Episode 3 | Chapter 18 - Deal

Episode 3 - Plowshares

Chapter 18 - Deal

I draw out one of the white leather office chairs around the conference table and sit myself down into it, tucking my knees up onto the chair and wrapping my arms around them.

Adrian clears his throat, “We good to get going?”

“We’re listening darling,” says Shion, leaning over the table and obediently turning to the screen.

I land my attention on the saturniid moth just as it glows a violent red and the screen fires to life, displaying an image of company logos and a… map? My mind races suddenly as I take in the names of cities and the dotted lines marking the Intertrain system, scanning for Apex and the Cooperative City in search of information about where I am now. I find Apex on the map, but not my old home. Adrian positions his wheelchair in the corner of the room, his nest crawling with Vespa that creates a distracting amount of movement in my peripheral vision.

“Operation code: ‘Material Obligation’. We’ve been requested for a special extraction operation by the management of Plowshares Agricultural. They’re going bankrupt and are currently in the late stages of trying to liquidate assets, the management are planning to leave their company town in the next few days and they need support to get them out safe. Recruitment companies have already cleared out most of the valuable employees and those left behind are about to become unemployed and, shortly after, the free-men among their population squatters on land that could be under new ownership soon enough. So, naturally, there are serious concerns for their personal safety. Allied Personnel Solutions, APS, has been contracted to help manage the population in the late stages of the liquidation…”

“Why do they need us then?” interrupts Everett.

“Plowshares management owes significant debts to several other companies, and the liquidation has not been enough to pay most of them off. Our clients have raised serious concerns that APS cannot be trusted and may sell them out to a higher bidder in a hope to ransom their freedom in exchange for protected personal wealth to help clear their debts. We’re being called in to directly oversee their evacuation, in cooperation with or opposition to APS, however it might play out.”

“And why don’t we do the same thing?” I interrupt.

Everett doesn’t even look at me, “Aquila has a reputation to uphold.”

“Can I continue?” asks Adrian, his voice a bored monotone that implies he doesn’t really care either way, but he continues without waiting for an answer, “Our targets are what remains of the C-suite and their families. We will supervise their pickup and movement to an Intertrain station before its complete closure followed by safe arrival back here to Apex. Our contract ends there, they’ve already negotiated refuge once we drop them off. Their problems with their creditors are their own then. In total, we’ve got about thirty individuals to move.”

“What is the plan?” asks Blake, seemingly all business now.

The new man pushes his glasses up his nose and the syn-screen responds to his symbionts glow, zooming into a map of a citydome marked ‘Borough’. The map highlights to reveal details of the train station, city layout, and large polygons of land marked as fields. No wonder they went bankrupt, if they were still farming on the land instead of moving onto space efficient hydroponic or aeroponic ventures.

“Rishi has the basics of your operational plan prepared, Rishi?”

The new man, Rishi, clears his throat. The map begins to highlight routes and times through the city as he speaks. “I’ll be your operational contact at base. Team of four, Shion-”

“I’ll be going as Aster,” says Shion in a short manner that implies it's just professional information for planning the operation.

“-Aster, will be in command, Blake and Rhett in support. Newbie will be primarily running tech support and last resort protection for the targets. We’ll take the APC, Blake you’ll be driving, Intertrain has already been informed and paid for a freight car as your transport tomorrow. Departure from here is 0400, train at 0533. Arrival should be ten hours later. You’ll disembark, make contact with APS and proceed to management's residential housing before it gets too dark for target pickup and overnight protection. Next morning, Intertrain is scheduled for 0612, so depending on the situation on the ground we’ll be looking at departure with the targets around 0400 again. Any questions?”

I don’t bother to wait if anyone else wants to speak, “What’s an APC?”

“Armored personnel carrier. Blake’s symbiont will provide power,” replies Rishi simply.

“Can newbie be relied upon to run tech?” asks Blake.

“We’ll find out. She’s been down in the labs working with Junk, and comes from R&D,” informs Rishi before I’m tempted to give my own answer. I tuck my impatient fingers out of sight under the conference table.

“We’ll have a larger problem than that with Conrada. She refused to lock in last mission,” says Adrian, tipping his head to one side as his scratches at where his symbiont’s paper-nest meets his skin on his collarbone. His hazel eyes glance at me between his locks, his eyebrows drawing together slightly. His words are a statement of fact rather than accusation.

Both Shion and Blake turn to me, Shion’s eyes narrowing in a way that fills me with a rush of anxiety given how kind she had been up to this point. Pooka’s thoughts begin to bubble, a rolling tide of defensive fury beginning to slip into my mind. His edges begin to thin, drifting into the air at my side, threatening his expansion into some other shape.

“Nope,” declares Blake, unfolding his arms and gesturing like he’ll walk out of the room.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

“You need to lock in, communication delays are a danger to the operation and will distract Adrian who needs to be on other work when he has to relay your voice to the rest of us,” says Shion sternly, most of her flippant manner gone, “Especially when we’ll be relying on you in the field to monitor symbionts with the tech?” The earnest concern in her tone cuts me deeper than I expect.

“I can’t. Don’t make me, please.”

“Why?” replies Shion, concern slipping into her eyes at my reaction, “If it’s the pain-?”

“It’s not the pain,” I interrupt, “It’s not anything you can fix. Don’t push me on this…”

“This doesn’t seem like you Squall? It’s not something-”

“I’ll hold her still, this isn’t a negotiation,” says Blake suddenly.

Everett stiffens, “Don’t-”

The temperature instantly drops. I swell, tendrils of myself throwing them all against the walls simultaneously. Instantly my jaws re-form in Blake's face, my teeth snapping together in warning at his throat, my claws digging into his shoulders. They are forbidden! It does not matter what they want, this is not for the takers when they keep on taking!

Adrian topples forwards and sideways from his wheelchair. His eyes widen, he extends his arms and braces to protect the wasp nest as he falls to the ground. The Vespa swarm into the air and my black mist envelops them, sending them into a screaming panic but successfully preventing them from coming at my human body. Everett surges towards us, and another tendril erupts towards him before he can, locking around his throat and shoulders, lifting him into the air to pin him against the wall by the lily.

“Adrian!” screams Shion, Rishi and Blake all simultaneously, reaching arms for him. I press each of their bodies harder against the wall, re-forming my mouth where Shion is in a guttural snarl. Kindness will not save her, I will do what I need to, to protect us. Rishi’s moth takes to the air, the syn-screen blinking off in response to the absence of its aura, beating silent wings in a panicked flutter around his head and near my tendrils.

I howl, I cackle, I scream. The edges where my mass saps the energy from the air around me begin to crystalize with ice, fractals of white spiraling on the skin of faces all paralyzed in shock and fear. Plasma crackles across the room in vibrant violet between the edges of my ethereal body.

Please don’t hurt them.

“I’m okay,” says Adrian with a slow tremor to his voice into the tense stillness that has enveloped the room. His elbows are locked, just barely supporting the nest above the floor, his legs half tangled under his wheelchair and between the footplates.

“What the fuck is this?” splutters Blake, ice crawling up his jawline towards his eyes. I tighten my grip on his throat and his protests turn into a rasping cough. Blood begins to seep where my claws grip his arms. Sweet, metallic, dark.

“Tenebrosus pooka. A black shapeshifter,” gasps Everett, his hands trying to undo one of my tendrils from his throat as he kicks his legs against the wall, “Conrada, you need to control him.” Pell is sinking her fangs uselessly into my mist, injecting venom that does nothing when I bubble it safely into vesicles.

“She cannot do that. We are individuals,” Pooka says through my mouth, his rage and fury so fierce I can feel his mind moving my body. We are joint, it is my body too. Our mouth, Our eyes, my free will. You are not a slaver like them, we are invited, we overlap. Cooperation comes with compromise.

The stunned eyes that stare back at us are terrifying, the entire room has the heavy air of a sudden fear completely unlike their previous panic.

Compromise? You need to compromise back as well. We can’t threaten bloodshed every time something doesn’t go your way!

I am protecting us. There will be no ‘locking in’, I am ensuring this.

There’s no protecting us if they turn on us? Neither of us are strong enough for that. What's next after this? Cells like the other symbionts, but me in there with you? Culling? I don’t, I can’t, I’ve seen those stables in the darkness.

Everett’s eyebrows weave tightly together, his eyes watching me, the gentle expression he wore when he coaxed me to calm on the train returning, “No one’s going to touch you. It’s okay. I promised.”

I’m scared. I’m so tired. You say we can run, but where? To what? That's not a real choice we can make. He was right, on that night I broke into the Lu lab, before I met you. It’s not their fault, we’re all cogs in the same system.

That does not excuse them from their actions! They choose complacency!

Because their other choices are the same as ours - and they’re not choices, not really! You still have to live here like the rest of us. When you actually have something to risk, get back to me if being a little vigilante saboteur is still fun. Why do I remember that conversation now?

I feel Pooka’s body, I feel the soft, billowing, unstructured mass, the edges where it hardens, the places where it coagulates. I feel energy thundering through us, I feel the pulse of life and the steadiness of death. I feel the earth. I smell the blood. I feel… tired, tired of battles I fight over and over again, dreams of falling leaves that I’ll never realize.

I realize just how scared we both are.

We unwrap slowly, Pooka growling but submitting to my control over our body. We shrink, and I let out a long shuddering breath, gripping the office chair’s armrests till my knuckles are just as white as the synthetic leather beneath them.

I feel something press to the side of my head. When I turn, it's the ominous, dark metal barrel of a handgun, and Everett has a finger on the trigger.

“Do that again and I will kill your host!” he warns aloud, cobalt blue eyes locked on mine, “You listen to me! I will vouch for you, alright. No locking in! Adrian, you are ordered to make it work. But, break my trust and I will protect Aquila first - I will kill her. We clear?”

Pooka snarls in my ears. The words are not for me, the words are for us, for him. I watch as Everett’s finger tenses, and depresses the safety on the trigger. Sweat glistens on his knuckles. I can’t tell if it’s my own control that prevents Pooka from moving, or the threat to my body. His shape is still too amorphous to really display any other body language except for its slow retraction back to my side, and his feral thoughts rushing through my mind.

“If anyone has a problem with this, your problem is with me, not Conrada. We all clear?” he yells to the room, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Yes sir,” reply Blake and Shion in unison. Rishi is already on his knees trying to help Adrian back up.

Everett slowly extends his finger away from the trigger, dropping his voice. “I’ll keep my promise, I am who you attack if that is ever threatened, not them. Deal?”

“Deal,” we say.