CUCKOO - PART 2
While stories take a break for the Summer, I'll still be sharing short fiction - mostly introductory segments from projects I'm rewriting, every other week until August. Today we're continuing with Cuckoo, and the plot thickens...
Rain pounded the truck as Dillon and his father sat in the cab, awaiting the call for the next train. Mr Peaseblossom wrung his hat in his hands and bit his lip, staring at nothing. Dillon sat back, eyes closed, and listened to the drumming of the fat water drops against the bonnet of the pickup.
Mr Peaseblossom knew this was the right choice; he had seen the look in Dillon's eyes when they arrived, the sleek chrome of the train terminal standing out like a beacon against the dust and dirt of the rest of the tiny town. Cargo trains stopped at the back, where they were unloaded and the lorries took a long and winding path out, away from the passenger entrance and straight onto the highway. Away from their little farm.
'You'll like Terminus, lad,' Mr Peaseblossom heard himself say. 'It's got plenty of big ships, and I hear their mining tech's something to behold; enormous drills, simply enormous! They're planning on going straight to the core with those things!'
'They wouldn't find anything useful,' Dillon stated. 'Besides, my interests lie in... other directions.'
'You've not got a lot, lad,' Mr Peaseblossom warned. 'If you want to go off to the stars, you're gonna have to work for it.'
'I know.'
Silence, for a long time. The trains rarely came along this line, and it certainly wouldn't be one of the sleek new models. Dillon stared at the terminal, noted the paltry number of people who even passed it by, let alone entered it. He was glad he had brought along some books, it would give him something to do on the journey. There obviously wouldn't be anyone to talk to.
'Father, before I leave,' he began, and stopped. This was... unusual. He was not often at a loss for what to say.
'There are things about me that you do not know,' he said finally. The rain seemed to pour down ever the harder.
'What are you trying to tell me, lad?' Mr Peaseblossom asked. Dillon's face was working overtime, trying out several emotions as he arranged his thoughts.
'You know I am not of this planet,' he explained. 'You yourself showed me the pod when I asked about my origins. But there are... others.'
'Other whats?' Mr Peaseblossom stared at his son, uncertain of whether to carry on the conversation or try to cut it off there, dismiss it as leaving jitters.
'Other beings. Like me,' Dillon said. 'I do not know where we came from, but I know that at least four of us are left, myself included.'
'Look, son,' Mr Peaseblossom said, 'you can't know that, okay? You just... you can't. It goes against all laws of-'
'I dream about them.' Dillon's face looked deadly serious. 'I see them when I sleep, watch through their eyes as they live their lives. My dreams are inhabited by my kind, and we all wonder why we do not fit in, but none of them see like I do.'
'See? See what?'
'There is one more, not like us. I call him the Survivor. He does not show me his life. He keeps himself shrouded from my dreams, but he knows I have tried to look.' Mr Peaseblossom stared at Dillon, jaw agape. He worked it back into place and ruminated a moment, mouth moving as he tried to work out what to say.
'Why are you telling me this, lad?' he managed eventually, a tinge of hysteria to his voice. Was it possible? His son had gone mad, that must be it, Dillon was simply insane and-
'The Survivor is a native of my home planet,' Dillon said. 'He is looking for us, he has a plan for us. And he can move worlds. He is a destructive force, and he may come this way. He may... he may destroy your home, everything, if he believes you are in the way of his progress.'
'But you said he blocked you!' Mr Peaseblossom exclaimed. 'How can you know all this?'
'He is a clever adversary,' Dillon said. 'He permitted me to see the devastation he left in his wake, he wishes to scare me into action.'
The call for the train came up. Dillon opened his door.
'Wait, lad.'
Mr Peaseblossom grabbed his arm and shoved something into his hand before he could protest. Dillon examined it: it was a bag. It jingled when he shook it.
'Your ma wouldn't approve,' Mr Peaseblossom said, 'but I reckon it'd serve you better than us, 'specially as we're too old to enjoy life to the fullest now.'
Dillon looked at it, then up at his father questioningly.
'It's my nest egg,' Mr Peaseblossom explained. 'Enough there to get you off-world, at the least. Find a cheap ship to a good job, stay hidden. And remember, me an' your ma, we'll be here if you ever want to come back and see us.'
Dillon opened his mouth to speak, but Mr Peaseblossom waved him off.
'Hurry now!' he said. 'Next train isn't for four hours!'
Dillon nodded and pocketed the coins in his enormous greatcoat. Throwing the hood over his head, he took his sack and marched across the road.
Mr Peaseblossom started up the truck and turned it around. He was comfortably off, that nest egg hadn't been so important to him. Besides, he had half a mind now to sell his truck and his land and get out with Mrs Peaseblossom while he could. He hadn't liked the look on Dillon's face as he'd talked about the Survivor.
It had been the one time he'd seen fear on his son's face.
The train rolled out of the station and made its way through the low hills of the countryside. It would be many hours before Dillon reached Terminus, and his books would only last him so long. He considered himself lucky to have found an internet point on the train – he sat down and started typing.
He had no idea what to look for, but star maps would be the first thing. His dreams stuck vividly in his memory, there had been times when he'd seen the stars of those far distant planets.
A creeping doubt entered his mind. They had been extremely detailed, but that was his only conviction that they were not dreams. That, and his senses had immersed him into them: he could remember the smell of the Vaani meat roasting on warm nights, though he himself had never been to that glorious red-sunned planet, and he could taste the succulent flesh on his tongue even now, it made his mouth water something awful. And yet still he smelled the burning, tasted the ash in his mouth and wanted to throw up for the sickening feeling in his gut. The intense visions the survivor had allowed him, the sight of scorched land and dried up seas, entire planets cracked in two. Was this man really out to find him, to use him for some terrible scheme?
Dillon shuddered, then thought, and typed some more. Results came up, and he erased the search and tried again. He did not hurry; he had hours yet.
Lamia crouched in the shadow of a vast fern and unslung her rifle. There was a clearing below her, half-filled with murky water and dotted with shafts of light. It was not the perfect spot, but she had been here many times before, scouted the location; she knew they would return here.
She had to wait about an hour before they arrived. Three of them, each about as tall as a bear standing on its hind legs, each menacing with barbs of bright red sticking out haphazardly from their scaly skin. Lamia saw red, for a moment, and the temptation to pull the trigger then and there was almost too great. But it passed, and she breathed quietly to steady her nerves.
The things in the clearing had stripped off their armour and were wallowing in the shallow, muddy pool, cooling off. Lamia envied them as sweat ringed her eyes; what she wouldn't give to be having a cool bath right about now. She fought back the tears that the strain on her eyes was causing, and aimed for the body of one of the creatures.
A perfect shot. The explosion of the bullet leaving the barrel echoed throughout the jungle, but the screaming and flailing of the first creature as the bullet found its mark distracted them, and all they caught was a rustling of leaves as Lamia leapt from branch to branch above them.
Everything fell silent as the two surviving creatures looked around. They scanned the treetops, looking for a sign of any living creature. One of them hastily glanced around the lip of the clearing; they were only grunts, they hadn't had the foresight to realise just how strategically bad a sunken clearing like this was. Of course, they hadn't expected a hunter either.
One of them darted for its armour, churning up the water as it pushed through on all fours. In less than a dozen strides it was there, it had only taken seconds. But it took less time for Lamia to drop.
She'd timed it perfectly, her boot on the thing's back and her machete in the back of its neck. There was a flash of red, blood sprayed across the mud and the two began mixing and foaming. Lamia crouched over the kill, cleaning off her knife.
The other scaly creature splashed to dry land, away from the armour. She turned and stared at it impassively. Its eyes were wide, they darted to and fro as it licked its eyeballs with its long, snakelike tongue. Mostly the eyes darted from her to the armour and back; this grunt showed some promise. Had it been a little smarter in its choice of bathing pool, it might have lived to be promoted up the ranks.
Lamia stood, faced it. She rolled her shoulders and began walking towards the grunt, relaxed steps. Her arms were resting at her sides: no hurry, friend, I've got all day.
The thing ran. It charged her, hissing in fury like an angry cat. At the last moment it leapt, clawing at her face, and she ducked and swung her blade above her.
Some blood, but not enough. She heard a wet thump as it landed in the soft mud, and it was off again by the time she looked around, armour clutched in its claws as it made a leap for the cliff edge.
'Not today!' she muttered, breaking into a run. She felt the blood flowing from a wound on her head; shallow, it didn't feel too major. She ignored it and unslung her rifle again, aiming quickly.
Too quickly. She caught its thrashing tail as it dug in and clawed up a sheer cliff with only its feet. It screeched inhumanly but reached the top, and was into the foliage as Lamia ran to the cliff. The grooves it had made in the soft walls were easily climbable and she found herself at the top in no time, on the other side of the cliff to where she'd started. All this, she knew, was their territory. She grinned: that just made it more fun.
The beast was walking slowly now, struggling to move and buckle up its armour simultaneously. The armour was nothing special, just a metal plate roughly hammered into the shape of its chest and some leg protection which didn't even cover the creature's large joints – these things had never really got the hang of armour.
What they had got the hang of, though, was swords. Metal shards hammered into a blade, of sorts. They were crude, vicious, deadly. The creature drew its sword now and hid in the crook of a tree, blending with the shadows and leaves and moss so it looked to the casual observer as though it had always been there.
Lamia walked straight past the first time she went through. She came back a few minutes later, looking hopelessly lost, and only after the third time, when she had begun hacking and slashing angrily at the leaves in her path, did the creature permit itself to open one of its bright yellow eyes. It brought the sword out from behind its back and slithered up the tree. From above it followed her progress as she wandered around, reaching the clearing again and shouting in frustration before turning back on herself and taking a different path. The thing followed her through the trees silently, watching her endlessly, waiting for just the right moment.
There! She stumbled against a tree root and had to pause momentarily. It was an instant, but the creature's reflexes were good. It leapt down, sword raised to slash as it landed.
Lamia spun, twisted expertly. The sword thumped into the ground beside her and she swung her machete expertly. But not fast enough. The thing ducked and rolled, avoiding the blow, and brought its sword up to parry the next attack. They traded blows, attacking and parrying through the undergrowth. Lamia swiped at the neck, the knee joints, the arms, but the beast watched carefully. It parried expertly, and swung back with its own wild swings. Lamia, however, was not without her own skills, and had the scars to back up her training. She parried, remembering long-ago skirmishes which had left her bloodied from similar moves, and struck back more and more unpredictably. Where the reptile was using its sword, Lamia started beating in with kicks, punches, breaking through the lightning-fast sword defence with brute strength. The creature was buffeted by a blow to the head and stood, stunned, for an instant. It gasped, and gurgled up black blood as yet more sprayed from its neck, decorating the bushes around them and coating the length of the machete which stuck out from the wound. Lamia withdrew the blade and wiped it clean again with some leaves, before collecting the head and returning to the clearing to finish the job.
It took her half an hour to return to camp. The others were waiting for her.
'That was quick,' said one, a grizzled old women with white hair and a face which was constantly gurning thanks to many old, badly-healed battle wounds. 'We didn't expect you back for another day or two.'
'She didn't make you dinner,' said another, a girl. She was still a teenager, but her eyes were always staring into the distance, scanning for targets.
'These lizardfolk are pushing further and further every day,' Lamia said, dumping the three heads onto a tarpaulin. 'I went to a quiet spot, picked off a few. Let the last one chase for a bit, I wanted to have some fun.'
'They're going down quicker,' said the old lady. 'We need to call Xenok, let him know.'
'Odds are he already knows,' Lamia said, but she followed the old woman into the tent anyway. 'Mom, do you need to use that old projector to call him?'
'It's Mother,' said the old woman, 'you know that. All the hunters call me Mother. And yeah, I do. Xenok only talks face to face.'
'Fine,' Lamia sighed. 'But you've gotta hold up the heads this time. The blood still hasn't come off my sleeve from last time.'
Mother sighed and kicked an old generator; it rumbled into life with the sound of an old lawnmower, and the wall of the tent became a fuzzy, out-of-focus picture. It was hard to tell if that was even a person on the other end, let alone the one they wanted to speak to.
'Yes, what is it?' Xenok asked. 'I'm a very busy man, out with it.'
He had a high-pitched voice and always talked fast. Lamia had been surprised to see that the man asking for a hundred lizardfolk heads was in fact a weedy scientist who'd barely finished university, let alone puberty. But Xenok was a principled young man whose morals had got in the way of his science, and now he needed heads he could experiment on.
'We need you to look at the latest catch,' Mother said. She held up one of the heads. 'And can you maybe focus your camera? We can't even tell where you are, let alone who!'
'It's okay, I can see you perfectly well,' Xenok replied, squinting down at a screen. 'My, my,' he added. 'They'll do, yes, but they're very green. They're being cut out of their pods, at a guess, rather than hatching when they're fully mature. These ones haven't even got the full spines, and goodness knows how they'd handle jabbing someone with them – you're lucky they didn't get any of you, I heard the young ones tend to unload all of their poison at once.'
'But you'll take them?' Lamia queried. Xenok turned to her.
'Oh yes,' he said. 'Yes, of course. They're still lizard heads, and I believe I can artificially ripen them. They're rather a mix of things, lizardfolk. They grow like fruit, fight like animals, and create like... well, like us. All very strange if you ask me.'
'Yes, thank you,' Mother said airily, waving a hand. 'We have to go now, Xenok. Thank you for your time.'
She kicked the generator again. It stopped abruptly, whirring into silence. The tent wall went blank.
'Honestly,' Mother sighed. 'If you let him talk, he'll go on forever.' Lamia chuckled, and they went back outside. They threw the heads into a crate and walked to another tent across the clearing.
'You know,' Mother said, 'when I was your age I was just finishing boarding school. I never even dreamed of becoming a bounty hunter, but this is some kind of life, isn't it?' She grinned, and Lamia grinned back. That was the beauty of Mother; she found new joy in hunting every day. Lamia had learned a lot from her.
They entered the mess tent, where several tables were set up. Over a dozen people were already in there, trays of mashed protein and nutrients in front of them. It was all artificially flavoured, so your meal was essentially a stew of some mystery flavour; Lamia had always hated the dessert flavours.
'Don't worry,' Mother whispered to her. 'I saved you some dinner. Now come on, let's eat; it's chicken tonight!'