Zane pauses, readjusting his grip on me, touching my face as if he can meet my eyes.
I’m not going to walk anymore. I simply can’t. Even standing here, leaning mostly on Zane, is nearly unbearable.
“Zane…” I say and hope my voice is working. “Zane, I think I’m dying. Something is wrong. I’m dying. Bat can’t… I think…”
I try to tell him something, I don’t remember what, before I can’t remember anything at all.