For the second time in as many weeks, Benexx had been caught in an explosion. Granted, ze’d detonated the second one, but it still had to be well outside the typical rate of incident for an average person.
Even more improbable, ze was still alive to consider the absurdity of the situation.
Benexx’s ears rang like church bells, zer chest felt like Dorothy had parked her house on top of zer, and zer head felt like it had been split open with a stone ax. Ze hacked a long, wet, violent cough and came up with a mix of phlegm and blood. Just the act of breathing was painful. So, ze had internal damage to zer air sacks from the overpressure. Wonderful.
But, ze was alive, and that counted for something. The detonator was still clutched in zer hand, but it was dead. Either its batteries had drained, or it had been even more sensitive to the blast wave than ze had been. Regardless, Benexx was back to not knowing what time it was or how long ze’d been unconscious. Ze tossed the detonator aside contemptuously and brought zer skinglow up a little to get a better sense of just how fubared zer situation was. Turns out, it could have been worse.
The chamber around zer had been redecorated with grizzly bits of shredded flesh and frayed cartilage. To zer left, an Atlantian’s arm, severed midway down from the elbow, twitched, its fingers still moving, mindlessly following the echo of the last instructions they received.
Nor was it the only trophy of zer work. The bomb had perhaps been a little more energetic than ze’d anticipated. So energetic, it triggered a massive cave-in. The craggy rocks piled up from the floor all the way to the ceiling, cutting the dead-end of the tunnel off from the rest of the cave system.
The stones ranged in size from pebbles to multi-ton boulders. Several bodies, or pieces of bodies, protruded from the spaces between the rocks, mashed into a morbid sort of mortar. Benexx’s stomach turned at the sight and ze had to look away.
Ze was bleeding internally, cut off from escape, using up whatever air remained in the chamber with each breath, and ze’d just blown up everyone who had any idea where ze was. So, zer return was in sight. Benexx’s spirits imploded. It now came down to a simple question of whether zer airsacks would fill with blood before the air inside them ran out of oxygen.
Something stirred in the rocks and snapped up zer attention. With a mix of amazement and horror, Benexx watched as an arm dug its way out of the rubble. A dirty, blood-streaked face lifted to look at zer. Sula’s face, Benexx realized in shock. It was like something out of an old horror movie, the enemy ze thought dead crawling zer way back out of the grave for one last, defining attack.
Benexx kicked with zer good leg backwards until zer back was pressed against the wall, but it quickly became obvious Sula didn’t have revenge in mind.
“Help,” a noticeably diminished voice pleaded weakly. “Please.”
Benexx sat, unmoved.
“Please.” Sula stretched zer free hand towards Benexx in desperation. “I can’t breathe.”
“No?” Another round of wet coughs racked zer chest. “I’m not doing so well on that account either.”
“Ple…” Sula tried to shout, but ran out of air before ze even finished the word.
Benexx growled low to zerself, then used zer hands to get upright. The gunshot wound through zer leg kept zer from putting any weight on it, so ze hopped to the pile of rubble and cleared the smaller rocks away from Sula’s body. But a large one pressed down on zer right side, pinning Sula to the floor and preventing zer from drawing any but the shallowest of breaths. Benexx grabbed it with both hands and strained to roll it out of the way until the muscles of zer back felt like they were about to snap.
“I can’t move it by myself,” ze said between ragged breaths. “You have to push.”
Weakly, Sula’s free arm reached up and added what strength it had to offer. Between them, the rock shifted. Only a fraction, but it moved.
“Harder,” Benexx commanded through clenched teeth plates. “Rock it back and forth.”
Their momentum built with each cycle, until the stone finally reached its tipping point and rolled away. Sula opened zer mouth and pulled in a gasping breath.
“Why?” ze asked once zer inhalations slowed to a more normal pace.
“Why what?”
“Why do you help me now, when you tried to kill me?”
Benexx worried at one of the wounds on zer face. “Just squeamish, I guess. Blowing you up while you were pointing guns at me was one thing. Watching you die slow and helpless, maybe I’m not that cold just yet.”
“It’s not in your nature.”
Benexx snorted, then spat out bloody phlegm. “And how would you know what’s in my nature?”
“Because, you’re not a warrior. You’re a bea–”
“If you finish saying ‘bearer,’ I swear to Cuut I’ll use whatever strength I have left to bash your head in with a rock. Probably should anyway. You’re burning up my air.”
“I thought you just said you’re not a killer.”
“There’s a lot of bits and chunks of your friends lying around here that say I am. It’s just situational is all. So if I were you, I wouldn’t cause another situation.” Benexx resumed the work of clearing debris from Sula’s body until ze reached just below the trapped elder’s waist. Ze gasped at the sight.
“What is it?” Sula asked.
“It’s…” Benexx cleared zer throat. “Your legs are crushed under a big-ass rock. Badly. I can’t possibly move it. It’ll probably be easier to cut them off and grow a new pair.”
Sula actually laughed at the suggestion. “I doubt either of us have that kind of time left.”
“I suppose not.”
“Although that does explain why I can’t feel them.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.” Benexx sat back down and stretched out zer injured leg. They sat in silence for a long span. It was so deathly quiet in the chamber. Between breaths, Benexx could hear the blood moving through zer body. It was… unnerving. Ze decided to break the eerie quiet.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Sula responded, matching Benexx’s own tone and cadence from minutes ago in a mocking sort of way.
“This. All of this. Why the attack on the parade? Why kidnap me? Why set up a bomb factory down here in, wherever the hell here is? What were you trying to accomplish?”
“To prevent you.”
“Prevent me?” Benexx repeated. “Well you’d have to go back in time for that, and I don’t think even the humans have the first idea how to actually pull that off.”
“Prevent more like you, then.”
“Why? What’s wrong with me?”
Sula sighed. “You have to ask? Look around you. Bearers–”
Benexx grabbed a rock. “Careful.”
“Go on, prove my point. Bearers bring life, not take it. It is not the way of things. But you have been poisoned by the humans. Their disrespect for our ways have perverted you into an abomination.”
Benexx gripped the rock even harder. “If my parents had respected ‘our ways,’ an elder would have sliced my head off fifteen years ago while I was a naked, defenseless infant, because I was too small, or too fat, or too quiet, or too noisy.”
“That would have been wise.”
“Excuse me if I disagree. The humans I know have shown me nothing but love and compassion. You say I’m unnatural? Good. Maybe bearers everywhere should fight back against the old ways that have imprisoned them. Maybe you think it’s not in our nature because you’ve never allowed us to be anything else but living fish tanks. Did you ever ask any of the bearers who carried your broods what they wanted out of life? Did the question even occur to you?”
“Such questions are dangerous.”
“For who?” Benexx barked. “In Shambhala, we get to ask our own questions, and come up with our own answers. And not just bearers, either. Youths who would have been condemned to either field work or soldiering have been able to decide how to live their own lives. They’ve become artists, musicians, athletes.”
“And struck with poverty, overcrowded buildings, forced to adapt to human customs, adopting human vices, exploited, pinned under the toes of their new masters. The Bearer with No Name should never have brought them here. The Trident is a false idol, a broken promise. We should either return to our own shores, or drive the humans back up to their sky city entirely. We were not meant to live like this.”
“But you have humans helping you, freely. I’ve seen them. They built your bombs.”
“There are humans who share our goals for their own reasons. We work together now so we may come apart later.”
Benexx just shook zer head. “Racists working together to destroy each other. Can’t you hear how idiotic that sounds? We have bigger problems to face. Whoever destroyed Earth.”
“Oh spare me the myths of your parents. Only Cuut Zerself could end a world, and if the humans really did escape Cuut’s wrath, Ze would reward us for finishing the harvest.”
“Would have, if your little insurrection hadn’t been beaten by a lowly bearer. That must just burn you up inside, being beaten by someone who was never meant to be a warrior. How much of a failure does that make you?”
A vibration emanated from the rubble pile, low at first, but it built into a grinding sound, followed by… voices? Shouting? Someone on the other side was still alive.
Sula managed a weak smile. “Perhaps not such a failure after all, young bearer. Some of my allies survived and will be here soon. You did very well to get this far, but it’s over now. I’ve changed my mind about you in one respect, however.”
“Oh yeah?” Benexx sneered. “How’s that?”
“You are definitely not worth the trouble. Your body will just have to suit our purposes.”
Benexx raged. After everything, ze was almost at peace with dying in here along with the last of the monsters who’d taken zer from zer family, zer city, and zer life. But this? Taken alive once more, wounded, without a weapon, all of the last few days of fighting for naught?
No, not like that.
“Maybe it will, but you won’t be alive to see it.” Benexx lifted the rock high over zer head. Just as ze was about to bring it crashing down on Sula’s impassive face, a ray of light broke through the wall of rubble and fell right in zer eyes.
“Benexx?” a bright, familiar voice yelled through the new hole in the pile. Sakiko’s voice.
Benexx’s arms went weak at the sound of zer best friend’s unexpected arrival. Ze almost dropped the rock on zer own head, but instead, it fell harmlessly… onto Sula’s face.
“Acha!” Sula shouted.
OK, not harmlessly, but Benexx didn’t care as she climbed numbly up the rocks.
“Kiko?” ze asked unsteadily.
“It’s Benexx!” Sakiko shouted. “Ze’s alive. Looks like total shit, but ze’s alive!”
“Thanks…”
“Scoot over,” a new, yet very old voice said. With the light shining in zer eyes ruining zer night vision, ze couldn’t make out anything but outlines, but the voice, and then the smell, were unmistakable.
“Daddy?” Benexx’s voice quivered.
“Yes, little Squish, it’s me. Mom’s here, too. We’re going to get you out of there.”
A wave of relief crashed into Benexx and beat at zer emotions until they all hung limp like boned fish.
“I thought you were dead,” ze said to zer father’s voice.
“We thought the same about you, kiddo. But we’re not.” His hand reached through the hole and grasped at air until Benexx laced zer rubbery fingers with his knobby ones and squeezed. “It’s all right, sweetheart. You’re safe. It’s all over.”
With that, Benexx let zerself relax, truly relax for the first time in days. By the time they finished loading zer into the medical evac quadcopter, ze was fast asleep.