Post by Admin on Aug 6, 2009 1:53:11 GMT -5
Suji:
Suji rubbed the back of her neck; she fallen asleep while reading, and now it was dark. She hated when that happened: when you were restricted to doing anything that required eyesight during the day, you had to closely manage your daylight hours. Otherwise THIS happened, and it was dark before you knew it. And then there was nothing to do but sleep, and since she'd just woken up, her body wasn't going to be ready to fall back asleep for a while.
Realizing that her legs and half of her lower back had fallen asleep, Suji groaned and pushed the book she'd been reading out of her lap. It was How to Fix Everything - For Dummies, and similar fare lay all around her--from plumbing and home maintenance, to various wilderness survival guides. She'd built quite a nest up here: there was canned and other nonperishable foods, water, even a ratty sleeping bag. Controllers (she remembered that bit, also with other important facts from the day the invasion came home) didn't come around here, it seemed. After all, what need did they really have with human books? Humans performed tasks based on who their Yeerk was, presumably.
And how often were an invading race really all that interested in the history and culture of the conquered? Excluding perhaps the Greco-Roman example, the answer was: just about never. She figured it was as safe as safe got. And for that matter, it gave her plenty to do when she had sunlight: she was trying to make herself a practical resource on everything she'd always assumed she'd be able to pay someone else to do.
It wasn't that she didn't have a flash light: she did, with extra batteries. But using up any battery power just to read didn't seem like a smart idea. Even less smart: turning on a light at nighttime, whether she assumed the area was abandoned or not. Not a confrontation she needed, even if it were another lost wanderer that found her--she knew enough about the way war made people act from her history courses. A random, drifting soul could be just as dangerous as an alien.
Well maybe not quite, but still.
Suji:
It was colder by the window: native to a wealthy suburb not far from Manhattan, Suji knew that it would only get colder. However that would be a deterrent for any search parties for refugees… at least, that was the positive thought she tried to hold on to, when in reality she knew that it would likely just been oncoming below freezing temperatures. She ran a hand through her hand, a little self-reassuring motion she wasn’t even aware of by this point.
She stood at the window, thinking back on the day she’d heard about the invasion. The fear in her friend Sarah’s voice as she described what was happening in the mall—the eerie quiet of the library that somehow went deeper than the usual hush. Suji knew why it’d been deserted: the library was the place where The Sharing had held most of its meetings. The Controllers were all at home for the invasion, probably helping to coral their hosts’ loved ones into slavery.
Just like her parents would have. Her little sister.
She tried not to think too much about it. Suji wasn’t stupid: she knew the reasons you didn’t jump in without a floatation device to save someone that was drowning. She knew why you put on your own oxygen mask if your plane lost cabin pressure, before helping other people. You couldn’t save anyone without saving yourself first. It hadn’t been sheer cowardice: at least, she didn’t think it was (and deep down, she hoped it wasn’t—that was unforgiveable, even if good sense sometimes walked and talked a lot like being a yellow-bellied coward). After all, if it had been, cowards tended to try to group up with other people to take the fall for them. They cluttered together like pack animals, and were similarly herded to the slaughter. Suji was not a coward. She was simply being pragmatic, looking over her options.
You couldn’t save anyone else if you were caught or dead.
Still, despite her certainty that she was doing the right thing, she knew it wasn’t the fairytale heroic thing to do (which would involve some kind of daring escape plan against impossible odds). But she would not be one more body to add to their pile. She just needed time to think.
Suji pinched the bridge of her nose. There had been a brief message about a resistance in what she’d read. Of course it didn’t give away who the resistance was, or where they were located, or even their numbers—just an assurance that they were there. Even if she trusted that the information disbursement had been orchestrated by a benevolent force (which she didn’t), there was the possibility that whoever posted it just wanted to keep some kind of hope alive.
Whether or not she believed that the site was correct about an organized resistance, Suji estimated that at least statistically there had to be some kind of underground movement among those who were still free. She wasn’t pessimistic enough to believe that she was the last person left without a slug wrapped around her brain. Then again, that didn’t mean she was unrealistically optimistic, either. Her chances of locating a resistance force were infinitesimal. The chance that the resistance would be able to accomplish something other than getting all of its members killed or enslaved was even worse.
But there was no doubt in her mind that if she did find a group of freedom fighters, she would join them. She was not a coward. Getting yourself safe was a priority, but only so that you could plan on saving others. Besides, even if she wouldn’t have thought of herself as exceptionally brave or bold—what point was there in living your life as a terrified refugee, doing nothing but running? If it was an option between being a slave to constant fear for the rest of her life, or being a slave to an alien who captured her while she tried to help out humanity… well, the latter was, despite being unacceptable, still preferable to the former.
Still, even that outcome require her to find a way to help. She only wished that there was some way of locating the resistance. Once or twice she’d played with the idea of posing as a Controller and asking some questions closer to the city, which would be a bit of a hike but was undoubtedly swarming with Yeerks. But each time she rejected it as utterly stupid: at best, the only thing she would hear would be a few people talking about it existing. Which wouldn’t even mean it did or didn’t—as one of the gossip princesses of her high school (though the title of queen would have gone to one of her friends), Suji knew that a rumor was a rumor was a rumor. She doubted any alien species that thought human brains were cool to infest were going to disprove that.
Besides, if the Yeerks knew about the resistance, that wouldn’t even be a good thing.
Sighing, Suji rested her head against the window frame for a few minutes.
She stretched for a while, thinking about going over to one of the windows that still had glass in it. Suji tried not to go outside unless necessary, but it was nice to look at the landscape. Even if it was marred by neglect or outright warfare.
Luce;
Luce broke into the library. Broke in was too strong a word for walking into a library that was abandoned and didn't have any locks on the doors.
She closed the small side door she'd come in through behind her, leaving it open a crack, and began looking for a place to put her stuff down. She didn't want anyone in this small suburb to know she was here so waltzing in through the large double doors that faced a reasonably well trafficked street hadn't been an option. In all honesty she should have found a smaller place to stay for the night on her way out of New York but the library was almost guaranteed to be empty and didn't attract the low life crowd that made up most of the refugees around here, around everywhere actually. Luce could handle herself in a fight but why walk into one.
She shrugged the shotgun strap off her back and set it down on a wooden table that made up what had been a studying area. The almost 10lb shotgun hit the table harder than anticipated and made a clunking sound that could be heard throughout the library. She hissed in anger at her own clumsiness and quickly stilled, listening. But after a moment when she didn't hear anything, she continued with what she was doing.
She unbuckled the holster for the hand gun from around her waist and set that on the table too, taking care to be quieter about it this time. Just because she was tired was no reason to be sloppy.
Cassie had sent her out here after an escapee. The young man in question had been a high ranking controller before his superiors had found out that he had an oatmeal addiction. The charge was a serious one in the yeerk community and normally ended a controller's career. This charge also had the virtue of being true.
Unfortunately for the animorphs the young controller had also been one of their contacts and, cut off from both kadrona and oatmeal, was likely to talk. So Cassie had arranged to get him out of his jam, rescuing him from the hork-bajir task force sent to pick him up. Luce still thought back on the day with anger. She had shed blood for this coward and now she had to trek all the way out here to pick him up.
The controller, a kid named Henry or Nimor depending on who was in control, had managed to escape the animorph's grasp two days into his three day waiting period. Cassie had sent Luce after him. And lucky for Luce she had given no specific instructions as to what was to be done with him
Luce didn't particularly like being Cassie's gun for hire but she accepted it. Hell, she was good at it, and it protected all those young heroes that Cassie tended to attract as recruits from the realities of what life had become. It was fine for them to fight and die, even kill in the heat of battle, but just plain killing. Well that was wrong. Whatever.
With the weapons on the table Luce felt that usual light, naked feeling she got when she was mostly unarmed. She hated that feeling but the weapons couldn't morph with her so they had to come off. She sat on the floor to avoid falling over mid-morph and put her hand on her knife hilt to steady herself, the knife being the only weapon small enough to morph with.
As always, the morph took a little longer than usual and was extremely uncomfortable. At the end of it Luce was a 6lbs, desert adapted sand cat. She would rather have a shotgun or even a hand gun in her hand than be able to turn into a kitty cat but most of the animorphs didn't see it that way.
To be fair all the military's guns and all the military's missiles hadn't been able to hold off the invasion for more than a few days in the best of cases and most had been defeated within a matter of hours. So maybe morphing was the weapon of this war, maybe it was the one that would give the human race their needed edge. But it was just one weapon. That didn't mean you had to throw away all the others. And she wasn't going to give up the guns she'd worked hard to find just because they made some people squeamish.
The guns weren't the real problem anyway, it was finding ammunition for them that was the hard part. She'd have to remind herself to check the stores around here on her way through. For now she needed to make sure this place was secure for the night.
She slipped back out the door through the crack she had left herself and used the cat's superior night vision and sense of smell to confirm what she already knew, no one was out here. But someone had been, and fairly recently too, maybe within the past day or two.
She examined the trail and found that it led into the library. Where she had conveniently left her weapons out for the unknown to come by and kill her with. Great, just great.
Suji:
Suji was used to the silence: she liked it, even. Even growing up in the suburbs rather than the city (though to be fair, it had been a busy suburb), she'd never really gotten much silence. Things might be quiet, sure, but there were always the trace sounds of people--people driving their cars with the radio a bit too loud, people watching TV, people just doing people-things. This quiet, though, was real, better--she'd had to substitute for the artificial hushed kind that came with certain sacred places like church or the library, but now, at least, the silence was freeing.
She was contemplating this when she heard a loud sound echo from downstairs. Instantly, she froze: her heart seemed to stop beating, and she listened, straining her ears, for another noise. She didn't kid herself that she hadn't heard anything, that it'd been her imagination--that kind of thinking got a person killed. But what did she want to do about it? The sound had been isolated; nothing followed it. Couldn't be one of the big aliens--she figured they'd make a lot more noise, and wouldn't really care about it.
So someone, or something, was sneaking around. Suji didn't know if that make her feel better, or worse. Maybe another refugee: maybe not. Suji quietly, but quickly, made her way to where her things were. She knew the place of everything: she'd practiced packing her stuff and being ready to leave within 120 seconds. But could she leave? Was it smarter to leave, without even knowing what was coming? It was dark out--she wouldn't be able to see where she was traveling, and there was no promise of getting safe before the sun rose. But safety was relative, wasn't it?
Suji felt a bit angry. She'd settled here, and it was a damn good hiding spot. Maybe that's what made her pick up the long crowbar she'd set against the wall, rather than stuffing canned food and bottled water into her backpack. The weapon wouldn't do much against an alien, but she didn't think it was an alien downstairs... and even one, well-placed hit with a crowbar would put a nice bit of hurting on any human. She also grabbed a flashlight, but wasn't stupid enough to turn it on yet. Near silently, she made her way down the stairs, avoiding the ones that she knew creaked.
When she got to a table with weapons on it, it took a her a brief moment to recognize what was lying there: when she realized that they were guns (and it didn't take her that long--she wasn't an idiot) she felt her back go ramrod straight. Suji didn't gasp though, or do something foolish like drop her crowbar in surprise. Instead, she put the end of the flashlight in her mouth, and picked up the handgun.
Suji had never held a gun before, let alone fired one: but she'd made guncare and general weaponry one of her preliminary topics of study. She knew the basic mechanics, but running her fingers over it, in the dark, was her first chance at familiarizing herself with the weapon. All the same, she found the safety, but left it on. She slipped the gun into her waistband.
There was a larger weapon on the table too: a shotgun. As much as Suji had read about them, she felt more confident in her ability to wield the pistol. She'd only get herself in more trouble with the shotgun. Still, she couldn't leave it lying here. Carefully, she picked it up too. The shape was less easy to line up with the deconstructed images she'd seen in her books than the handgun. But she found what she needed to: she could dump out the shells. Of course, that would be loud. Decisions, decisions.
As quietly as possible, Suji began to retreat backwards, back towards the stairs. It was awkward holding the crowbar and the shotgun, but she was prepared to drop the crowbar before the gun.
Luce:
Luce watched Suji jack her guns. Her tail twitched.
Wonderful. This night just got better and better. Well at least it wasn't a controller. Any controller worth oxygen carried a dracon beam on them.
She silently padded after the young woman after she had retreated up the stairs, keeping a good distance and keeping to the shadows at first. But then got a better idea. She was supposed to use this morphing power and this cat had to be good at something.
She stepped out of the shadows and meowed. The sand cat was not the traditional house cat. They didn't look exactly like house cats, having a broader head and sand colored fur with black barring as well as many other modification to help them survive Arabian deserts but most of that wouldn't be noticeable to the average American refugee, especially in the dark.
She meowed pitifully again. Come on thief girl, be like every other little suburban girl and have a soft spot for small furry creatures. I want my guns back.
Suji:
Suji heard the mewling, and halted for a second. She could see the cat--it didn't look like a regular housecat, but they weren't that far from NYC, and if anyone had an exotic cat, it would be a yuppie New Yorker. But she didn't exactly rush to pet the furry animal. Her jaw worked, and her eyes narrowed, looking around. A cat might have gotten in, sure.
But a cat couldn't account for the guns on the table. And really, Suji felt trapped already. Not that she thought an alien species would use a cat to lure out a hiding girl. And aliens would probably also be using those laser guns, not standard bullet fare. Which meant that if it were a trap, it was of particularly human design. Refugees and raiders were probably just as vicious as the alien invaders: Suji kept backing up quietly. She liked pets as much as the next person, but she liked herself in one piece more.
Luce:
Damnit Luce sat down and looked helpless. And then she wandered away. She considered trying to sneak up on the young woman after she had demorphed but that was a stupid plan for many reasons, the first being that she had Luce's guns. She wondered if it was better to wait a while but she didn't feel like staying a cat and this person obviously wasn't a controller.
<<Look, just give me my guns back and we can go our separate ways. I'll even find some place else to sleep for the night if you want this place to yourself so bad.>> All of this was projected from under a library table where she was in shadow. Hopefully the voice in her head would be enough for her to just listen before asking questions, Luce doubted it though.
Suji:
The voice did surprise her: she was upstairs by now, in one of the smaller enclosed areas where she slept and kept most of her things. Suji jumped: she couldn't help it--she'd already put down the crowbar, and was about to set down the shotgun. Instead, her hands clenched tight around the plastic and metal, heart beating hard and fast. She hadn't 'heard' it; it's like the words had just been direct straight into her head.
Suddenly she was rethinking the alien business.
But the words hadn't been threatening. Sure they hadn't been gentle and cooing, but they hadn't been telling her she was about to die. To surrender to face enslavement. Which meant that the situation could possibly be worse. But it was also possible that was optimism on Suji's part: optimism she could not afford to indulge in. Before she could stop herself, Suji disarmed the shotgun: the click was loud and resounding, and the shells tumbled out and clinked across the floor. They didn't roll too far, but it would take time to reload the gun. She also removed the shells that were chambered, though this took her a more time, and was a clumsy moment.
She put the shotgun down by her feet, and drew the handgun. "Who are you? How are you talking like that?" Suji licked her lips, but kept her voice down, controlled, though each time it almost cracked and squeaked. It was more than a whisper, but not much: if someone was here, that was one thing. She still didn't want to broadcast too loudly. "Give me a reason to trust you, and you get the guns back. Maybe. From where I'm standing the fact that I have them might be the only thing keeping me alive. Or... or-" She tried to steel her jaw. "Or free. Otherwise, you're going to have to take them." Oh god, why had she added that? Suji closed her eyes for a second, mentally kicking herself, before reminding herself that closing her eyes was not the best idea. Reopening them, she took a deep breath.
Why had she added that last part? She might as well have literally shot herself in the foot.
Luce:
<<Listen, I don't deal with newbies for a reason. I don't like explaining things. Short version, I'm part of the resistance that for some reason thinks turning into a cat is a great offensive weapon. Maybe if I was a lion or something.>> The last was more to herself as she stepped out from under the table and walked over to one of the fallen shells.
<<I better be able to find all of these.>> She pushed one of the shells with her paw and it rolled across the floor. <<Look, what do you want as proof. Seriously? In the world we live in where your deepest secrets can be known by a slug in your brain there isn't much anyone can offer as proof.>>
She looked up at Suji. She was holding the handgun wrong. It would fire of course, take off the safety pull the trigger and a gun will fire. But it would bite when it did. Luce had her own scars between her thumb and forefinger to prove it. She wondered if she should tell Suji, but if it came to blows that little fact might just give her an edge so she kept it to herself.
Suji:
Suji weighed this information. She didn't take the safety off of the handgun, if that was a sign. Or maybe it just meant that she'd forgotten it was there: her expression was dark, impassive.
"They don't roll far. Too much crap blocking them." Turning into a cat, though, her mind was still on that. So the cat was a person. Presumably, the person who deposited the gun on the table back there. Right. Okay. "This resistance. Are you some kind of alien?" After all, she didn't exactly know any humans that could turn into cats. Then the voice started talking about proof.
"Proof? I don't need proof to know that there's a resistance. I assumed there would be. I also don't need proof to know that you aren't a regular cat, at least, not more than the fact that you're talking to me via, I don't know, telepathy or whatever. I never said I needed proof," she lowered the gun, but didn't aim it at the cat. "I said I needed to trust that once I give these back, I'm not automatically dead meat. That you don't turn into some kind of monster with eight mouths or something. Though my guess is, that if you're an alien, it's not a very scary one. Otherwise, you wouldn't need a gun." She licked her lips. "They're not laser guns either. Seen those, at a distance."
Suji wanted to trust that this person was part of a resistance: the pieces did fit together, anyway. And she could tell that her questions would annoy this person: but Suji could give a damn less about annoying someone if it meant staying alive, and learning something.
"So if you are human, and you are part of a resistance, why don't you turn into a lion? Or a rhino or something? A 9mm bullet wouldn't do much in that case, assuming I could stop pissing my pants long enough to fire."
Luce:
Because I can't, but she certainly wasn't going to give that answer.
Luce looked at her once she had lowered the hand gun. She obviously wasn't going to stop asking questions which meant they would be here for a while. Normally she would just call Cassie or one of the others whenever they found one like this but they were far away at the moment. <<Stay here.>>
Luce ran back down the stairs. She trotted outside the door and finished the scan she had started before getting interrupted by the scent trail. Once she had made sure that no one was around for the moment she trotted back inside and demorphed and closed and secured the door behind her.
Then she picked up the pack that she had left with the guns containing her food and water and went back up stairs, greeting the girl as a human for the first time. The whole thing had taken her maybe ten minutes. Ten minutes that Suji had to think about the situation she found herself in.
She began walking around picking up shot gun shells. She didn't seem to be paying attention to Suji but she was watching to make sure the gun didn't come back up. She didn't like her chances if it did.
"Now that we're relatively safe for the moment I'll answer your questions. 1) I'm part of the resistance called animorphs. There are others out there but we are the only one's that use morphing technology, which is alien if you hadn't noticed. 2) We can only morph animals we've acquired. The yeerks wiped most of the animals out, partly to limit our access to them, so we have to get morphs from blood samples now. The blood samples aren't easy to get ahold of. 3) You can only stay in morph for two hours or you get stuck that way. 4) We're split up into factions all over the country. I come from the one in New York. 5) I think someone would notice if I went running around as a lion."
Luce tried to think of all the other questions new people asked. Unsurprisingly, they were always the same ones which is why Luce wanted to get them out of the way. "Yes you can join if you feel like risking your life but you'll have to speak to my faction leader about that. Or you can just go your own way. I haven't told you anything the yeerks don't already know so I don't care if you get captured. Oh, and if I wanted to kill you I would have tried by now. Maybe not succeeded, but I would have tried because as you can tell I don't have much patience. A more patient person would have stayed a nice, harmless cat, waited 'til you slept and killed you then. I don't have time for that. I have a job to do and it requires that I sleep now. So either use that gun or give it back."
Suji;
<<Stay here.>> Then the cat disappeared, bounding off. Suji didn't protest much: it wouldn't do any good. But there was a voice in the back of her head, one insisting relentlessly that the cat had gone off to call in reinforcements. But wouldn't that have happened by now? And even if it was happening, did it meant that she had a chance to escape? She sighed, and because every scenario in which she tried to leave ended up worse than the ones where she stayed (and maybe fought with the newly found guns).
Then a woman came up the stairs, and started to recollect the shells. Without asking, Suji understood that it was the same person that had been the cat. It had the same agitated way of moving. Then she launched into what sounded like a bored, much practiced (or at least much heard) monologue about the resistance, ending with something about how that was all the information the enemies knew, anyway. And that she could become part of the resistance if she wanted to risk her life. Nonchalant. Any why wouldn't she be nonchalant? So much as taking a piss in the words was risking your life these days. Suji eyed her warily throughout, up until the part where she demanded the gun back.
Wow. Hadn't been expecting that whole speech, she thought. She hadn't even been thinking about this woman killing her: while Suji had the guns, she had the power in the situation, and hadn't registered the woman alone as a threat. "Maybe it comforts you to talk about how easily you could dispatch me, or maybe it's meant to scare me--I think it's more the former. But in any case, let's be real here for a moment. You don't have the guns, and the worst thing you can do is turn into a kitten and threaten to smother me in my sleep, or charge me right now. That's a good twelve feet of distance to cover, and I'm guessing I can fire at least twice before you get two-thirds of the way. I have these guns, because for whatever reason, you fucked up. Miscalculated. Which is fine: we're all human here, right?" Suji smirked.
"And I might not call myself a particularly patient person, but I'm not an idiot, which you seem to be counting on, because you think I'm just going to hand this gun over, point-blank. Not happening. Not that easy, at least." Suji could feel herself sweating, trying to spur her mind faster. See all the connections, Suji. Don't threaten, don't swagger, but don't crumble. "You can sleep here, but I'm keeping the guns until you leave. Which means I'm going to sleep where the rare, in-house books are kept: they're in a caged-off room on the floor above this. There's a padlock with a key. I've got the key."
Her voice didn't waver, that much at least was good. "I keep the guns. You sleep. You wake me up tomorrow, I give you the guns, you do your job. A job I'd love to hear about, seeing as you need good old fashioned projectile weapons to do it."
Luce:
Luce sighed in annoyance. "I said I would have tried to make a move on you, not that I would have succeeded. In fact, I wouldn't have tried because I wouldn't have succeeded, hence I didn't try now did I?" Her fingers toyed with the knife hilt by her hand but she knew what happened to people who carried knives. They got shot.
She put her pack down so that it would serve as a decent pillow and laid down on it, hands behind her head. "And don't bother with the cage, you'll just be up all night wondering if that mouse you see or that cockroach scuttling by is me." She said this with a slight smile, the thought amusing. "If you're that paranoid, and don't get me wrong, I'm glad you are, you're more intelligent than half the people I meet these day, but if you're that paranoid you are better off just sitting there holding a gun on me all night. I leave that enjoyable prospect to you. I'm going to sleep."
Suji:
Suji dismissed whole bit about would have but didn't but could have tried, or whatever it was. Not relevant, in this case. The woman did bring up a good point though: if she could turn into any animal, a cage that would easily hold out a human or even a cat wasn't going to be effective against a bug. At the same time, Suji didn't want to stay up all night in fear. Suji hated the prospect of spending any extended period of time anxious and afraid, unless there was a clear and imminent threat.
But she'd already slept away most of the day... so it wouldn't really be too hard to keep awake.
And how are you so sure I won't take your guns and leave? Suji was tempted to as the reclining woman. Or kill you and take your food and water, at least? But why ask a question like that? Suji wasn't going to do either those things, so there was no point in wondering. She probably would just sit right here, wait till morning, and then give the woman back her things. She settled into a corner, determined to only be awake as long as she wasn't tired.
- - -
It wasn't much later that Suji heard a noise that brought her fully awake. It was the sound of a dog growling in the distance, and then a loud whimper (probably from the same animal). Suji immediately stood up, the handgun still firm in her grip. She could see light through the window--bobbing, jerking rays from a few flashlights. Her pulse began to race. She looked down at Luce.
Suji knew better than to directly lean over her to wake the woman up--she'd probably get punched in the face. Instead her went behind her head, and only knelt down enough so she could reach her face. Quickly, she covered the woman's mouth, and held up a finger on the other hand over her lips. The gesture was a bit distorted by grip of the gun (the barrel was no where near pointing at her face) but it was still unviersal: Shh.
Luce:
Luce wasn't sleeping very well. She was dreaming, as she did too often. It was only a couple of weeks ago and Jals was still in her head. But it was dying, it was finally dying and she would be free.
<<Free? You were never free. What life did you live? You wasted it all!>> the dying yeerk raged in her head.
<<Just shut up and die.>>
<<That what you want? You like this? Seeing me suffer? Seeing me die?>>
<<Yes.>>
<<I'm not the one who's a monster.>>
<<I never claimed you were.>> Her words, and the gloating tone in them shut the yeerk up for about two seconds and then it started screaming again. It sporadically took control of different parts of her body. Her eyes, her mouth, her hands, her throat long enough to make its scream audible, but then it started choking itself. No air, no air.
Luce came awake all at once. She didn't move, in fact she did the exact opposite, she froze. Nothing moved, not even her breath. It took her mind a moment to remember where she was and why she shouldn't attack the young woman leaning over her but it came back quickly enough.
She pushed the hand away and sat up, listening to the sounds that Suji was hearing. After listening for a few seconds Luce pulled her bag around so that it was in front of her and took out a box of bullets that was half empty and held out her hand for Suji to hand her the gun. It would do neither of them any good if it wasn't loaded.
She motioned towards the shot gun. That had rounds in it. It always did. She would have been better off holding onto that one. But the rounds in there would draw too much unwanted attention. But the shotgun could fire smoke rounds and Luce had two on her.
"Do you know who is coming?" she said very, very quietly.
Suji:
Suji quietly handed Luce the gun, without protest. Then she leaned over and grabbed the shotgun, which she also handed to the woman, waiting until she had a free hand to take it.
"Do you know who is coming?" The woman asked, and Suji shook her head--not a whole lot of movement, but very definite. Quietly, Suji picked up her crowbar. It didn't feel as safe as the gun, but a gun when you didn't know how to use it--when there was someone else that did, especially--was false power. At least in this situation. Before it'd been one on one, with no other variables. Suji didn't know how this would turn out.
There was the sound of movement downstairs, and then voices. They weren't loud--at least, they weren't shouting--but they weren't making particular efforts to be quiet. Most of the voices were male. Maybe all of them. There was also a quicker, more rooting sound, something with chains--the dogs she'd heard. Why would Yeerks search this place? Just then, one of the voices wafted up.
"Search upstairs! Fuck, there's nothing here."
"I told you we shouldn't have hit a library!"
"Hey, just try to find a vending machine and stop bitching, okay? And if you see any porn, grab it."
"It's a library, you moron!"
"Just go!"
Suji pressed against the wall. Even if it took a while for them to find Suji and this woman, the dogs probably wouldn't be so slow.
Luce:
It was men. That wasn't the best news. Too many of them turned rapist in these chaotic times.
She pulled her knife out and handed it to Suji. She wouldn't be able to use all three weapons and a knife could be used in close quarters, if it came to that.
Then she finished loading the smoke rounds into the shotgun and crept towards the stairs. This would be a good time to be a cat. But then she would be leaving her weapons behind. And Suji of course.
She took a deep breath and listened to the men coming up the stairs and then stepped out onto the landing. The first raider had been just about to get to the top of the stairs and stopped in surprise. "What the-" he didn't finish the sentence because Luce kicked him back down the stairs and into his friends.
The stairs bottlenecked the group and would be the easiest place to do the most damage so Luce didn't waste words on trying to talk to them. Better that they wake up with head aches in the morning.
The first one hit two more on his way down, sending all three to the bottom of the stairs. But the noise alerted the rest of the gang and they began crowding up the stairs, prepared for her now. Luce crouched down, actually more worried about the unknown girl at her back with a knife and a crowbar than these thugs.
She hadn't been much of a threat with an empty gun that she thought was loaded. As long as she had the useless weapon in her hands she would have relied on that first, giving Luce time to get to her. But now the threat was a little more real and she wouldn't have the time to fight off both the thugs and the girl. She just hoped that they had mutual interests at the moment.
Suji:
Suji took the knife and stuck it between her belt and her jeans. Maybe it would come in handy, but for now, she felt better with the crowbar--it had a nasty hooky on the end, and a hell of a lot more reach than a knife. She just had to hope that no one got close enough to where she'd have to use the knife. The other woman sent the first raider falling backwards down the stairs, and the effect was a lot like bowling pins, or maybe dominoes--in any case, it ended up with a bunch of people fallen on the ground.
The second wave was coming up: Suji darted away to one of the nearest book tables. There were ornamental fake flowers there, in a large, clear vase. But she didn't care about the plastic lilies--it was the 'soil' they were planted in that she was after. They were held stable because the lower two-thirds of the vase was filled with clear, pebble-like marbles. Suji picked up the vase and darted back to where Luce was. The forerunner was about to make the leap to the top step.
Carrying the vase and the crowbar as a bit tricky--it was even harder trying to toss the vase with a significant amount of control. At first she didn't think she'd thrown it hard enough--that it would just hit the raider and fall, or worse yet, completely miss him. By some stroke of luck however, it struck him head-on, and shattered. Not only was he knocked to the ground, but the resulting explosion of marbles caused several of the other pursuers to slip face-first onto the un-carpeted stairs.
"Oh god," Suji groaned--but not because of fear or being sickened by the violence. "I feel like I'm in a crappy outtake of a Home Alone movie." She hadn't even realized she'd spoken it aloud. Crouching on the other side of the stair well, she gripped the crowbar tightly. This was when she heard the familiar clink of a couple chain leashes, and the sudden barking of at least two dogs. It didn't sound playful.
Luce:
Luce laughed at Suji's comment. "If it works." She used the butt of the shotgun to hit another raider in the face. His broken nose sprayed blood, some of hit hitting Luce's hands and arms.
She pressed her advantage down the stairs, using the butt of the gun as a miny battering ram and managed to push most of them back until they actually broke, and started running down the stairs.
She was feeling pretty satisfied with herself until she heard the dogs and saw their handlers standing at the bottom, dogs straining against their leashes. "Damn, dobermans." She said that right before the raiders let them free and Luce turned and hightailed it back up the stairs. Fuck dogs, she hated dogs.
She ran past Suji and grabbed a table to block the dogs and stop them at the stairs. But that didn't exactly work.
Suji:
Suji was almost a bit shocked to hear the woman next to her laugh: then she realized what she'd said. Feeling a twinge of embarrassment, but also maybe even a short spark of pride, Suji smirked. "Nah. Working isn't enough," she said under her breath, twisting her grip on the crowbar, tightening it. "There's got to be some kind of, I don't know, style. Otherwise there's no fun in it."
Luce pushed them back, and Suji held her own on the other end of the stairs--while Luce physically drove them downwards, Suji lashed out with short but powerful arcs of the crowbar--something no one seemed keen on walking into, though she didn't manage to clip one man's shoulder, who screamed in pain. The sound surprised her for a short moment: she'd never really hurt someone before, not intentionally: at least, not off of a playground or outside of a sibling squabble. And this was more: she didn't just want it to hurt, she wanted it to do damage. The sound of pain from her target was unsettling and off-putting: she wanted time to analyze it, see where it put her emotionally, but there was none.
Suddenly the other woman was bounding back up the steps: she turned a table over and tried to use it to block the stairway. One of the dogs ran into it head-first, knocking itself silly. The other, however, made it past the defense. With a leap on powerful legs, the second doberman sailed up over the table, and directly towards Suji. Suji, however, was ready for it: she couldn't explain how, only that she had been: and when she saw the white fangs glistening with drool, the doberman's muzzle pulled back in a snarl, she simply reacted.
The crowbar collided with the dog's skull with enough impact that she could hear the crunching sound it make as it broke bone and met the softer, mushy brain matter underneath. The dog let out a loud yelp, which was followed but a few howling shrieks as it crumpled away on the ground. However, it didn't stay down: still whining and yipping, the dog continued to snarl and growl, and began to rush at her again--she could see the good eye it had left staring at her with pure, simplistic, animal determination: that dog would kill her if it could.
But it wouldn't.
When it came again it was slower, blinded in one eye, brain tissue exposed through fragmented skull. She swung the crowbar again, and the dog was on the ground: she tried to make the blows as fast as possible--she didn't want the animal to suffer, but she sure wasn't letting it bite her. Suji swung again and again, until at one point the hooked end of the crowbar got lodged in the dog's eye socket: it was still kicking, muscles spasming. At last she tore it free: it came loose with a sickening, ripping sound.
The dog stopped moving.
Crowbar still adorned with gore, her clothes and skin now flecked with doberman blood, Suji looked back to Luce: her jaw was set, but her expression was one of utter, lost confusion. How did this happen?, it seemed to ask. As if this other woman might somehow have some answers about why in the world it had ever been necessary for Suji to have to bludgeon a dog to death. Suji had lived a pretty safe suburban life: dog's might occasionally bite someone, but they were ultimately man's best friend. Not killers.
She wasn't stupid (attested to by the fact that she wasn't dead), but it was the first real violence she'd been a part of: Suji stood there, stunned.
Luce:
Luce managed to block the stairs so that the rest of the dogs couldn't get past but when she turned around she saw Suji standing over the body of a mauled dog, crowbar dripping blood. Messy work, but thorough.
She looked up to see how Suji was taking it. Not well. Not badly, but she was frozen and that wouldn't do either of them any good. Luce grimaced in annoyance. She wasn't completely without compassion, but she had gone from having a capable fighter at her back to being on her own for the moment and she wasn't going to be happy about it.
She looked over the table and saw the raiders cowering at the bottom of the stairs. They had had enough of fighting and were content to let the dogs do their dirty work while they waited the women out. Too bad Luce was in a hurry.
She pulled out the pistol and took careful, but quick aim and shot one of the raiders at the bottom of the stairs. His knee turned into a mangled mess and he fell to the ground with a loud scream of pain and kept on screaming. Which was why Luce hadn't wanted to use the gun. The shot was sure to have been heard and now the injured man was screaming bloody murder.
It was time to leave. The remaining raiders agreed with her and began dragging their wounded friend out of the library. They didn't have guns of their own, that was obvious, or they would have used them by now. And they certainly weren't going to stick around fighting someone who did.
The dogs weren't as smart. They kept trying to jump over the table.
Luce shot them and each dog dropped to the ground with a yelp and the two bodies began rolling down the stairs. Exit cleared Luce turned back to the girl behind her. She wished now that she knew her name. It would have helped.
"Listen, we have to get out of here. Or I'm leaving at least, before the cops with slugs in their brains show up to investigate." She was going around the room throwing the few items that had been taken out of the bag back into the bag. She slung the back pack over her shoulder and did the same with the shotgun. She didn't have time to put on the holster for the pistol so she just stuffed the length of leather into her bag and put the pistol in her waistband.
She was ready to go. "Are you coming?"
Suji;
Move! Suji's mind ordered her body, but to no avail. She was dumbly watching the other woman continue to fight: no more dogs breached the table, at least. Then Luce pulled out the gun, and started discharging it: there was the screaming of a man downstairs, and then the dogs began to drop into lifeless lumps. She didn't even flinch at the sound. She felt completely paralyzed. MOVE! again, no response.
That's not fair, she thought, quietly, removed from the scene. Not fair that she got to use a gun. A gun is clean. You don't have to worry how hard you're hitting. The effect is removed from the cause. Not fair. And, because this was the only solid thought in her mind, Suji began to cling to it, to the jealousy and the bitterness. Slowly, that brought her around. If simply willing herself to act wasn't enough, holding fast to her indignation did.
No, it wasn't fair. But it wasn't supposed to be. Besides, what would Suji do with the gun? She might get a fatal shot off for every four regular shots fired. It wasn't fair, but it worked. She had to pull herself together. Even before Luce stopped shooting, Suji was off: she covered the short distance to where she'd been sleeping, and began to pack. Obviously they wouldn't be able to stay. And even if Luce wouldn't want her along, Suji sure wouldn't be caught here, a panicked rabbit caught in a trap. She when through the motions of packing her things into her large backpack: thankfully the motions all came naturally, well-practiced.
"Are you coming?" The woman's voice. At least she wasn't telling Suji to get lost.
"Yeah. I'm ready." With that she zipped up the backpack, and slung it over her shoulder. She slipped the knife into a smaller compartment at the side. After a long glance at the still gory crowbar, she picked it up too. Better to have it and not need it, even if it was still covered in the first blood she'd spilled in this war.
"Lead the way, I guess." The look in Suji's eyes was determined, but there was a lingering sense of detachment: she hadn't processed what had just happened, was shoving it down deep into her subconscious for the time being. Escape first. Ponder whether or not you'd just started on the long road to losing your innocence later.
Luce:
Good, she was moving. "Then let's go. I would suggest getting out of town but I think my mark is holed up here. You know this place better than I do, where can we hide for the night?"
All of this was said as she pushed the table out of the way and headed down the stairs. She got to the bottom and ran over to the door. There was a blood trail marking where the raiders had dragged their buddy out of the library and she could still see them. They weren't getting anywhere anytime soon with their buddy like that and the controllers were sure to pick them up. Wherever they were going they had best make it in the opposite direction of those idiots.
She turned back to Suji. "Name is Luce by the way since we'll be traveling together for the moment."
Suji:
Suji wanted to have a good, solid answer--wanted to be able to point the way directly to another safe spot. But the truth was, she'd barely ever ventured out of the library. Maybe if she had the ability to turn into a sneaking cat or something she could have scouted more, but being human kind of nixed that possibility. Still, she didn't confess to not knowing right away, and instead racked her brains. She'd gotten food from a few places, but that had mostly been brought with her, and the stores were probably too far to be convenient. Her brow furrowed, but she had an idea.
"I mostly stayed in the library when I was in the area. There is, however, a bar not far from here. I was planning on raiding it when I needed more food: I figured that supermarkets, if I managed to find one within walking distance--would be picked over or taken over. But in on one of the local maps there was a bar." Her eyes flickered up to the other woman. "I figure Yeerks don't have much use for alcohol. Or if they do drink, it's probably where the higher-ups can supervise them. Make sure the hosts don't get out of hand or something."
"I'm Suji," she responded, eyes on the long smear of blood, but she seemed more curious than disturbed by this point. "Here," she said, and began to walk in the opposite direction from where the blood trail lead. "It's down the main road adjacent to the library. A couple blocks north, and then three or four leftward. The guidebook was like two years old... hopefully they didn't go out of business or something."
Luce:
"Hopefully they did. More likely to be abandoned that way," Luce muttered as she followed Suji out into the night. Her eyes scanned the darkness for possible threats but the biggest threat of all wasn't trying to hide itself any. Behind them a police cruiser came around the corner and caught the raider's in its headlights. If Luce knew controllers those young gentlemen would spend a very unpleasant night in a cage somewhere followed by a lifetime of slavery.
All except the hurt one. He would be Taxxon meat. She really hadn't done him any favors shooting out his knee cap instead of just hitting him between the eyes. But she hadn't aimed to kill because she had wanted to scare the rest off. Seeing a comrade drop to the ground with a hole in their forehead was always shocking. But seeing one drop to the ground screaming in agony had a more immediate effect.
They trotted through the night, having to hide twice while more police cars went by, before they reached the bar. The window was covered in bars but it looked like it was just closed for the night instead of being closed permanently. Not the best situation. If they just broke in they would probably set off some sort of alarm and even if they could get in without setting off the alarm they'd have to be gone in the morning. She looked at the sign with the hours listed. 4pm-2am. Ok, so they'd have to be gone by the early afternoon.
Luce walked into the alley on the side of the building and found the side door. Unsurprisingly it was also locked but it wouldn't look as bad if this one was broken into. She dropped down in front of it and dug through her bag until she found what she wanted. The device she took out of her bag looked like a pen and, when put into use, seemed like it came from a James Bond movie. What it really was was a mini dracon beam.
She used it to cut around the lock on the door and let them inside. She put the pen back in the bag and walked into the empty bar. She walked straight into the back room where they wouldn't be seen by passerby's when the sun rose and dropped her bag to the floor and promptly laid back down on it as if she intended to go back to sleep. But she wasn't quite ready yet. The adrenaline was still pumping through her veins from the fight and she would have to wait until it left her system before she could get more sleep.
She looked over at Suji. The girl would probably have to talk or something. At least she hadn't killed a human, that would have been harder to deal with. But she had brutally killed a living thing and that wasn't something that normal people just got over. Luce knew a bit about war time trauma, but only a bit. The animorphs didn't exactly fight traditional warfare here. And even though Luce had been in some sort of martial training all her life, only in the past few months had she ever really seen violence.
But talking would probably help and Luce was the only one around to listen so the task fell on her. She either listened or she'd be dealing with a messed up kid who would be more of a burden than an asset. At least she hadn't thrown up or anything...yet.
"Nice job back there. With the bandits and with the dogs."
Suji:
Suji glanced over at Luce--in the suburbia Suji grew up in, going out of business didn't mean the building would get abandoned. It meant it would either get turned into something else, or more likely, paved into a parking lot for something else. But she didn't argue. It wouldn't have helped the situation, and in any case, she was hoping the bar would still be there when they got there, or at least that there would be some place to hide.
When the police cruisers passed, Suji felt herself less frozen with terror, and more trying to get a look at the officers. Of course they'd been hosts to Yeerks, but it still surprised her how utterly normal they were otherwise. It shouldn't have, but it did. She kept the thought to herself. She was impressed with the mini-laser that got through the door, though she didn't ask about it. She'd seen Dracon weapons firing in the distance--it wasn't a shock to see one up close. She tried not to imagine what it would feel like to have that laser directed at her. Maybe like a lightsaber cut. Who knew.
They broke in, and Luce lay down. Suji wasn't an idiot--which a person would have to be to even remotely believe that Luce wanted to have a human conversation with her. She was a burden to this other woman: she couldn't fight, couldn't turn into an animal, barely knew up from down now in this crazed world. Maybe there were people who would be worse to have tagging along, but that didn't make Suji feel any more useful. And useless people were dead people. She was surprised this woman had even bothered to take her along.
You shouldn't be, Suji thought to herself. After all, if she needs a quick, safe get-away, all she has to do is do what she did to that man back there. Send a bullet through your kneecap, and you're nothing but spoiled goods. Crippled and lost and your tiny home compromised, leaving you without even the illusion of safety. She doesn't have to run faster than the Yeerks and the cops can catch her--just faster than you.
It was a sour thought, and she glanced over at Luce whenever she spoke. Suji was mildly surprised that the other woman didn't just roll over and sleep, or at least pretend to sleep to avoid any conversation. Suji knew that if Luce was part of the resistance, she probably wasn't monstrous to leave a girl to die (or get enslaved) after wrecking her home. At least not a girl whose name she bothered to learn. Probably.
But all's fair in love and war, isn't it? She internalized that bitter thought. When she spoke, she knew her face would betray none of what she felt, none of the dialogue. Her features would be clear of the deep mistrust and anger she felt (more at herself than anyone else), but they wouldn't be dopey or naively over-trusting, either. Just her. Just blank.
"Thanks," Suji replied. That was all she had to say about that. She didn't want to talk it over, especially not with this woman. Hell, she doubted she ever wanted to talk about what had just happened with anyone. She just wanted to have time to sit and think quietly about it. If anything, it was possible that Suji wanted to talk to Luce less than Luce wanted to talk to Suji. But, like the other woman, she would out of necessity. "So, what happens tomorrow? We part ways in the morning? You do whatever job it is you have to do, I try to find another place to squat in? Maybe spend the remaining hours in my life as a free human trying to find this resistance?" Suji tried her damnedest to keep the anger out of her voice, but at the very end, the slightest shade of it eeked in. She blamed the recent circumstances.
Suji rubbed the back of her neck; she fallen asleep while reading, and now it was dark. She hated when that happened: when you were restricted to doing anything that required eyesight during the day, you had to closely manage your daylight hours. Otherwise THIS happened, and it was dark before you knew it. And then there was nothing to do but sleep, and since she'd just woken up, her body wasn't going to be ready to fall back asleep for a while.
Realizing that her legs and half of her lower back had fallen asleep, Suji groaned and pushed the book she'd been reading out of her lap. It was How to Fix Everything - For Dummies, and similar fare lay all around her--from plumbing and home maintenance, to various wilderness survival guides. She'd built quite a nest up here: there was canned and other nonperishable foods, water, even a ratty sleeping bag. Controllers (she remembered that bit, also with other important facts from the day the invasion came home) didn't come around here, it seemed. After all, what need did they really have with human books? Humans performed tasks based on who their Yeerk was, presumably.
And how often were an invading race really all that interested in the history and culture of the conquered? Excluding perhaps the Greco-Roman example, the answer was: just about never. She figured it was as safe as safe got. And for that matter, it gave her plenty to do when she had sunlight: she was trying to make herself a practical resource on everything she'd always assumed she'd be able to pay someone else to do.
It wasn't that she didn't have a flash light: she did, with extra batteries. But using up any battery power just to read didn't seem like a smart idea. Even less smart: turning on a light at nighttime, whether she assumed the area was abandoned or not. Not a confrontation she needed, even if it were another lost wanderer that found her--she knew enough about the way war made people act from her history courses. A random, drifting soul could be just as dangerous as an alien.
Well maybe not quite, but still.
Suji:
It was colder by the window: native to a wealthy suburb not far from Manhattan, Suji knew that it would only get colder. However that would be a deterrent for any search parties for refugees… at least, that was the positive thought she tried to hold on to, when in reality she knew that it would likely just been oncoming below freezing temperatures. She ran a hand through her hand, a little self-reassuring motion she wasn’t even aware of by this point.
She stood at the window, thinking back on the day she’d heard about the invasion. The fear in her friend Sarah’s voice as she described what was happening in the mall—the eerie quiet of the library that somehow went deeper than the usual hush. Suji knew why it’d been deserted: the library was the place where The Sharing had held most of its meetings. The Controllers were all at home for the invasion, probably helping to coral their hosts’ loved ones into slavery.
Just like her parents would have. Her little sister.
She tried not to think too much about it. Suji wasn’t stupid: she knew the reasons you didn’t jump in without a floatation device to save someone that was drowning. She knew why you put on your own oxygen mask if your plane lost cabin pressure, before helping other people. You couldn’t save anyone without saving yourself first. It hadn’t been sheer cowardice: at least, she didn’t think it was (and deep down, she hoped it wasn’t—that was unforgiveable, even if good sense sometimes walked and talked a lot like being a yellow-bellied coward). After all, if it had been, cowards tended to try to group up with other people to take the fall for them. They cluttered together like pack animals, and were similarly herded to the slaughter. Suji was not a coward. She was simply being pragmatic, looking over her options.
You couldn’t save anyone else if you were caught or dead.
Still, despite her certainty that she was doing the right thing, she knew it wasn’t the fairytale heroic thing to do (which would involve some kind of daring escape plan against impossible odds). But she would not be one more body to add to their pile. She just needed time to think.
Suji pinched the bridge of her nose. There had been a brief message about a resistance in what she’d read. Of course it didn’t give away who the resistance was, or where they were located, or even their numbers—just an assurance that they were there. Even if she trusted that the information disbursement had been orchestrated by a benevolent force (which she didn’t), there was the possibility that whoever posted it just wanted to keep some kind of hope alive.
Whether or not she believed that the site was correct about an organized resistance, Suji estimated that at least statistically there had to be some kind of underground movement among those who were still free. She wasn’t pessimistic enough to believe that she was the last person left without a slug wrapped around her brain. Then again, that didn’t mean she was unrealistically optimistic, either. Her chances of locating a resistance force were infinitesimal. The chance that the resistance would be able to accomplish something other than getting all of its members killed or enslaved was even worse.
But there was no doubt in her mind that if she did find a group of freedom fighters, she would join them. She was not a coward. Getting yourself safe was a priority, but only so that you could plan on saving others. Besides, even if she wouldn’t have thought of herself as exceptionally brave or bold—what point was there in living your life as a terrified refugee, doing nothing but running? If it was an option between being a slave to constant fear for the rest of her life, or being a slave to an alien who captured her while she tried to help out humanity… well, the latter was, despite being unacceptable, still preferable to the former.
Still, even that outcome require her to find a way to help. She only wished that there was some way of locating the resistance. Once or twice she’d played with the idea of posing as a Controller and asking some questions closer to the city, which would be a bit of a hike but was undoubtedly swarming with Yeerks. But each time she rejected it as utterly stupid: at best, the only thing she would hear would be a few people talking about it existing. Which wouldn’t even mean it did or didn’t—as one of the gossip princesses of her high school (though the title of queen would have gone to one of her friends), Suji knew that a rumor was a rumor was a rumor. She doubted any alien species that thought human brains were cool to infest were going to disprove that.
Besides, if the Yeerks knew about the resistance, that wouldn’t even be a good thing.
Sighing, Suji rested her head against the window frame for a few minutes.
She stretched for a while, thinking about going over to one of the windows that still had glass in it. Suji tried not to go outside unless necessary, but it was nice to look at the landscape. Even if it was marred by neglect or outright warfare.
Luce;
Luce broke into the library. Broke in was too strong a word for walking into a library that was abandoned and didn't have any locks on the doors.
She closed the small side door she'd come in through behind her, leaving it open a crack, and began looking for a place to put her stuff down. She didn't want anyone in this small suburb to know she was here so waltzing in through the large double doors that faced a reasonably well trafficked street hadn't been an option. In all honesty she should have found a smaller place to stay for the night on her way out of New York but the library was almost guaranteed to be empty and didn't attract the low life crowd that made up most of the refugees around here, around everywhere actually. Luce could handle herself in a fight but why walk into one.
She shrugged the shotgun strap off her back and set it down on a wooden table that made up what had been a studying area. The almost 10lb shotgun hit the table harder than anticipated and made a clunking sound that could be heard throughout the library. She hissed in anger at her own clumsiness and quickly stilled, listening. But after a moment when she didn't hear anything, she continued with what she was doing.
She unbuckled the holster for the hand gun from around her waist and set that on the table too, taking care to be quieter about it this time. Just because she was tired was no reason to be sloppy.
Cassie had sent her out here after an escapee. The young man in question had been a high ranking controller before his superiors had found out that he had an oatmeal addiction. The charge was a serious one in the yeerk community and normally ended a controller's career. This charge also had the virtue of being true.
Unfortunately for the animorphs the young controller had also been one of their contacts and, cut off from both kadrona and oatmeal, was likely to talk. So Cassie had arranged to get him out of his jam, rescuing him from the hork-bajir task force sent to pick him up. Luce still thought back on the day with anger. She had shed blood for this coward and now she had to trek all the way out here to pick him up.
The controller, a kid named Henry or Nimor depending on who was in control, had managed to escape the animorph's grasp two days into his three day waiting period. Cassie had sent Luce after him. And lucky for Luce she had given no specific instructions as to what was to be done with him
Luce didn't particularly like being Cassie's gun for hire but she accepted it. Hell, she was good at it, and it protected all those young heroes that Cassie tended to attract as recruits from the realities of what life had become. It was fine for them to fight and die, even kill in the heat of battle, but just plain killing. Well that was wrong. Whatever.
With the weapons on the table Luce felt that usual light, naked feeling she got when she was mostly unarmed. She hated that feeling but the weapons couldn't morph with her so they had to come off. She sat on the floor to avoid falling over mid-morph and put her hand on her knife hilt to steady herself, the knife being the only weapon small enough to morph with.
As always, the morph took a little longer than usual and was extremely uncomfortable. At the end of it Luce was a 6lbs, desert adapted sand cat. She would rather have a shotgun or even a hand gun in her hand than be able to turn into a kitty cat but most of the animorphs didn't see it that way.
To be fair all the military's guns and all the military's missiles hadn't been able to hold off the invasion for more than a few days in the best of cases and most had been defeated within a matter of hours. So maybe morphing was the weapon of this war, maybe it was the one that would give the human race their needed edge. But it was just one weapon. That didn't mean you had to throw away all the others. And she wasn't going to give up the guns she'd worked hard to find just because they made some people squeamish.
The guns weren't the real problem anyway, it was finding ammunition for them that was the hard part. She'd have to remind herself to check the stores around here on her way through. For now she needed to make sure this place was secure for the night.
She slipped back out the door through the crack she had left herself and used the cat's superior night vision and sense of smell to confirm what she already knew, no one was out here. But someone had been, and fairly recently too, maybe within the past day or two.
She examined the trail and found that it led into the library. Where she had conveniently left her weapons out for the unknown to come by and kill her with. Great, just great.
Suji:
Suji was used to the silence: she liked it, even. Even growing up in the suburbs rather than the city (though to be fair, it had been a busy suburb), she'd never really gotten much silence. Things might be quiet, sure, but there were always the trace sounds of people--people driving their cars with the radio a bit too loud, people watching TV, people just doing people-things. This quiet, though, was real, better--she'd had to substitute for the artificial hushed kind that came with certain sacred places like church or the library, but now, at least, the silence was freeing.
She was contemplating this when she heard a loud sound echo from downstairs. Instantly, she froze: her heart seemed to stop beating, and she listened, straining her ears, for another noise. She didn't kid herself that she hadn't heard anything, that it'd been her imagination--that kind of thinking got a person killed. But what did she want to do about it? The sound had been isolated; nothing followed it. Couldn't be one of the big aliens--she figured they'd make a lot more noise, and wouldn't really care about it.
So someone, or something, was sneaking around. Suji didn't know if that make her feel better, or worse. Maybe another refugee: maybe not. Suji quietly, but quickly, made her way to where her things were. She knew the place of everything: she'd practiced packing her stuff and being ready to leave within 120 seconds. But could she leave? Was it smarter to leave, without even knowing what was coming? It was dark out--she wouldn't be able to see where she was traveling, and there was no promise of getting safe before the sun rose. But safety was relative, wasn't it?
Suji felt a bit angry. She'd settled here, and it was a damn good hiding spot. Maybe that's what made her pick up the long crowbar she'd set against the wall, rather than stuffing canned food and bottled water into her backpack. The weapon wouldn't do much against an alien, but she didn't think it was an alien downstairs... and even one, well-placed hit with a crowbar would put a nice bit of hurting on any human. She also grabbed a flashlight, but wasn't stupid enough to turn it on yet. Near silently, she made her way down the stairs, avoiding the ones that she knew creaked.
When she got to a table with weapons on it, it took a her a brief moment to recognize what was lying there: when she realized that they were guns (and it didn't take her that long--she wasn't an idiot) she felt her back go ramrod straight. Suji didn't gasp though, or do something foolish like drop her crowbar in surprise. Instead, she put the end of the flashlight in her mouth, and picked up the handgun.
Suji had never held a gun before, let alone fired one: but she'd made guncare and general weaponry one of her preliminary topics of study. She knew the basic mechanics, but running her fingers over it, in the dark, was her first chance at familiarizing herself with the weapon. All the same, she found the safety, but left it on. She slipped the gun into her waistband.
There was a larger weapon on the table too: a shotgun. As much as Suji had read about them, she felt more confident in her ability to wield the pistol. She'd only get herself in more trouble with the shotgun. Still, she couldn't leave it lying here. Carefully, she picked it up too. The shape was less easy to line up with the deconstructed images she'd seen in her books than the handgun. But she found what she needed to: she could dump out the shells. Of course, that would be loud. Decisions, decisions.
As quietly as possible, Suji began to retreat backwards, back towards the stairs. It was awkward holding the crowbar and the shotgun, but she was prepared to drop the crowbar before the gun.
Luce:
Luce watched Suji jack her guns. Her tail twitched.
Wonderful. This night just got better and better. Well at least it wasn't a controller. Any controller worth oxygen carried a dracon beam on them.
She silently padded after the young woman after she had retreated up the stairs, keeping a good distance and keeping to the shadows at first. But then got a better idea. She was supposed to use this morphing power and this cat had to be good at something.
She stepped out of the shadows and meowed. The sand cat was not the traditional house cat. They didn't look exactly like house cats, having a broader head and sand colored fur with black barring as well as many other modification to help them survive Arabian deserts but most of that wouldn't be noticeable to the average American refugee, especially in the dark.
She meowed pitifully again. Come on thief girl, be like every other little suburban girl and have a soft spot for small furry creatures. I want my guns back.
Suji:
Suji heard the mewling, and halted for a second. She could see the cat--it didn't look like a regular housecat, but they weren't that far from NYC, and if anyone had an exotic cat, it would be a yuppie New Yorker. But she didn't exactly rush to pet the furry animal. Her jaw worked, and her eyes narrowed, looking around. A cat might have gotten in, sure.
But a cat couldn't account for the guns on the table. And really, Suji felt trapped already. Not that she thought an alien species would use a cat to lure out a hiding girl. And aliens would probably also be using those laser guns, not standard bullet fare. Which meant that if it were a trap, it was of particularly human design. Refugees and raiders were probably just as vicious as the alien invaders: Suji kept backing up quietly. She liked pets as much as the next person, but she liked herself in one piece more.
Luce:
Damnit Luce sat down and looked helpless. And then she wandered away. She considered trying to sneak up on the young woman after she had demorphed but that was a stupid plan for many reasons, the first being that she had Luce's guns. She wondered if it was better to wait a while but she didn't feel like staying a cat and this person obviously wasn't a controller.
<<Look, just give me my guns back and we can go our separate ways. I'll even find some place else to sleep for the night if you want this place to yourself so bad.>> All of this was projected from under a library table where she was in shadow. Hopefully the voice in her head would be enough for her to just listen before asking questions, Luce doubted it though.
Suji:
The voice did surprise her: she was upstairs by now, in one of the smaller enclosed areas where she slept and kept most of her things. Suji jumped: she couldn't help it--she'd already put down the crowbar, and was about to set down the shotgun. Instead, her hands clenched tight around the plastic and metal, heart beating hard and fast. She hadn't 'heard' it; it's like the words had just been direct straight into her head.
Suddenly she was rethinking the alien business.
But the words hadn't been threatening. Sure they hadn't been gentle and cooing, but they hadn't been telling her she was about to die. To surrender to face enslavement. Which meant that the situation could possibly be worse. But it was also possible that was optimism on Suji's part: optimism she could not afford to indulge in. Before she could stop herself, Suji disarmed the shotgun: the click was loud and resounding, and the shells tumbled out and clinked across the floor. They didn't roll too far, but it would take time to reload the gun. She also removed the shells that were chambered, though this took her a more time, and was a clumsy moment.
She put the shotgun down by her feet, and drew the handgun. "Who are you? How are you talking like that?" Suji licked her lips, but kept her voice down, controlled, though each time it almost cracked and squeaked. It was more than a whisper, but not much: if someone was here, that was one thing. She still didn't want to broadcast too loudly. "Give me a reason to trust you, and you get the guns back. Maybe. From where I'm standing the fact that I have them might be the only thing keeping me alive. Or... or-" She tried to steel her jaw. "Or free. Otherwise, you're going to have to take them." Oh god, why had she added that? Suji closed her eyes for a second, mentally kicking herself, before reminding herself that closing her eyes was not the best idea. Reopening them, she took a deep breath.
Why had she added that last part? She might as well have literally shot herself in the foot.
Luce:
<<Listen, I don't deal with newbies for a reason. I don't like explaining things. Short version, I'm part of the resistance that for some reason thinks turning into a cat is a great offensive weapon. Maybe if I was a lion or something.>> The last was more to herself as she stepped out from under the table and walked over to one of the fallen shells.
<<I better be able to find all of these.>> She pushed one of the shells with her paw and it rolled across the floor. <<Look, what do you want as proof. Seriously? In the world we live in where your deepest secrets can be known by a slug in your brain there isn't much anyone can offer as proof.>>
She looked up at Suji. She was holding the handgun wrong. It would fire of course, take off the safety pull the trigger and a gun will fire. But it would bite when it did. Luce had her own scars between her thumb and forefinger to prove it. She wondered if she should tell Suji, but if it came to blows that little fact might just give her an edge so she kept it to herself.
Suji:
Suji weighed this information. She didn't take the safety off of the handgun, if that was a sign. Or maybe it just meant that she'd forgotten it was there: her expression was dark, impassive.
"They don't roll far. Too much crap blocking them." Turning into a cat, though, her mind was still on that. So the cat was a person. Presumably, the person who deposited the gun on the table back there. Right. Okay. "This resistance. Are you some kind of alien?" After all, she didn't exactly know any humans that could turn into cats. Then the voice started talking about proof.
"Proof? I don't need proof to know that there's a resistance. I assumed there would be. I also don't need proof to know that you aren't a regular cat, at least, not more than the fact that you're talking to me via, I don't know, telepathy or whatever. I never said I needed proof," she lowered the gun, but didn't aim it at the cat. "I said I needed to trust that once I give these back, I'm not automatically dead meat. That you don't turn into some kind of monster with eight mouths or something. Though my guess is, that if you're an alien, it's not a very scary one. Otherwise, you wouldn't need a gun." She licked her lips. "They're not laser guns either. Seen those, at a distance."
Suji wanted to trust that this person was part of a resistance: the pieces did fit together, anyway. And she could tell that her questions would annoy this person: but Suji could give a damn less about annoying someone if it meant staying alive, and learning something.
"So if you are human, and you are part of a resistance, why don't you turn into a lion? Or a rhino or something? A 9mm bullet wouldn't do much in that case, assuming I could stop pissing my pants long enough to fire."
Luce:
Because I can't, but she certainly wasn't going to give that answer.
Luce looked at her once she had lowered the hand gun. She obviously wasn't going to stop asking questions which meant they would be here for a while. Normally she would just call Cassie or one of the others whenever they found one like this but they were far away at the moment. <<Stay here.>>
Luce ran back down the stairs. She trotted outside the door and finished the scan she had started before getting interrupted by the scent trail. Once she had made sure that no one was around for the moment she trotted back inside and demorphed and closed and secured the door behind her.
Then she picked up the pack that she had left with the guns containing her food and water and went back up stairs, greeting the girl as a human for the first time. The whole thing had taken her maybe ten minutes. Ten minutes that Suji had to think about the situation she found herself in.
She began walking around picking up shot gun shells. She didn't seem to be paying attention to Suji but she was watching to make sure the gun didn't come back up. She didn't like her chances if it did.
"Now that we're relatively safe for the moment I'll answer your questions. 1) I'm part of the resistance called animorphs. There are others out there but we are the only one's that use morphing technology, which is alien if you hadn't noticed. 2) We can only morph animals we've acquired. The yeerks wiped most of the animals out, partly to limit our access to them, so we have to get morphs from blood samples now. The blood samples aren't easy to get ahold of. 3) You can only stay in morph for two hours or you get stuck that way. 4) We're split up into factions all over the country. I come from the one in New York. 5) I think someone would notice if I went running around as a lion."
Luce tried to think of all the other questions new people asked. Unsurprisingly, they were always the same ones which is why Luce wanted to get them out of the way. "Yes you can join if you feel like risking your life but you'll have to speak to my faction leader about that. Or you can just go your own way. I haven't told you anything the yeerks don't already know so I don't care if you get captured. Oh, and if I wanted to kill you I would have tried by now. Maybe not succeeded, but I would have tried because as you can tell I don't have much patience. A more patient person would have stayed a nice, harmless cat, waited 'til you slept and killed you then. I don't have time for that. I have a job to do and it requires that I sleep now. So either use that gun or give it back."
Suji;
<<Stay here.>> Then the cat disappeared, bounding off. Suji didn't protest much: it wouldn't do any good. But there was a voice in the back of her head, one insisting relentlessly that the cat had gone off to call in reinforcements. But wouldn't that have happened by now? And even if it was happening, did it meant that she had a chance to escape? She sighed, and because every scenario in which she tried to leave ended up worse than the ones where she stayed (and maybe fought with the newly found guns).
Then a woman came up the stairs, and started to recollect the shells. Without asking, Suji understood that it was the same person that had been the cat. It had the same agitated way of moving. Then she launched into what sounded like a bored, much practiced (or at least much heard) monologue about the resistance, ending with something about how that was all the information the enemies knew, anyway. And that she could become part of the resistance if she wanted to risk her life. Nonchalant. Any why wouldn't she be nonchalant? So much as taking a piss in the words was risking your life these days. Suji eyed her warily throughout, up until the part where she demanded the gun back.
Wow. Hadn't been expecting that whole speech, she thought. She hadn't even been thinking about this woman killing her: while Suji had the guns, she had the power in the situation, and hadn't registered the woman alone as a threat. "Maybe it comforts you to talk about how easily you could dispatch me, or maybe it's meant to scare me--I think it's more the former. But in any case, let's be real here for a moment. You don't have the guns, and the worst thing you can do is turn into a kitten and threaten to smother me in my sleep, or charge me right now. That's a good twelve feet of distance to cover, and I'm guessing I can fire at least twice before you get two-thirds of the way. I have these guns, because for whatever reason, you fucked up. Miscalculated. Which is fine: we're all human here, right?" Suji smirked.
"And I might not call myself a particularly patient person, but I'm not an idiot, which you seem to be counting on, because you think I'm just going to hand this gun over, point-blank. Not happening. Not that easy, at least." Suji could feel herself sweating, trying to spur her mind faster. See all the connections, Suji. Don't threaten, don't swagger, but don't crumble. "You can sleep here, but I'm keeping the guns until you leave. Which means I'm going to sleep where the rare, in-house books are kept: they're in a caged-off room on the floor above this. There's a padlock with a key. I've got the key."
Her voice didn't waver, that much at least was good. "I keep the guns. You sleep. You wake me up tomorrow, I give you the guns, you do your job. A job I'd love to hear about, seeing as you need good old fashioned projectile weapons to do it."
Luce:
Luce sighed in annoyance. "I said I would have tried to make a move on you, not that I would have succeeded. In fact, I wouldn't have tried because I wouldn't have succeeded, hence I didn't try now did I?" Her fingers toyed with the knife hilt by her hand but she knew what happened to people who carried knives. They got shot.
She put her pack down so that it would serve as a decent pillow and laid down on it, hands behind her head. "And don't bother with the cage, you'll just be up all night wondering if that mouse you see or that cockroach scuttling by is me." She said this with a slight smile, the thought amusing. "If you're that paranoid, and don't get me wrong, I'm glad you are, you're more intelligent than half the people I meet these day, but if you're that paranoid you are better off just sitting there holding a gun on me all night. I leave that enjoyable prospect to you. I'm going to sleep."
Suji:
Suji dismissed whole bit about would have but didn't but could have tried, or whatever it was. Not relevant, in this case. The woman did bring up a good point though: if she could turn into any animal, a cage that would easily hold out a human or even a cat wasn't going to be effective against a bug. At the same time, Suji didn't want to stay up all night in fear. Suji hated the prospect of spending any extended period of time anxious and afraid, unless there was a clear and imminent threat.
But she'd already slept away most of the day... so it wouldn't really be too hard to keep awake.
And how are you so sure I won't take your guns and leave? Suji was tempted to as the reclining woman. Or kill you and take your food and water, at least? But why ask a question like that? Suji wasn't going to do either those things, so there was no point in wondering. She probably would just sit right here, wait till morning, and then give the woman back her things. She settled into a corner, determined to only be awake as long as she wasn't tired.
- - -
It wasn't much later that Suji heard a noise that brought her fully awake. It was the sound of a dog growling in the distance, and then a loud whimper (probably from the same animal). Suji immediately stood up, the handgun still firm in her grip. She could see light through the window--bobbing, jerking rays from a few flashlights. Her pulse began to race. She looked down at Luce.
Suji knew better than to directly lean over her to wake the woman up--she'd probably get punched in the face. Instead her went behind her head, and only knelt down enough so she could reach her face. Quickly, she covered the woman's mouth, and held up a finger on the other hand over her lips. The gesture was a bit distorted by grip of the gun (the barrel was no where near pointing at her face) but it was still unviersal: Shh.
Luce:
Luce wasn't sleeping very well. She was dreaming, as she did too often. It was only a couple of weeks ago and Jals was still in her head. But it was dying, it was finally dying and she would be free.
<<Free? You were never free. What life did you live? You wasted it all!>> the dying yeerk raged in her head.
<<Just shut up and die.>>
<<That what you want? You like this? Seeing me suffer? Seeing me die?>>
<<Yes.>>
<<I'm not the one who's a monster.>>
<<I never claimed you were.>> Her words, and the gloating tone in them shut the yeerk up for about two seconds and then it started screaming again. It sporadically took control of different parts of her body. Her eyes, her mouth, her hands, her throat long enough to make its scream audible, but then it started choking itself. No air, no air.
Luce came awake all at once. She didn't move, in fact she did the exact opposite, she froze. Nothing moved, not even her breath. It took her mind a moment to remember where she was and why she shouldn't attack the young woman leaning over her but it came back quickly enough.
She pushed the hand away and sat up, listening to the sounds that Suji was hearing. After listening for a few seconds Luce pulled her bag around so that it was in front of her and took out a box of bullets that was half empty and held out her hand for Suji to hand her the gun. It would do neither of them any good if it wasn't loaded.
She motioned towards the shot gun. That had rounds in it. It always did. She would have been better off holding onto that one. But the rounds in there would draw too much unwanted attention. But the shotgun could fire smoke rounds and Luce had two on her.
"Do you know who is coming?" she said very, very quietly.
Suji:
Suji quietly handed Luce the gun, without protest. Then she leaned over and grabbed the shotgun, which she also handed to the woman, waiting until she had a free hand to take it.
"Do you know who is coming?" The woman asked, and Suji shook her head--not a whole lot of movement, but very definite. Quietly, Suji picked up her crowbar. It didn't feel as safe as the gun, but a gun when you didn't know how to use it--when there was someone else that did, especially--was false power. At least in this situation. Before it'd been one on one, with no other variables. Suji didn't know how this would turn out.
There was the sound of movement downstairs, and then voices. They weren't loud--at least, they weren't shouting--but they weren't making particular efforts to be quiet. Most of the voices were male. Maybe all of them. There was also a quicker, more rooting sound, something with chains--the dogs she'd heard. Why would Yeerks search this place? Just then, one of the voices wafted up.
"Search upstairs! Fuck, there's nothing here."
"I told you we shouldn't have hit a library!"
"Hey, just try to find a vending machine and stop bitching, okay? And if you see any porn, grab it."
"It's a library, you moron!"
"Just go!"
Suji pressed against the wall. Even if it took a while for them to find Suji and this woman, the dogs probably wouldn't be so slow.
Luce:
It was men. That wasn't the best news. Too many of them turned rapist in these chaotic times.
She pulled her knife out and handed it to Suji. She wouldn't be able to use all three weapons and a knife could be used in close quarters, if it came to that.
Then she finished loading the smoke rounds into the shotgun and crept towards the stairs. This would be a good time to be a cat. But then she would be leaving her weapons behind. And Suji of course.
She took a deep breath and listened to the men coming up the stairs and then stepped out onto the landing. The first raider had been just about to get to the top of the stairs and stopped in surprise. "What the-" he didn't finish the sentence because Luce kicked him back down the stairs and into his friends.
The stairs bottlenecked the group and would be the easiest place to do the most damage so Luce didn't waste words on trying to talk to them. Better that they wake up with head aches in the morning.
The first one hit two more on his way down, sending all three to the bottom of the stairs. But the noise alerted the rest of the gang and they began crowding up the stairs, prepared for her now. Luce crouched down, actually more worried about the unknown girl at her back with a knife and a crowbar than these thugs.
She hadn't been much of a threat with an empty gun that she thought was loaded. As long as she had the useless weapon in her hands she would have relied on that first, giving Luce time to get to her. But now the threat was a little more real and she wouldn't have the time to fight off both the thugs and the girl. She just hoped that they had mutual interests at the moment.
Suji:
Suji took the knife and stuck it between her belt and her jeans. Maybe it would come in handy, but for now, she felt better with the crowbar--it had a nasty hooky on the end, and a hell of a lot more reach than a knife. She just had to hope that no one got close enough to where she'd have to use the knife. The other woman sent the first raider falling backwards down the stairs, and the effect was a lot like bowling pins, or maybe dominoes--in any case, it ended up with a bunch of people fallen on the ground.
The second wave was coming up: Suji darted away to one of the nearest book tables. There were ornamental fake flowers there, in a large, clear vase. But she didn't care about the plastic lilies--it was the 'soil' they were planted in that she was after. They were held stable because the lower two-thirds of the vase was filled with clear, pebble-like marbles. Suji picked up the vase and darted back to where Luce was. The forerunner was about to make the leap to the top step.
Carrying the vase and the crowbar as a bit tricky--it was even harder trying to toss the vase with a significant amount of control. At first she didn't think she'd thrown it hard enough--that it would just hit the raider and fall, or worse yet, completely miss him. By some stroke of luck however, it struck him head-on, and shattered. Not only was he knocked to the ground, but the resulting explosion of marbles caused several of the other pursuers to slip face-first onto the un-carpeted stairs.
"Oh god," Suji groaned--but not because of fear or being sickened by the violence. "I feel like I'm in a crappy outtake of a Home Alone movie." She hadn't even realized she'd spoken it aloud. Crouching on the other side of the stair well, she gripped the crowbar tightly. This was when she heard the familiar clink of a couple chain leashes, and the sudden barking of at least two dogs. It didn't sound playful.
Luce:
Luce laughed at Suji's comment. "If it works." She used the butt of the shotgun to hit another raider in the face. His broken nose sprayed blood, some of hit hitting Luce's hands and arms.
She pressed her advantage down the stairs, using the butt of the gun as a miny battering ram and managed to push most of them back until they actually broke, and started running down the stairs.
She was feeling pretty satisfied with herself until she heard the dogs and saw their handlers standing at the bottom, dogs straining against their leashes. "Damn, dobermans." She said that right before the raiders let them free and Luce turned and hightailed it back up the stairs. Fuck dogs, she hated dogs.
She ran past Suji and grabbed a table to block the dogs and stop them at the stairs. But that didn't exactly work.
Suji:
Suji was almost a bit shocked to hear the woman next to her laugh: then she realized what she'd said. Feeling a twinge of embarrassment, but also maybe even a short spark of pride, Suji smirked. "Nah. Working isn't enough," she said under her breath, twisting her grip on the crowbar, tightening it. "There's got to be some kind of, I don't know, style. Otherwise there's no fun in it."
Luce pushed them back, and Suji held her own on the other end of the stairs--while Luce physically drove them downwards, Suji lashed out with short but powerful arcs of the crowbar--something no one seemed keen on walking into, though she didn't manage to clip one man's shoulder, who screamed in pain. The sound surprised her for a short moment: she'd never really hurt someone before, not intentionally: at least, not off of a playground or outside of a sibling squabble. And this was more: she didn't just want it to hurt, she wanted it to do damage. The sound of pain from her target was unsettling and off-putting: she wanted time to analyze it, see where it put her emotionally, but there was none.
Suddenly the other woman was bounding back up the steps: she turned a table over and tried to use it to block the stairway. One of the dogs ran into it head-first, knocking itself silly. The other, however, made it past the defense. With a leap on powerful legs, the second doberman sailed up over the table, and directly towards Suji. Suji, however, was ready for it: she couldn't explain how, only that she had been: and when she saw the white fangs glistening with drool, the doberman's muzzle pulled back in a snarl, she simply reacted.
The crowbar collided with the dog's skull with enough impact that she could hear the crunching sound it make as it broke bone and met the softer, mushy brain matter underneath. The dog let out a loud yelp, which was followed but a few howling shrieks as it crumpled away on the ground. However, it didn't stay down: still whining and yipping, the dog continued to snarl and growl, and began to rush at her again--she could see the good eye it had left staring at her with pure, simplistic, animal determination: that dog would kill her if it could.
But it wouldn't.
When it came again it was slower, blinded in one eye, brain tissue exposed through fragmented skull. She swung the crowbar again, and the dog was on the ground: she tried to make the blows as fast as possible--she didn't want the animal to suffer, but she sure wasn't letting it bite her. Suji swung again and again, until at one point the hooked end of the crowbar got lodged in the dog's eye socket: it was still kicking, muscles spasming. At last she tore it free: it came loose with a sickening, ripping sound.
The dog stopped moving.
Crowbar still adorned with gore, her clothes and skin now flecked with doberman blood, Suji looked back to Luce: her jaw was set, but her expression was one of utter, lost confusion. How did this happen?, it seemed to ask. As if this other woman might somehow have some answers about why in the world it had ever been necessary for Suji to have to bludgeon a dog to death. Suji had lived a pretty safe suburban life: dog's might occasionally bite someone, but they were ultimately man's best friend. Not killers.
She wasn't stupid (attested to by the fact that she wasn't dead), but it was the first real violence she'd been a part of: Suji stood there, stunned.
Luce:
Luce managed to block the stairs so that the rest of the dogs couldn't get past but when she turned around she saw Suji standing over the body of a mauled dog, crowbar dripping blood. Messy work, but thorough.
She looked up to see how Suji was taking it. Not well. Not badly, but she was frozen and that wouldn't do either of them any good. Luce grimaced in annoyance. She wasn't completely without compassion, but she had gone from having a capable fighter at her back to being on her own for the moment and she wasn't going to be happy about it.
She looked over the table and saw the raiders cowering at the bottom of the stairs. They had had enough of fighting and were content to let the dogs do their dirty work while they waited the women out. Too bad Luce was in a hurry.
She pulled out the pistol and took careful, but quick aim and shot one of the raiders at the bottom of the stairs. His knee turned into a mangled mess and he fell to the ground with a loud scream of pain and kept on screaming. Which was why Luce hadn't wanted to use the gun. The shot was sure to have been heard and now the injured man was screaming bloody murder.
It was time to leave. The remaining raiders agreed with her and began dragging their wounded friend out of the library. They didn't have guns of their own, that was obvious, or they would have used them by now. And they certainly weren't going to stick around fighting someone who did.
The dogs weren't as smart. They kept trying to jump over the table.
Luce shot them and each dog dropped to the ground with a yelp and the two bodies began rolling down the stairs. Exit cleared Luce turned back to the girl behind her. She wished now that she knew her name. It would have helped.
"Listen, we have to get out of here. Or I'm leaving at least, before the cops with slugs in their brains show up to investigate." She was going around the room throwing the few items that had been taken out of the bag back into the bag. She slung the back pack over her shoulder and did the same with the shotgun. She didn't have time to put on the holster for the pistol so she just stuffed the length of leather into her bag and put the pistol in her waistband.
She was ready to go. "Are you coming?"
Suji;
Move! Suji's mind ordered her body, but to no avail. She was dumbly watching the other woman continue to fight: no more dogs breached the table, at least. Then Luce pulled out the gun, and started discharging it: there was the screaming of a man downstairs, and then the dogs began to drop into lifeless lumps. She didn't even flinch at the sound. She felt completely paralyzed. MOVE! again, no response.
That's not fair, she thought, quietly, removed from the scene. Not fair that she got to use a gun. A gun is clean. You don't have to worry how hard you're hitting. The effect is removed from the cause. Not fair. And, because this was the only solid thought in her mind, Suji began to cling to it, to the jealousy and the bitterness. Slowly, that brought her around. If simply willing herself to act wasn't enough, holding fast to her indignation did.
No, it wasn't fair. But it wasn't supposed to be. Besides, what would Suji do with the gun? She might get a fatal shot off for every four regular shots fired. It wasn't fair, but it worked. She had to pull herself together. Even before Luce stopped shooting, Suji was off: she covered the short distance to where she'd been sleeping, and began to pack. Obviously they wouldn't be able to stay. And even if Luce wouldn't want her along, Suji sure wouldn't be caught here, a panicked rabbit caught in a trap. She when through the motions of packing her things into her large backpack: thankfully the motions all came naturally, well-practiced.
"Are you coming?" The woman's voice. At least she wasn't telling Suji to get lost.
"Yeah. I'm ready." With that she zipped up the backpack, and slung it over her shoulder. She slipped the knife into a smaller compartment at the side. After a long glance at the still gory crowbar, she picked it up too. Better to have it and not need it, even if it was still covered in the first blood she'd spilled in this war.
"Lead the way, I guess." The look in Suji's eyes was determined, but there was a lingering sense of detachment: she hadn't processed what had just happened, was shoving it down deep into her subconscious for the time being. Escape first. Ponder whether or not you'd just started on the long road to losing your innocence later.
Luce:
Good, she was moving. "Then let's go. I would suggest getting out of town but I think my mark is holed up here. You know this place better than I do, where can we hide for the night?"
All of this was said as she pushed the table out of the way and headed down the stairs. She got to the bottom and ran over to the door. There was a blood trail marking where the raiders had dragged their buddy out of the library and she could still see them. They weren't getting anywhere anytime soon with their buddy like that and the controllers were sure to pick them up. Wherever they were going they had best make it in the opposite direction of those idiots.
She turned back to Suji. "Name is Luce by the way since we'll be traveling together for the moment."
Suji:
Suji wanted to have a good, solid answer--wanted to be able to point the way directly to another safe spot. But the truth was, she'd barely ever ventured out of the library. Maybe if she had the ability to turn into a sneaking cat or something she could have scouted more, but being human kind of nixed that possibility. Still, she didn't confess to not knowing right away, and instead racked her brains. She'd gotten food from a few places, but that had mostly been brought with her, and the stores were probably too far to be convenient. Her brow furrowed, but she had an idea.
"I mostly stayed in the library when I was in the area. There is, however, a bar not far from here. I was planning on raiding it when I needed more food: I figured that supermarkets, if I managed to find one within walking distance--would be picked over or taken over. But in on one of the local maps there was a bar." Her eyes flickered up to the other woman. "I figure Yeerks don't have much use for alcohol. Or if they do drink, it's probably where the higher-ups can supervise them. Make sure the hosts don't get out of hand or something."
"I'm Suji," she responded, eyes on the long smear of blood, but she seemed more curious than disturbed by this point. "Here," she said, and began to walk in the opposite direction from where the blood trail lead. "It's down the main road adjacent to the library. A couple blocks north, and then three or four leftward. The guidebook was like two years old... hopefully they didn't go out of business or something."
Luce:
"Hopefully they did. More likely to be abandoned that way," Luce muttered as she followed Suji out into the night. Her eyes scanned the darkness for possible threats but the biggest threat of all wasn't trying to hide itself any. Behind them a police cruiser came around the corner and caught the raider's in its headlights. If Luce knew controllers those young gentlemen would spend a very unpleasant night in a cage somewhere followed by a lifetime of slavery.
All except the hurt one. He would be Taxxon meat. She really hadn't done him any favors shooting out his knee cap instead of just hitting him between the eyes. But she hadn't aimed to kill because she had wanted to scare the rest off. Seeing a comrade drop to the ground with a hole in their forehead was always shocking. But seeing one drop to the ground screaming in agony had a more immediate effect.
They trotted through the night, having to hide twice while more police cars went by, before they reached the bar. The window was covered in bars but it looked like it was just closed for the night instead of being closed permanently. Not the best situation. If they just broke in they would probably set off some sort of alarm and even if they could get in without setting off the alarm they'd have to be gone in the morning. She looked at the sign with the hours listed. 4pm-2am. Ok, so they'd have to be gone by the early afternoon.
Luce walked into the alley on the side of the building and found the side door. Unsurprisingly it was also locked but it wouldn't look as bad if this one was broken into. She dropped down in front of it and dug through her bag until she found what she wanted. The device she took out of her bag looked like a pen and, when put into use, seemed like it came from a James Bond movie. What it really was was a mini dracon beam.
She used it to cut around the lock on the door and let them inside. She put the pen back in the bag and walked into the empty bar. She walked straight into the back room where they wouldn't be seen by passerby's when the sun rose and dropped her bag to the floor and promptly laid back down on it as if she intended to go back to sleep. But she wasn't quite ready yet. The adrenaline was still pumping through her veins from the fight and she would have to wait until it left her system before she could get more sleep.
She looked over at Suji. The girl would probably have to talk or something. At least she hadn't killed a human, that would have been harder to deal with. But she had brutally killed a living thing and that wasn't something that normal people just got over. Luce knew a bit about war time trauma, but only a bit. The animorphs didn't exactly fight traditional warfare here. And even though Luce had been in some sort of martial training all her life, only in the past few months had she ever really seen violence.
But talking would probably help and Luce was the only one around to listen so the task fell on her. She either listened or she'd be dealing with a messed up kid who would be more of a burden than an asset. At least she hadn't thrown up or anything...yet.
"Nice job back there. With the bandits and with the dogs."
Suji:
Suji glanced over at Luce--in the suburbia Suji grew up in, going out of business didn't mean the building would get abandoned. It meant it would either get turned into something else, or more likely, paved into a parking lot for something else. But she didn't argue. It wouldn't have helped the situation, and in any case, she was hoping the bar would still be there when they got there, or at least that there would be some place to hide.
When the police cruisers passed, Suji felt herself less frozen with terror, and more trying to get a look at the officers. Of course they'd been hosts to Yeerks, but it still surprised her how utterly normal they were otherwise. It shouldn't have, but it did. She kept the thought to herself. She was impressed with the mini-laser that got through the door, though she didn't ask about it. She'd seen Dracon weapons firing in the distance--it wasn't a shock to see one up close. She tried not to imagine what it would feel like to have that laser directed at her. Maybe like a lightsaber cut. Who knew.
They broke in, and Luce lay down. Suji wasn't an idiot--which a person would have to be to even remotely believe that Luce wanted to have a human conversation with her. She was a burden to this other woman: she couldn't fight, couldn't turn into an animal, barely knew up from down now in this crazed world. Maybe there were people who would be worse to have tagging along, but that didn't make Suji feel any more useful. And useless people were dead people. She was surprised this woman had even bothered to take her along.
You shouldn't be, Suji thought to herself. After all, if she needs a quick, safe get-away, all she has to do is do what she did to that man back there. Send a bullet through your kneecap, and you're nothing but spoiled goods. Crippled and lost and your tiny home compromised, leaving you without even the illusion of safety. She doesn't have to run faster than the Yeerks and the cops can catch her--just faster than you.
It was a sour thought, and she glanced over at Luce whenever she spoke. Suji was mildly surprised that the other woman didn't just roll over and sleep, or at least pretend to sleep to avoid any conversation. Suji knew that if Luce was part of the resistance, she probably wasn't monstrous to leave a girl to die (or get enslaved) after wrecking her home. At least not a girl whose name she bothered to learn. Probably.
But all's fair in love and war, isn't it? She internalized that bitter thought. When she spoke, she knew her face would betray none of what she felt, none of the dialogue. Her features would be clear of the deep mistrust and anger she felt (more at herself than anyone else), but they wouldn't be dopey or naively over-trusting, either. Just her. Just blank.
"Thanks," Suji replied. That was all she had to say about that. She didn't want to talk it over, especially not with this woman. Hell, she doubted she ever wanted to talk about what had just happened with anyone. She just wanted to have time to sit and think quietly about it. If anything, it was possible that Suji wanted to talk to Luce less than Luce wanted to talk to Suji. But, like the other woman, she would out of necessity. "So, what happens tomorrow? We part ways in the morning? You do whatever job it is you have to do, I try to find another place to squat in? Maybe spend the remaining hours in my life as a free human trying to find this resistance?" Suji tried her damnedest to keep the anger out of her voice, but at the very end, the slightest shade of it eeked in. She blamed the recent circumstances.