Unknown Sins
An Excerpt (copyright Cage Dunn 2016)
“The final solution – that’s where they’re up to. The end. For us. For humans and animals and this world. The end.”
Tears slid down her face. A crack of sound burst from her chest up to the throat, choked its way out. She had to finish. Now. There wasn’t time to . . .
“Narwa – the ‘retirement’ island? That’s a death camp. People die, are turned into Nutri-Brix, salted with DezDruz, fed back to the reduced population.
“Three city-states – that’s it! That’s all of humanity! Boralla, Mullewa, and Narowii. Narowii, our home, scheduled for sanitisation today. Re-ionised. Radiated out of . . .” Her words tailed off. Stopped. Her mouth closed.
Two big drips plipped from her lips to the floor. A loud plop as they landed. A second plip as they bounced up and re-fell into the drip-pond.
Nothing moved. Aren’s pupils slowly dilated, bigger and bigger. Nothing else stirred. No sounds but the echoes of her words. No sensations of air touched her skin.
A long moment. Issi moved one wing, whispered his way out, sang a song of sadness and endings. Aisa lowered one eyelid, lifted her head, closed the eye, snorted.
The spell broke with a roar. Aren leaned heavily on the benchtop as he stood up. Blood dripped down his face.
“I knew it was DezDruz – I knew it!”
Tiera wouldn’t say anything – his problem, to deal with in his own way. Deal with it however he needed, when he had time for it. Not now. There were other things to do.
“Aren – who? Who can get there? Who can stop them?” Make him focus on a task, get him to move and act and do something. “How?”
She grabbed what remained of the bandages and manipulated her fingers over his skin, found the flap of skin under his hair and sealed it with a tenix-clip and wrapped the bandage around his forehead. That would have to do. He could live with the bruise that ran down the left side of his face and jaw.
“Aren?”
A flash of gold in the outer iris; the eyelids closed, slowly; it sat there a few seconds, opened. He smiled.
“I know what to do – but we need to get out and find a vehicle.” He stopped. “Did that thing – that blast you did – knock out the magnetos? Can we still use vehicles?”
Tiera smiled. One word should answer that.
“Thrum.”
He grabbed her hand and they ran from the room, Aisa in front, head down, tail straight back. They didn’t have time to discuss anything. This time they had to trust implicitly, totally, or . . .
The thrum vehicle was there, under the overhang, covered in dust and tarps and dead sticks. And a lot of spiders. And a variety of poos – large and small, soft and hard, pellets and plops. The empty space that recently held the other thrum vehicle, the smaller one, was taken over as a den. Some type of animal wrapped the detritus into a cosy shelter. Two sets of dark eyes glittered from deep within the dim entrance.
Tiera looked away. A parent would be close. Another being who’d protect her young. Like Issi.
“All pack, talla. All.”
***
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