Torchworld: Outsiders Collection (6 page)

“You should have just killed him, it’d be easier.”

“Why? For our convenience?”

“I meant easier for him.”

Moving to my pilot seat in silence, I took back the lead controls.

“I don’t care.”

“Only met the man twice, so I won’t pretend to know what’s going on. But you need to be upfront about shit or it’s going to be hard starting a damn army.”

Glaring out at the early morning darkness, I stayed silent.

“I don’t see a man like that taking this lyin’ down. At least, when he manages to stand up again. He’ll come after you.”

Looking at Kharl’s grim face, I shook my head. “I disabled every vehicle in there, and we’re going much further than just walking distance. I know this land better than anyone. Even the drones.”

“Boss looked pretty pissed off. I doubt that’d stop him for long.”

“Maybe. He doesn’t know as much about the vehicles. I did every repair around. Markin used to handle the drones but stopped, soon as I learnt to fix them faster.”

Kharl grunted. “I’m gonna keep an eye out, regardless.”

“Fine.”

A quick check of the Mercury’s systems showed the shields at 80 percent and regenerating. We’d be back up to full power within an hour. An orange and purple glow appeared on the horizon as the sun started to rise.

“Any idea of where we’re going then, Blue?”

“North.”

“North it is then.”

“You could just let it grow out Kharl. It’d be easier than watching you scratch your chin every five seconds!”

“Hmph. I guess I could.”

The stubble on my chin did itch like poison ivy. My curly black hair had started to spring forth, since I hadn’t been able to get a proper shave. In absence of a mirror I wasn’t going to be able to shave anytime soon. Tried using the Mercury’s camera but it wasn’t real convenient. Guess I’m growing a beard.

Sunlight streamed through the front shields as we surfed across the wide, sparsely decorated expanse. Nothing but rocky shards with the occasional patch of brush grass, far as the eye could see. Lilith gave me the distinct impression she knew where we were headed but didn’t want to mention specifics. Fair enough. I’d come to know her as a mysterious sort. Whatever was going on with her and Markin was something I’d have to pry out of her eventually. It was plain that the subject proved ineffable for now.

We’d been travelling for a week and I’d lost sight of Opalesk maybe three days past. Most of that was spent in an impressive amount of silence. Girl wasn’t a talker although I didn’t mind it much. When I did hit on a subject she liked Lilith would talk my ear off. So perhaps not such a socialite but intelligent nonetheless.

“So Blue, care to play a round of twenty questions? I ask, you answer. In return, you ask, I answer.”

After a moment she nodded. “Ok. I can’t guarantee twenty though.”

“Just the name of the game. I only have a few.”

“I can probably guess what those ones are.”

“Smart girl.’

Lilith smirked. “Age before beauty.”

Feigning a hurt look, I pouted and stroked my chin. Better start with something light.

“Favourite colour?”

She paused for a moment and narrowed her eyes at me. Lilith sighed. “Blue,” she said. “My turn. What was your real job in the Mil-Sec?”

“Hah. You’re more perceptive than your friend back at camp. I worked with the Akhataree as part of their security force. Did some piloting obviously.”

Well. That escalated quickly. I’ll keep pace.

“Ok Blue. What’s the deal with you and the big boss back there?” I said, pausing to gauge her reaction. “It’s clear he’s means more than you let on.”

Leaning forward, Lilith flicked her fingers around the screens, setting the Mercury to autopilot. She sat back in her seat, gazing outside at the landscape.

“You really want to know the gory details?”

“It’s better if you tell me so it doesn’t come out later at a time less private.”

“I don’t know if that’s true.” Lilith scanned the darkening skyline. “I don’t trust you Kharl. We just met a few days ago.”

“Makes sense. ”

“And I haven’t had the best experiences with relationships. With anyone.   You could not have picked a worse person to travel with.”

“We’ll shake on it later,” I replied with a grin. “Answer the question.”

“I’m not sure I can answer it the way you want me to.”

“Tell me what you feel is necessary, then.” I held my hands out, palm up, trying to appear more amiable. “I know i’m not the most trustworthy looking fella. But I am honest when it’s prudent.”

“Fine.” Lilth stayed silent for awhile. “Tragic life story time. So you know I’m an orphan.”

This was hard for her, I could tell by her tensed shoulders. Long fingers wrapped around the chair arms, squeezing hard.

“Markin rescued me from some barrel in an Opalesk warehouse. Took me with him when he left town. Wasn’t the paternal type despite the initial kindness. We were alone out here. He fed and sheltered me. In return I handled the technology. He mentioned once that he thought my parents must have been engineers because I seemed to pick up the tech real quick.”

“Hmm. So what about now? Something specific happened.”

Lilith’s face twitched. “Yes.”

“Something bad?”

“Bad for them, I would think.”

“Are you going to elaborate or do I have to blackmail it out of you?”

Lilith scowled. “What on earth could you have on me?”

“You’d be surprised how observant I can be.” I kept my face impassive.   ”You owe me an explanation for this wild ride.”

Lilith scrunched up more on the seat, bringing her knees to her chest. “I don’t owe anyone anything. But I will explain, only because I can’t do this by myself.”

“I appreciate it.”

“So, I murdered two people in cold blood. Two boys, actually.”

“You what?”

“They had it coming.”

“I’ll take your word for it. What’s that got to do with Markin though?”

Lilith stared out the window. Was she going to answer? I wasn’t sure until she turned back to me.

“For a long time Markin had kept me at arms length. After years of him being the only man around I could talk to, I started to like him. In more than a platonic way.” Lilith pressed her lips into a tight line.

“I take it he didn’t feel the same?”

“No, I think he did, that’s the frustrating part. It’s like I’m not worth his time. For about a year now, he’d pushed me back further than usual. I saw him watching me. When we were alone Markin was so much softer around the edges.”

“I can’t imagine that man being soft around anything.”

Lilith’s face broke into a pained smile.

“But you can imagine how that would happen right?”

With a sage nod I patted her arm. “It’s pretty natural to develop feelings for someone you spend a lot of quality time with.”

Lilith bit her bottom lip. “Anyway, the night I fucked up with those boys he saved me from being mobbed by the pitchfork crew. Carried me back to our bunker. Got me cleaned up. I was unstable. I needed him to fucking tell me what I knew he felt.” Lilith swiped at her welling eyes with the back of her hand. “I wanted him to treat me like an adult and someone that he cared about. He didn’t. Quite the opposite.”

The sky began to deepen into night as I let the silence stretch between us. Was it a bad idea to push her? I’d forced it despite her recalcitrance.

“What happened afterwards?”

Lilith sniffled and breathed deep. “Nothing. I moved out into the warehouse. You came along a few weeks later, and I saw the opportunity.”

I squeezed her hand. “I appreciate you telling me.” But was it everything? That, I couldn’t be sure of. Close enough, for now. “Hey, it’s your turn woman.”

“My what?”

“Questions. Your turn.”

“Oh.” Lilith glanced over at me and I grinned. She scowled and tapped her fingers on the screen. Messages I couldn’t read from my seat. The chair she sat in reclined and Lilith laid back with pale arms folded behind her head.

“What if I want to save it for later?”

She giggled when I poked her in the arm. “Gotta do it now, smart ass.”

“You might regret that you know.”

“Nope. Don’t regret anything.”

Lilith turned her head to face me. “Really?”

I nodded. “Nobody should, if they thought well and proper about what choice to pick. Every choice was something you wanted at one point.”

“Hmm, makes sense when you put it like that. Well, I have one. What do you think of the Akhataree? Markin hates them. I’m not sure why, though.”

The question took me off guard and I shifted my feet around. I’d expected her to ask about my background, but not that.

“I read your file. I know about your unit going missing.”

By the Ahka, the woman didn’t forget a thing did she?

“Not missing, but non-existent now.”

Lilith squinted at me. “Is that why you ran?”

“Mmhm. Found out something I shouldn’t have.” I drummed my fingers on the Mercury’s smooth dashboard. “I don’t want to be deleted.”

“What do you mean by deleted?”

Suppose there’s no reason I shouldn’t tell her what happened. Only fair. As far as I knew the Akha didn’t expect me to survive out here.

“They were removed. Gone. No one remembers them, not even their families. Erased out of the world system just like a file.”

Lilith frowned. “What the hell are you talking about? How could you delete a person?”

“You know those crackpot conspiracies that people like Markin talk about? About how the Akha are lying to us? It’s true. There’s more going on and I don’t know what. But I know people just disappearing from history ain’t normal. I’m the only one that remembers these guys after what we saw. It’s like they never existed!”

I was shaking my head while Lilith just stared open mouthed. “What the fuck? What did you see to make them want to kill you off?”

“Me and another guy, we overheard a Phoenix agent talking about the last day before the Restore.” Lilith opened her mouth but I raised a palm to stop her. “Sorry. Phoenix are the contingent the Akhataree put on Earth to manage us. Ego, she’s a Phoenix too.”

“Oh,” she replied with a nod. “I always thought it was weird that nobody ever questioned what happened on the last day. Especially when no human knows.”

“Right. Well it’s complicated. They were talking in Akha so we only caught bits and pieces when they mentioned names. We passed it off as random alien chatter until the people in my unit started disappearing. I thought something wasn’t right about it and told my soldier to zip it. Either he didn’t or someone saw us. The latter probably.”

“Markin was right then. Close, at least. Wonder if he left for a similar reason? Phoenix were probably afraid he’d talk to the public. I get that impression.” Lilith retook control of the craft and settled us down in a large cavern.   ”We’ll stop here for the night.” She twisted a piece of hair around her finger, frowning.  “I wonder what they thought you heard?”

I shrugged. “Something big. I have no doubt that the Akha are lying their asses off. I’ve been thinking about what they could be lying about though, or why they felt the need to keep us in the dark.”

“I’m sure someone knows. Markin came close, I figured that much from his sleep talking. Mentioned someone called Alere before, and something about farms? Didn’t click until now.”

“Do you have a connection to Visnet from here? I have an idea, the name sounds so familiar.” I pulled up an input screen and began to login.

“Sort of. It’ll be slow and ghosted.”

“Works for me.”

Lilith typed a few commands into her console window, bringing up the Visnet search on mine.

“Visnet, search query. Notable figures: Restore generation. Filter: First name: Alere.”

After a few long minutes, Visnet piped up.
 
“500+ results.”

“On screen.” Scanning the results, I verified my hunch. I pointed to the stack of news articles at the top.
 
“Alere Vox Valerius. Founder of Sky Farms, Father of the Restore era.”

Lilith picked through the results. She pulled up a video. “It says there’s other founders too. Visnet, play clip.”

We both stared with jaws agape as Alere stood proud in between two friends. It wasn’t him we were shocked at, it was Markin standing next to him, with a laughing woman on the other side.

“Aquila and Serena Emet survey the new Sky Farm facility outside Opalesk City.”

Lilith slammed her hand on the dash. “Fucking asshole!”

“Stop clip.”

The screen froze, and I slumped back in my seat. Lilith looked pissed. He face was even paler than before, teeth gritted. Not knowing what else I could do,   after a few minutes of silence I closed the screen and moved to get up. I could at least stretch a bit, or maybe lie down.