Creative Desires - Tattered Skies

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Dec 26, 2009, 6:56am

Creative Desires :: Book Projects :: Tattered Skies :: Tattered Skies - Part Two

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Topic: Tattered Skies - Part Two (Read 9 times)

Kenny Casperson
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Tattered Skies - Part Two
« Thread Started on Mar 25, 2009, 11:01pm »

It only took us about ten or so minutes to make it back home. It might have taken me the better part of several hours to make it back there on foot, or at least an hour maybe by taxi. There were serious advantages to being able to fly anywhere you wanted to, in a straight line, above the buildings and the ruined streets and all that bullshit. Suchara could have made Selkass go faster, sure, but I probably would have gotten blown straight off. Selkass had four fingers per hand instead of five, and not much in the way of a palm. Besides that, the fingers were way too long, angular, and didn't press together well, being angular as opposed to soft and pliable like human fingers. All of which meant, while I was damn glad not to be in the fucked up position I had been in, I was by no means comfortable.

Flying, in general, is fun. Flying while being carried by a machine that couldn't keep a good hold of you without crushing the life from your body, and whose smooth armor plates left very few places for good handholds to hang onto (probably intentionally now that I thought of it, to keep off the pesky infantry) was goddamn terrifying.

After the mercifully brief flight, Suchara swept down on the warehouses and eased into a stop near one of the larger buildings, just in front of a largish (and by that I mean HUGE) door, which she set me and the whore-bot down next to. I lifted 'her' up over one shoulder again, wincing at the weight, and looked up a moment as Suchara slipped a couple of those almost bladed-looking fingers through the space between the door and the wall, and pulled it open with a deep rumble and a shriek of ill-lubricated bearings.

I really had to get around to fixing THAT one of these days, too.

"You okay?" Suchara's amplified voice asked, and I nodded.

"Yeah, waiting for the feeling to come back into my extremities, but yeah, I'm fine."

"Whiner..."

"Shut it will you? Not everyone has a climate controlled metal she-" I cut myself off before I was able to finish the sentence, but we both knew what I'd been about to say, and I felt bad immediately. Suchara was silent, and moved the mech inside, each step shaking the floor slightly, even with the heavily reinforced floor in this place. "I'm sorry, sis..." I said quietly. I knew the mech's sensors could pick it up, but she was still silent for a moment before she spoke.

"It's alright, Al... sorry I went so high."

"Its fine... thanks for saving my ass."

"Again."

I grit my teeth, carrying the android in and hitting the switch that slid the door closed again - it would close on its own, just not open. Another machine going to shit even WITH my attention. Okay, so I'd neglected it. "Yes." I finally said, terse, "Again."

She sounded much cheerier when she spoke next, and I almost held it against her. "Anytime, little brother." She moved the titanic machine smoothly into the gantry where it usually rested, and four massive clamps locked it into place. There was a whine that steadily decreased in pitch, then died out, and the mech went perfectly still. Suchara, for now, stayed inside. I set the android down on a good sturdy metal table I had for that purpose, and rolled my neck around a bit, trying to work out the kinks in my muscles, what of them could kink at all.

There was a mirror across the table from it, and I glanced up for a moment at my reflection, watching the man in the mirror for a moment. I'm no looker, and I've never tried to be. I have too-long and far too unruly black hair, I'm about as pale as one expects from a tech-geek and recluse like me, and I'm both too tall and too skinny all at the same time. Not in the usual sense, either, I've always thought my arms were too thin in an almost unnatural sense, they just don't have the same proportions they used to, as though I've been tragically underfed. I haven't been, by the way - I may have mentioned I actually make pretty good money, and I don't go hungry. All the same, the whole emaciated idea isn't quite as far off as it might have been.

I pulled my long black coat off and tossed it on the couch, walking over to the shack that was in the one corner of what I usually just called The Hangar. Yes, I mean there is a building inside a building, call me crazy but the hangar building has a ceiling that's about fifty meters high and is the size of ten or twelve football fields, I can't sleep in a room that big. It's damn eerie. So, there's a kind of 'living room', which is an assortment of scavenged couches and armchairs we've dragged in from the junkyard at one point or another and cleaned up a bit, a table or two, etc. The kitchen is 'outside' too, a nice enough electric oven and fridge. The shack is just where I sleep, and there's another small building where I keep... well, all kinds of things really.

The shack was also where I kept the medical kit, though, and I grabbed that, wincing at how stiff my hand already was before I walked back out and sat down heavily. Suchara's voice came out of the mech again. "How's your hand...?"

"Not sure." I said, only half lying, and pulled my glove off. I regretted it immediately - whatever material had stopped up the bleeding on the way over was ripped straight off with the glove. My hand was swollen, an angry red, and covered in blood, both dried and flowing again, from several tears in my knuckles and a few on my palm.

Note to all of you there who want to be strong enough to put a serious dent in an alloy plated android with your fist alone: Just because you can doesn't mean you should. It hurts like hell. Maybe not right away, but I promise you it does later. I let out a hiss of pain. "Yeah... not good." I pulled my other glove off, having to use my teeth rather than my wrecked right hand - it was a little banged up, but all in all in much better shape. I'd wrapped the stab wound on the way over - I'd deal with that in a bit. I disinfected the rips in my skin, then wrapped the hand as best I could, tying it off around the wrist. I did the same, but with smaller bandages for my other hand, then wrapped the left arm a bit more professionally, and all the scrapes and cuts got a bit of a healing ointment that had a few mild nanite enhancements - would get me healed up in a day or two, I was sure.

I suppose here is where I explain a few things, right? Well, if you punch something really hard, human skin sometimes isn't up to the challenge, and that's why punching something with a closed fist is among the worse ideas, a lot of the time. You do more damage that way, sure - but not just to what you're punching.

That's not what the weird part is, right? Right.

I mentioned myomer before, to that syndicate goon, when he stabbed me - that's because most of my skeletal muscles aren't human muscles at all. I was born with a condition called Vailan's Syndrome. Pretty common around here actually, it's a disease that attacks muscle tissue, makes it nearly impossible to repair. See, when someone lifts weights, or runs, or something like that, they put little rips in their muscle tissue, which get rebuilt by the body in a day or two with new and stronger tissue. That's how people get stronger, faster, etc. But for those of us with Vailan's, it doesn't exactly work like that - our muscles take a lot longer. For some, its only a week or so. They're more frail, can't take a lot of strain or train up and get tough, but they live more or less normal.

My muscles take months. IF they heal at all. As you can imagine, childhood fucking sucked. My muscles didn't grow with me properly, my coordination sucked most of the time... I learned to walk alright and everything - Vailan's doesn't usually set in till about four, but after that it was all downhill. By eight I was in a wheelchair, twelve I couldn't even lift my arms anymore. I made a bit of money between those years, fixing shit - I was always good at that, even back then. Wasn't enough for treatment - you have money, you can treat Vailan's pretty effectively. We didn't. Mom even died when I was ten. Suchara's my big sister - and not just because she has the big armor. She took care of me when I could hardly move, and she was the one who eventually found what saved my life.

She got a doctor to replace something like half my skeletal muscle with myomer fibers. I have to get them replaced every now and then, but it's a hell of a lot better than immobility, and I'm actually stronger than normal people - by a hell of a lot - with them. Took a lot of getting used to, I guarantee... going from a guy who a two year old could beat the shit out of to someone who can punch through a wall is... an adjustment. My bones had to be hardened heavily as well, but my skin is more or less plain old vanilla normal - hence I still have to hold back if I don't want to be nursing wounds. And, since one needs a lot less myomer (not only is it expesive, but if I had enough to look buff, it would snap even my bones), I look like a guy who's never lifted a dumbell in his life. Which actually makes my strength funnier. Once I got my coordination down, though, my skill with fixing things took care of us both.

I never asked what Suchara did to get me the first set of myomers. She never said. I owe my big sister everything... so now I take care of her.

The major downside are the scars - putting the shit in and replacing it is a month long set of ugly surgeries by android, and the wounds don't always heal properly, which means I have a mess of fairly thin scars crisscrossing my body - it puts a lot of the ladies off. So does having a big sister who could tear apart your average skyscraper. I don't complain. All things considered, life hasn't been so bad to me. I won't say something idiotic like "Can't complain". I won't complain, but I could.

Maybe later I will.

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