Chapter 48: Volume II: Chapter 15: Nothing to See

Mic smiled as his dad introduced him to Trader Brank’s wife.  My son, the words shot a spark of warmth through his circuits.  Yellow poured from her hand as she reached up to pat his cheek.

“You’re quite strapping, young man,” she said with a soft smile.  “Reminds me of…” she trailed off blinking away suppressed emotion.  “Forgive me dear.  Our little Jace is about your age.”

Brank tugged her to his side.  “Our grandson,” he explained.  “Raiders took his parents about a year ago.  A few months back, they added him to their collection.” He spat, a glob of dark liquid tinging against a container on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Mic said, mirroring the compassionate anger he saw reflected off of Dai’s face.  

“Thank you, son.” He nodded.  “Seems a wonder, me and the Missus haven’t been nabbed yet.  Then again, I suppose we don’t meet the right criteria.”  He eyed Dai with reserved worry.  “I’d say you would, torida.  Best be careful while you’re around.”

Mic watched her share a look with his dad as Brank’s wife started pouring the drinks.

~*~*~

Later, after a surprisingly delicious meal, Mic only ate for taste, making him picky according to Merk… and Dai… and Eelock, Brank led them to a set of rooms for the night.  The hut’s decor resembled a human’s more than a Neon’s.  He found himself missing the simplicity of Eelock’s village.  The residents preferred to spend their time outside, leaving their dwellings smaller and sparsely decorated, most of their efforts spent on the outer walls.  Brank’s hut took more space than three of the village’s dwellings with enough amenities to entertain a house-ridden human for months.  

Mic clicked the door shut, happy to leave the others to a full night’s sleep while he focused on fixing what his reckless sister decided to break on his ship.  He slipped onto the bed, enjoying the comfort of what felt like an imported mattress.  Taking a moment to indulge himself, he measured the specs and ran a quick query. The answer took seconds: Madeline’s Mattresses, location: Ameliaton, Human District Four.  Smiling at the confirmation, he leaned back, his mind already back on the ship.  

All day, he had worked on finding a way to reconnect the systems to the navigation cortex.  He sent his bird zipping from bridge to engine room more times than he could count, Chleo watching innocently from the pilot’s chair… his pilot’s chair.  At the rate they were traveling, they would arrive at the coordinates from his mom’s watch by midday tomorrow.  He needed to stop them.

If he were there, it wouldn’t be a problem.  He knew exactly what wires he needed to cross and redirect, but he didn’t trust the bird’s arms.  Clunky and unreliable, they would likely break more than they’d fix, and Chleo refused to help.  Why did he ever wish for a sister?

Something in the hut’s room stole his attention.  Spreading himself over multiple locations became second nature years ago, and his work on the ship barely paused as he focused in on a rustling in the corner.  It was empty.

Still, the sound persisted.  He adjusted his hearing, cancelling a few of its filters.  The house came alive.  For all of its modern decor, he heard a mouse scamper in its depths.  Crickets sang outside the walls, their song chirping its way through.  The rustling intensified with the rest.

He left the bed attempting to triangulate the sound.  The math flew through his head spitting out the location.  Correct corner, wrong dimensions.

His brow furrowing, he blinked a custom filter he’d programmed for Merk into place.  The walls became a frame, dimensions crawled across thin lines, decoration and paint cut blank.  The corner shimmered, the numbers lining it blurring.  A shield.

He leaned forward pressing a hand against the wall to check the texture.  A crack, a squeak, his hand fell through blank space.  He blinked his vision back, but it was too late.  A figure tackled him as orange swallowed the room.

~*~*~

“Dad!”

The yell came from his wristlet, Mic’s voice filled with terror.  Jack shot awake, flipping to the floor in surprise.  Instinct, pushed him forward into the hall before he fully understood.  He bound to Mic’s door, slamming into it when it wouldn’t open.

“Mic!  Mic can you hear me?”  He pounded on the wood, jiggling the handle.  Orange poured from underneath, lighting his feet in a burnt glow.  It flickered.  “Mic!” 

He rammed the door with his shoulder.  Once, Twice, with an echoing crack, the wood broke free pitching him into the room.  He froze. 

Mic’s body lay dormant under a frenzied figure.  Bits of wire and sparks spilled from his mangled neck as the figure continued to claw and bite, oblivious to the interruption.  His movements grew more desperate as his glow flickered, the room flipping from orange to white at the beat of his heart.

“Jace, no!” Brank shouted beside Jack before rushing into the room.  He heaved the figure off of Mic, teeth snarling, hands reaching for the motionless body.  Overgrown nails glimmered sharp in the sputtering light, hair whipping across the figure’s face in the struggle.  

As Brank wrestled the figure back, crazed eyes ripped away from their target to meet Jack’s.  The struggle paused.  The man, Jack could see clearly in the lull, let out a guttural sound, his neonic glow pumping brighter.  He lunged.

Brank grunted.  He held tight, but quickly lost steam.  Younger, stronger, the man fought with frantic desperation. 

“Jack,” Brank said between breaths.  Jack stared at the broken body on the floor, his son’s body.  He had to remind himself Mic was fine.  Even if the body died with him in it, Jack could always reboot him. 

“Jack,” Brank tried again, his hands slipping as the deranged Neon elbowed him in the face.  “Your hood,”  he shouted. 

  An orange blur shot toward Jack. Confused but good with orders under pressure, he tapped his thumb to his wedding band twice.  Green flowed from his skin, a river breaking a dam, as he braced for impact.  It never came.

Green met orange staying its advance.  The colors swirled between them, Brank’s red joining from the ground.  The trader struggled back to his feet.

“Jace,” he said moving forward with slow steps.  “I need you to go back to your room now, son.”

The man’s glow flickered in an unhealthy pattern.  He let out a sound that normally frequented wounded animals before relaxing into Brank’s outstretched hand.  Sullen, he followed to the room’s corner dipping low to slip through a hole in the wall.  Brank swung the door closed, a shielder snapping into place to hide the opening.

“Sorry about your boy,” he said before turning to face Jack.  “Then again, judgin’ by that tech-ridden hole in his neck I’m guessin’ he’s only needin’ a reboot.”  He released a low whistle moving to circle Mic’s body. “You’ll have to tell me how you got ‘im so lifelike.”

“No,” Jack snapped, “I really don’t.”

Brank held his hands up in surrender.  “Don’t be gettin’ your underthings in a twist, now.  Jace, the poor boy, can’t help it, and from where I’m standin’s not like any real harm’s come to anyone.”

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“No real…” Jack stared his mouth gaping.  Dai’s blue joined the mix, her soft footsteps halting just past the door.  “What if it were Chleo?” he yelled glaring daggers at the old man.

“It wasn’t,” Brank shrugged.

“What happened?”  Dai broke in.  “Is that Mic?”

“Ask him,” Jack said through clenched teeth.  She eyed him before turning to Brank.

“My grandson,” Brank answered her expectant look, “he managed to escape from where they were keepin’ him, but when he got back…  well, somethin’ wasn’t quite right.”  Jack scoffed.  Brank glared.  “They did somethin’ to him.   His glow starts a flickin’.” He swallowed around emotion. “Not natural, that, and it keeps flickerin’ ’til… well, ’til he gets some human blood in ‘im.”

“Human…” Dai’s said eyes casting over Mic’s gouged neck, “blood?  You’re saying he drinks blood.” Her lip curled in distaste.  “What would possess Johnson to make something like that?”

Brank scratched a finger against the back of his head.  “Don’t rightly know who Johnson is, but Jace only drinks blood when he’s desperate.  Normally, he just injects himself with it.”

“That thing,” Jack spat, “has enough control to work a needle?”

“My grandson,” Brank said giving him a hard look, “is the same as he was before.  It’s just… with all of the Neon bans in place, it’s been so long since…” His gaze fell to Mic.

“No,” Jack said as realization hit, “No, no, no, no, no.  You can’t be serious.” He felt his fists squeeze, forcing himself to look up and away before he pummeled his father’s old friend.  “That’s why you didn’t charge to fix the hull… why you asked us here instead, isn’t it, for Mic’s blood?” 

Brank shuffled his feet.  “I just thought he’d take a little, just enough for an injection.  I weren’t wantin’ no trouble or anyone hurt.”

“There’s no crack is there,” Dai asked anger threading her voice.  Jack watched from the corner of his eye as the trader shook his head.  His gaze snapped to Brank, eyes narrowed.

He marched forward slinging his son’s limp body over his shoulder.  “Take us to the space skimmer… now.” His voice simmered, danger lurking in its calm facade. 

Brank didn’t need to be told twice.  They filed out of the room then out of the house, passing Brank’s wife in silence.  She watched them go, a hand covering her mouth at the sight of Mic’s mangled body.

They stalked behind the trader to his craft field, red, green, and blue lighting their way.  Jack almost forgot how nice it was not needing a torch.  His glow felt foreign on his skin, like returning to a childhood home and finding nothing changed.  The house stayed the same, but the child grew.  His grip tightened on Mic.

“Here she is,” Brank said, shuffling his feet, eyes glued to the ground.  The space skimmer sat in the moonlight, one cargo bay and one bridge/engine room combo.  No quarters, no cafeteria, the trip to Umbra would be tight.  He sent Dai to fetch the mules.  They would fit… probably. 

Jack lay Mic’s body against one of the cargo bay walls, cradling his head on the way down.  “Be back soon,” he told him before turning to Brank with a glare.  “Time for the tour.” 

Dai returned before they finished.  He heard her loading the mules as Brank explained the launch sequence.  Standard, all of it down to the core, it wouldn’t need much to stretch its protocols into space.  The craft would make it to Umbra in a pinch.  Chleo, Mic, Melody, their absences closed around him.

He led Brank back down to the cargo bay forcing himself not to close his hands around the man and throw him from the craft.  “Here’s your payment,” he said instead.  Jack transferred the wristlet count Eelock allotted him, daring the trader to haggle.  

Brank looked him in the eye, after checking the amount. “You’re a good boy, Jack.  Don’t let that wife o’ yours dig your grave.”

Dai slammed a saddle box closed on her mule.  The clanging metal echoed through the bay.  She stormed the few necessary steps over to slap a few first aid blood bags against Brank’s chest, his arms raising to catch them.

“Melody would sooner dig yours if I don’t beat her to it.  Get off our skimmer,” she said.  He did, eyes wide, with fear of Dai or hope for Jace, Jack wasn’t sure.

~*~*~

Mic hovered in his bird next to Chleo and Will on the bridge.  The ship drifted closer to the coordinates as his processors tried to work through the attack on Terra.  Who was the Neon that attacked him?  Were the others safe?

He thanked Data and all that was Math that he created a tether to the the bird when Chleo threatened him with a blocker.  With the crazed lunatic gnawing on his neck, he pulled as he felt his body drain.  From the ship, he shot a message to his dad.  Seconds later, they passed into a blocker field.

The shields held on the ship, but he lost all contact with Terra.  He hoped everyone was all right.  Brank and his wife were sweet… and knew how to cook a meal.  He’d hate for anything to happen to them.

“Where is it?” Chleo asked staring out into the vast, inky blackness of space.  “There should be something by now.”

“Chleo,” Mic said, “I’m telling you, everyone’s told you, there’s nothing to see here.”

She glared out of the corner of her eye, not bothering to turn her head.  “Mom’s watch says Umbra is here.  It’s here.  There has to be something.”

The ship lurched, sending Chleo stumbling into Will’s arms as he braced himself against a wall.  The view outside flickered.  It fizzed, then sparked.  Mic groaned.  They passed through the shield.

The dark side of a moon appeared.

Mic couldn’t stop the old nursery rhyme from spilling under his breath.  “Bleak as a desert. Cold as a tundra. For true fear, one visits Umbra.”

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