Tales of the Parodyverse

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Dancer
Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 07:17:14 am EDT
Subject
Far Away - Part 3!!! - because people said nice things about parts 1 & 2 :-)
Originally
Far Away - Part 2 - A continuation of a story I still don't think I can finish ;-)
In Reply To

By Dancer okay? Little me.
Sun Oct 02, 2005 at 06:30:05 pm EDT
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    They trudged over the hot grey sands in the sweltering heat of the high noon without speaking. Eventually Miles brought them to the only prominent feature nearby, a dull red outcrop of granite that offered some shelter from the sun.

    “We’ll camp here until nightfall,” he told the two women trailing behind him. “Unless we’re found and slaughtered by Soldier patrols.”

    Sarah knew what he was getting at, why he was ticked. “It might have made good military strategy to murder those men I knocked unconscious, but it would have been wrong.”

    “So now they wake up and call in support and the Soldiers or the Seekers quarter this area for fugitives until they find us.”

    “Maybe so. But a least we die with clean consciences.”

    Katarina watched them bicker. They certainly argued like an old married couple. There was a familiarity to their speech patterns, as if this wasn’t the first time they’d clashed.

    Figures, the shop keeper from Bienville told herself. He’s got the body of some kind of Greek god. Or maybe a male porn star. He’s not going to have lived a life of celibacy. And just look at her, compared to me. No contest. How the hell does she keep her hair looking like that in this atmosphere?

    “This isn’t Earth,” Miles went on. “Earth rules can’t apply here. We do what we have to to survive.”

    “Wherever we are and whoever we turn out to be, we’re still supposed to try and do what’s right,” Sarah argued back. “It’s one thing if you have to kill to defend yourself or to save a life. It’s another to slaughter a helpless prisoner, even if it is some kind of savage inside its high-tech armour.”

    “Those creatures meant us harm,” Kat said. “If you hadn’t come along to save me…”

    “That was just good luck. I was trailing over this desert in the direction of those flashes last night, when I heard…”

    Miles looked up. “Flashes? What flashes?”

    “You didn’t see them? In the middle of the night, just after it stopped raining. Like lightning, only… not. More directed. Maybe like some kind of laser show?”

    “We were under cover last night,” confessed Katarina. “We couldn’t see the sky.”

    “Which direction?” Miles asked. “How long?”

    “Just a short while, in the way we’re heading more or less. But it was bright enough to light up the whole horizon. So I thought I’d take a look.”

    “On your own.”

    Sarah shrugged. “Nobody else to team up with.”

    Katarina examined the woman in the dancer’s outfit. Her nails were still neatly trimmed, her trainers in good condition. “You haven’t been here long,” she admitted. Kat’s own shoes were falling apart now, and she’d grown to hate the meagre store of clothes she’d been able to scavenge.

    “I don’t remember anything before yesterday. I woke up when some flying lizard creatures tried to peck me. I shooed them off and found somewhere to hide.”

    “It’s too big a coincidence that two of us turned up on the same day without memories,” Miles reasoned. Maybe this was his wife, as she thought? He had a nagging sense of her scolding him before, and maybe an argument about shoes? That sounded domestic enough.

    He could see why he’d gone for her, of course. She was a jock’s dream. Score!

    But then there was Katarina, and last night. He thought a bad word.

    “Too big a coincidence,” Kat agreed. “In all the time I’ve been here, wherever here is, there’s not been any other people appear except the ones who lived in Bienville. Until you two.” She paused then added, “Assuming Sarah is really who she says she is, not a Skinwalker playing a cruel game.”

    “What’s a Skinwalker?” asked Sarah.

    Kat shuddered. “A creature that can hollow out humans and slither into their carcass and make them seem to be alive for a while. A guy called Rex was got by one, back when some of us used to gather round a central campfire in the early days. Before we learned that fires attract too much attention. And he came back amongst us and… well, he did some terrible things before we chopped him to pieces.”

    She’d gone deathly pale. Her eyes were haunted. Miles wanted to hold her and comfort her. He glanced worriedly at his wife.

    “I’m not a Skinwalker,” Sarah denied. “You remember me, remember?”

    “I remember your body,” Miles answered, then realised that might have unfortunate connotations. Kat was looking more unhappy than ever.

    And Kat caught on fast. “Tell her, Miles. She has to know, whether she’s your wife or not. It’s only fair. Tell her.”

    “Tell me what?” asked Sarah.

    Miles looked uncomfortable. “Well…”

    “Miles lost his memory too. You know that,” Katarina said. “And I found him and helped him recover from some nasty wounds. And last night, I took him to my bed.”

    “Oh.”

    “He didn’t remember being married. He didn’t know anything. So we… It didn’t mean anything.”

    Miles threw a puzzled, hurt glace her way then masked it quickly.

    “Oh,” repeated Sarah. “Right. Okay.”

    “It was a moment of weakness,” Miles said. “It won’t happen again.”

    Now it was Katarina’s turn to blanche.

    Sarah looked from one of them to the other. “Okay. Well, it’s best to be… candid, I suppose. And under the circumstances… Look, we don’t even know if I really am Mrs Miles. We don’t know anything. We don’t even know if these flashes we remember are genuine of part of something else.”

    “Something else?” Kat asked. “What else?”

    Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe all this is some kind of dream, a virtual reality, a shared hallucination. Some kind of devious psychological test. Maybe it’s hell. We don’t know. We’re like rats running a maze. Maybe someone’s watching to see what we do.”

    “Those are pleasant thoughts,” Katarina said.

    “If some of those scenarios are accurate,” Miles considered, “then Kat, you might just be part of the program.” He looked at his ex-lover with suspicion.

    “Or I might be the only player,” she shot back. “Look, this kind of speculation will drive us mad. Assuming I’ve not gone mad already.”

    “We could all be in some kind of spooky mental asylum, being fed these nightmares by some cruel enemy,” Sarah speculated. That felt worryingly possible.

    Miles came to a decision. “We have to carry on as if we trust our senses. There’s no other way. And right now my senses are telling me that all of us are what we seem. So we keep searching, keep heading towards the base marked on those maps we captured.”

    “Too bad we couldn’t question those Soldiers that Sarah walloped,” Kat said.

    “They were well out, and you said they don’t speak English,” Sarah pointed out. “I think I remember some French, if that would have helped.”

    “Even the French aren’t that ugly,” Miles said sullenly, then wondered where that had come from.

    “Half my ancestors came from France,” Katarina pointed out. She was a Louisiana girl, after all.

    Miles busied himself studying the maps.

    The afternoon dragged on. Kat shared her bottle of water with Sarah and the two of them whispered while Miles seemed to doze.

    “I’ve never been the other woman before,” Kat admitted. “Sorry.”

    “No point apologising till we know what’s happening. I mean, Miles is a hunk. Who wouldn’t jump his bones?”

    “Me. I’m not usually like that at all. I’m not… Well, I don’t do that. Didn’t do that, until now.”

    “Hey, it really is okay. Don’t get upset. I can understand needing a little comfort in the night, and you’ve been lonely for a long while. Only, if you don’t mind not doing it again until we’ve clarified some ownership issues…”

    “And what happens tonight if he comes creeping? To me or to you?”

    “Well, I suppose we could share,” giggled Sarah.

    “I was thinking of a kind but firm No,” Kat replied.

    Sarah glanced over at the reclining Miles. “I wonder how alert that super-hearing is?” she asked mischievously.

    They all napped during the long afternoon. Their only interruption was when a Scanner passed overhead, its horde of drones locked into perfect formation around it as it moved across the skyline. It seemed to be hunting for something though, because it shifted its path suddenly and headed away at an oblique angle with increased velocity.

    Miles let them rest until it was nightfall. They all took bathroom breaks then hiked off in a slightly different direction to the one they’d been following before.

    “We’re detouring,” Miles told them. “Before we check that camp with the radio chatter I want to look at the other settlement marked on this map. It’s coded the same colour as Bienville. I want to see what it is.”

    “Tourist,” accused Katarina.

    “Maybe they’ll have a five star hotel there?” speculated Sarah. “That would be nice. With king-sized feather beds.”

    “And working showers,” Kat added.

    Miles kept the pace up, only relenting when Katarina stumbled and fell because she couldn’t lift her feet up over the uneven terrain.

    “Sorry,” she said as he lifted her in his arms and carried her effortlessly. Sarah didn’t need help. Kat felt even more useless.

    Another hour of travel brought them to the next ridge. They paused a moment as something massive winged overhead, far bigger than the bat-pterodactyl-goat things. Fortunately it wheeled away, its mournful screech echoing behind it.

    “Great,” said Sarah. “So they have Nazgul here as well.”

    It was downhill from there. Katarina walked again, and they carefully descended the steep basin. Loose chippings skittered before them.

    It was probably the falling stones that gave them away. With a cry of triumph, a band of Scavs leapt up from some troughs they’d carved in the ground. Ragged and desperate, the cannibals raced forward to claim their take-out.

    Miles was ahead of them. He brought down the first three with pinpoint-accurate stone-throws before they got near. That slowed the others down and gave him a chance to tackle them before they reached the women.

    A crossbow bolt bounced off his side.

    Miles went to battle properly then. He was vaguely aware of Sarah nearby, doing some kind of gymnastic kicks that tumbled Scavs down the shale embankment. He allowed his instincts to lead him as he cut through the savage attackers.

    Then it was all over. The surviving Scavs raced away, feeling for their lives. Seven of the creatures lay dead and five more were unconscious.

    Kat checked them for weapons and useful items and pocketed a switchblade, a torch, and a reel of fishing wire.

    “What are these things?” Sarah asked, examining a body. The Scav’s fingers were webbed, and her face was oddly flattened.

    Miles surveyed one with his x-ray vision. “Not human. Different lung structure, working appendix, a couple of organs I don’t recognise.”

    “You still didn’t need to kill so many.”

    “They were trying to kill us.”

    “That doesn’t…”

    “Make it right,” Miles joined in sarcastically. Maybe they’d been going to get a divorce?

    “We made too much noise fighting the Scavs,” Katarina warned. “We should get away now, before the hunting beasts come.”

    That made sense. The trio scrabbled down the slope as best they could. There were buildings ahead in the darkness.

    “What is it?” Kat wondered. “Another town?”

    Sarah and Miles looked around at the dome-shaped dwellings that were shattered on the broken plain. “Another town, yes,” agreed Miles, “but not from Earth. The architecture and construction, even some of the materials, they aren’t human.”

    “Another chunk of civilisation brought here,” guessed Sarah. “And destroyed just like the Bienville.”

    They moved cautiously between the broken domes. There were no straight streets here. The damage was more extensive than in Bienville.

    “This happened quite some time ago,” Miles deduced, examining the weathering on the structures. “Years.”

    Perhaps that accounted for why the place was deserted. With the Scavs routed they didn’t even encounter any lizard-hounds.

    They made their way to the centre of the settlement. The domes had been much bigger here, but they were shattered like giant light-bulbs. Anything moveable had been stripped out of them. The winds shifted grey sand over the remains.

    In the plaza there was a bright slash of colour lying on the jagged paving slabs. A couple of bat-pterodactyl-goat things were picking at it. They rose to attack as they saw Miles and the others, then thought better of it and winged away into the night.

    Sarah went over to look at the sad remains of a young woman. It wasn’t as gristly as she’d expected. The woman’s clothing was torn, and for some reason scorched, but her flesh was still intact. Sarah checked for a pulse or heartbeat, but there was none.

    “She looks human,” said Kat. “What was she doing out here?”

    Miles’ attention was elsewhere. “I’m picking up a thermal trail in the ruins. Wait here.”

    “Help me take her to shelter,” Sarah asked Katarina. “I don’t like the idea of leaving anybody for the scavengers to pick at.”

    “You’ll get used to it,” Kat assured her. But she helped drag the girl into the nearest minaret.

    Katarina checked the corpse’s pockets for ID or anything else that might be useful. She pulled out a frazzled, blackened plastic rectangle. “Miles had one of these!”

    Sarah looked at the flat card. “That looks familiar. I think I might have had one too, in my sash before those flying things bit it off. What is it?”

    “Some kind of communication device, Miles said. This one’s in no better condition than his was. It looks to have been burned out by a big electric shock.”

    “Look at the scorch marks on this girl’s stomach. I think she was electrocuted.”

    Katarina looked more closely at the fallen woman. “You know what I think? I think she’s not been around here for long either. Like you. I think she only arrived yesterday as well. I think she got here the same way you did.”

    Sarah looked down at the lifeless form. “She looks a little familiar. But I’m not sure.”

    “You’d think you’d remember pink and purple hair.”

    Sarah looked sadly down at the limp form. “Well, whoever she was, she’s dead now. Poor thing. She deserves a decent burial. Help me pile that rubble on to her to keep the scavengers off.”

    Neither of them saw the tiny red LED desperately flashing beside the concealed port at the back of the fallen woman’s neck.

    Miles was on the other side of the settlement by now, straining his eyes to try and follow the infra-read heat trail. Someone had been watching them as they entered the plaza. Miles wanted to know who, and why.

    He was surprised when the trail split in two. So he was following a pair of targets.

    The heat haze was faint now, almost gone. Miles listened for heartbeats or breathing and located a fast-hammering heart about thirty yards to his left. There, behind the wrecked cupola. A human, judging by his skeleton and internal organs.

    “Don’t move.”

    Miles froze as he heard the power-weapon charge up behind him. A distraction. One of them kept his attention, the other laid in ambush. He’d walked into it like a rookie.

    He wondered whether he could heal from a blast from those alien weapons, or if he was fast enough to dodge them.

    The man he’d spotted stood up now, also pointing an energy rifle. He was a lean, fit-looking black man, dressed like a jogger.

    Miles raised his arms slightly, just enough so he was in a position to hurl the stone concealed in his palm if he had to.

    “I said don’t move,” the voice behind him warned. It sounded serious.

    “What do you want?” Miles asked. “Who are you?”

    “Human?” the black man asked, hearing Miles speak. “This guy is human?”

    “Looks human,” his companion answered. “Remember that old guy we met last night, and what came out of him?”

    “A Skinwalker, sounds like,” Miles said. “They hollow out their victims then take their shape, apparently.”

    “Shut up!” the black man demanded. “I don’t trust this guy!”

    The one behind Miles moved nearer. He approached from behind. “Hands on your head. I’m going to frisk you.”

    Miles waited until he felt the touch of a searching hand then moved like lightning. He grabbed the man behind him, pulled him in front of him to act as a shield from the suspicious jogger.

    The plasma rifle hit him in the shoulder, burning a neat hole through him. The black guy’s reflexes were incredibly fast.

    Miles went for plan B and hurled his hostage at the jogger.

    The black guy’s mistake was trying to catch his friend rather than get out of the way. While he was still tangled with his partner Miles was on him, hammering him down with a heavy blow to the head. But not a killing blow. Sarah wouldn’t like that.

    The other man was white, male, fairly young, very fit. He came back fighting but his punches weren’t enough to bother Miles at all. He had tousled brown hair and a prominent jaw. Miles hit him on the prominent jaw.

    He went down hard but he tried to get back on his feet. He had guts. He wore torn denims and a grubby t-shirt with a big yellow diamond on it. Miles pushed him back to the ground.

    “Stay down. I don’t want to hurt you.”

    Which was more than he could say for these two. His shoulder burned like hell and he wanted to puke. Well, it answered the question about whether those guns could hurt him.

    His captive glared up at him. “We don’t surrender. We’re not going quietly.”

    Miles agreed, feeling the livid bloody hole in his right shoulder. “I’m not asking you to surrender. Just to stop shooting at me. I didn’t start this fight.”

    That seemed to bother the white guy. “I guess not. But you’re not human, are you? You took a shot to the shoulder like it was nothing and you’re incredibly strong.”

    “I’m human. My shoulder hurts a lot, thanks. And I’m very pissed. So stop being an ass and start answering questions.”

    The black guy stirred.

    “Stay down,” Miles advised him. “I just want to know what’s going on. Who are you and how did you get here?” It was a common question right now.

    The two men glanced at each other. The white guy with the Canadian accent answered. “Well, to be honest, we don’t remember.”

    The black man chimed in. “We don’t remember anything, man.”

    “Not again!” said Miles.

    Further conversation was cut short by the electronic humming. Miles’ head jerked around.

    “What’s that?” asked the Canadian.

    “Quiet!” Miles hissed, dropping down beside them. “Whoever the hell you two are, that’s the enemy. A Searcher. Kind of big flying saucer with lots of survey drones. I’ve got it on good authority you don’t want to be noticed by them.”

    The buzzing was much louder now, passing right over the ruins where Miles crouched.

    “You think we can take it down with these rifles?” the jogger asked.

    “Let’s not find out if we don’t have to,” Miles replied.

    The throbbing hum was so loud as to be almost painful, but the three men remained immobile. The Searcher glided overhead, ignoring them.

    The Canadian had taken advantage of the distraction to regain his weapon. Miles suddenly felt the barrel at his temple.

    “Now we’ll ask the questions,” Canada said.

    But the conversation was interrupted again by a change in the electronic shriek of the Searcher. There was a green flash and a squeal of triumph and two dozen drones descended into the plaza.

    With a sick lurch of his stomach miles realised that the Searcher had found Kat and Sarah.

    “You have to let me go!” he told the two men. “Right now.”

    “You’re not going anywhere, dude,” Jogging Man said. “You’re sure not giving us away to that thing.”

    And the Searcher descended onto the dome where the women hid and gave a final burst of green light. Then it rose up and sped away.


Continued…???



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