Very Foreign Country (Day 22, and the Last)

A/N: Well, here we are- the very last installment. It’s quite abrupt, I realize, and quite hurried at the end, but I was already over word count and was trying to find a stopping point. Also, this isn’t the original ending I had in mind, but it’s what worked with what I was trying to do. So- on with the final act of the show.

***

Ryan took a swipe at him with his free hand. A second later he felt a sharp jerk and found himself caught up in Kaan’s full nelson, feet dangling off the floor. Vaals pulled his gun and put it against Ryan’s forehead.

“Stop.” Vaals visibly relaxed as Ryan became very, very still. “Thank you.”

“What is going on-” a voice broke in. “Uh-”

“Don’t move!” Thae snarled as Kaan let Ryan down. “Come here or I pop your balloon head!”

Ryan turned to look. A gray Hinney was standing in the doorway, apparently frozen in fear of the weapon being trained on him. He looked different from the others, through- his skin had brownish patches on it, and the huge black eyes had lost the gloss that Ryan had always seen. Thae gestured with his muzzle, causing the Hinney to reluctantly step into the room.

“Close the door.” Thae said. The Hinney did so, but straightened up.

“I don’t know who you are, but you’ve just made a terrible mistake.” He walked over to a chair and sat down heavily. Ryan heard what sounded like joints popping. “Do you really think you could just walk in and face one of your Creators with-”

“Kadaaaa? Shut up.”

The Hinney started. “Mnnnnnda!”

“Yes, it’s me.” Mnnnnda reached over and put his hand on Thae’s pistol. “Why am I not surprised to find you doing this.” He closed his hand around the gunbarrel and shifted it a little bit. “Aim a little higher, Thae. Between the eyes isn’t always fatal in our species.”

“I see you’re looking very good for your age.” Kadaaaa said. “I take it you managed to find the money for life extension.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t. Given what the Project paid and this lucrative little scam, you should’ve been able to get it ten times over.” Mnnnnda paused. “But that’s not right, is it?”

“Of course not! What do you think, I’m just exploiting these Hura for the money?”

“No.” Mnnnnda said. Ryan stared at him. “You’re not doing the exploiting, Kadaaaa- you’re just working for the one who is. That’s why you haven’t bought yourself a longer life yet- he doesn’t pay that well.”

“How dare you-”

“Spare me!” Mnnnnda barked. “After how long we worked together, I know that you’re not smart enough to organize something like this and keep it running. I’d bet money that it’s really Lekal in charge- this sounds like just the sort of thing he’d do.”

“Lekal headed the Life and Death committee! He was-”

“He was always sending me memos about interspecies genital compatibility.” Mnnnnda said. He turned to Thae again. “Don’t kill him yet.”

That was when Ryan caught it- Mnnnnda’s head swiveled a bit too far, putting the back of the room in his peripheral vision for a moment. “Though I have to wonder. Did you think everyone in the Project would just go along with this, you shamelessly bleeding our creations dry?” Mnnnnda said. Ryan turned around. One of Jaast’s eyes was open, and the other one was so swollen that it couldn’t have opened anyway. Kaan was leaning over his fallen brother, whispering to him.

“This is absurd.” Kadaaaa said to Thae. “Don’t listen to him. He’s jealous of our achievements! The breakthroughs we’ve made in the project-”

“Really?” Mnnnnda said. “What have you achieved?”

“You said Hura life extension was impossible!” Kadaaaa said.

“It is impossible. We used up all the tricks when we assembled the genome.”

“That’s what you think!” Kadaaaa said. He turned back to Thae. “Please- you have to listen- don’t let him destroy everything I’ve done-”

“Honestly,” Vaals said, “I can follow about half of what you’re saying.”

“Don’t let him confuse you!” Kadaaaa shouted.

“But I know this: if you’re in charge of this chapter, taking you out will cause a power struggle. Give us a lot of time to disappear.” Vaals raised his gun. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you. I’ll count twelve.”

“Yes, Kadaaaa.” Mnnnnda said. “Tell me, in detail-”

“Eleven.” Vaals said.

“You said you’d count twelve!” Kadaaaa protested.

“I did count twelve. That was it. Ten.”

“Go on. What breakthroughs has this organization made with all that time and money?” Mnnnnda said.

“Nine.”

“We- we figured out how to modulate the cellular decay by throwing a redundancy into the twelfth-”

“Spare me. I remember that modification,” Mnnnnda said.

“Eight.”

“The specimens started going cancerous when they were still embryonic. Try again.”

“We resequenced. . . uh. . . we resequenced the base production by. . . uh. . .”

“Go on.” Mnnnnda said.

“Seven.”

“Please- please, Mnnnnda, I’ll do anything, just don’t-”

“No, I liked the old one better. ‘Resequenced the base production by. . . ‘ what?”

“Six.”

“Don’t let them do this! We were friends!”

“No. Not really.” Mnnnnda said. “I’m not sure I could stop them even if I wanted to.”

“Five.”

“And your explanation isn’t making me want to.”

“We- we resequenced the base production by inserting a flux capacitor sequence!” Kadaaaa wailed.

“F-” Vaals was cut off by Kadaaa dropping to the floor, most of the left side of his face gone. There was a big splash of baby-blue fluid on the wall. Everyone turned- Jaast was half sitting up against the wall, holding a pistol with both hands. Kaan was standing next to him, looking like a dad whose kid had just made valedictorian. A second later, he stooped down and took the gun back. “Good job, Jaast.”

“So you’ve found your brain again.” Vaals snarled.

“Flux capacitor.” Jaast mumbled. “I can’t believe it. A human.”

“What?” Ryan said.

“It was humiliating, wasn’t it?” Vaals said acidly. “Seeing how much they’d reduced you? How intolerant you’d become?”

Jaast’s sole open eye trained on Ryan. “I took you eye. How did you keep going?”

“He kept going because he’s more tolerant than you.” Vaals sneered.

“What? I- urk!” Ryan dropped to the ground in the fetal position; Vaals had backhanded him in the crotch.

“Like I was saying- more tolerant than you. Can’t take hits everywhere, but we’re working on that.” Vaals crouched down, brining his face right down to Jaast’s. “That’s what you’ve become, Jaast. What they did to you was make you less than even a human.”

“I’m sorry-”

“No.” Vaals grabbed his brother’s shoulder and squeezed. There was a sound like cracking bone as Jaast grimaced in pain. “When you can break my grip- then you’ll be sorry. You’ll have come back from this idiocy then, not before.” He let go. “As it is, I’m not even going to let you humiliate yourself by trying.”

“Ow- Jesus-” Ryan said, getting to his feet. “Do you keep Beelzebub on retainer as a speechwriter, or does it just run in the family?”

“Ryan, are you okay?” Mnnnnda said. “Let me- hell, give me that hand right now.”

“It’s fine.” Ryan lied. The knuckles on his right hand looked like bruise colored walnuts, and he couldn’t make a fist. “You were jawing for so long that the cuts on my palm scabbed.”

“Jawing?” Mnnnnda asked. “I don’t remember eating anything.”

“Talking. Thinking. Radioing. Whatever it is you do.” Ryan said. “How are we getting out of here? We did just murder a cult underboss.”

“Not with the ‘murder’ word again.” Kaan said. “We. . . uh. . .” he paused.

“We were somewhere else.” Vaals said. “Give me few minutes, I’ll work out the details.”

“Safety system.” Mnnnnda said. “I had no idea it was still operational- we can just walk down the tower. Easy, really, it just cuts off a little bit before the ground.” Thae shot a glance at him. “Very close to the ground. Easy fall.”

“I was meaning to ask- what is up with the sideways gravity on the outside of the tower?” Ryan asked.

“Oh- safety device. We used the top of the tower to test for high altitude performance, oddball phobias, things like that. The best way to see how the prototypes responded to needing extreme coordination and balance was to put them out there and see how they performed- it was perfectly safe, of course, but as long as they didn’t think so, we got some incredible performance data.”

“That’s awful and awesome at the same time.” Ryan admitted as Mnnnnda walked over to the window.

Mnnnnda climbed up into the hole in the wall. “The trick is, you have to jump- the system won’t catch you if you’re not in any danger.” He turned around and jumped.

“On Earth, this thing would probably get some kind of class-action lawsuit from frustrated suicides.” Ryan commented as Thae followed Mnnnnda. He climbed into the gap. “Geronimo?” He jumped and tucked his head, letting the gravity field take over and spin him around- it would have been a very cool-looking landing if he hadn’t skidded and landed on his tail bone.

A few minutes of very disorienting travel brought the six of them to the bottom of the tower. Jaast was clearly in pain, but his brothers weren’t paying attention. Ryan turned to Kaan.

“So- you three going home?”

“Yeah.” Kaan said. “About that-”

“Spare me.” Vaals growled. “‘We just took out a cult leader, Vaals, our most tolerant, dearest, best brother, will you please underwrite us moving somewhere else, preferably off-world?’ I’ll see what I can do.”

“I can take them back to the hotel.” Mnnnnda said. “If Naha’s been job hunting, maybe there’s somewhere on the way we’ll be able to drop them off.”

“Good.” Vaals said. “Ryan, you’re with me. We’re going back home.”

“Your home?” Ryan said.

“Yes.”

“Dare I ask why?”

“Because I have a sister, who’s probably wondering where her brothers have gotten to and has no idea that we’ve probably just called down the wrath of a very large local gang.” Vaals said. “That enough ‘why’ for you, shaved ape?”

“Oh. Right.”

“Which way to the nearest taxi stand?” Mnnnnda asked Kaan as the four of them peeled off.

“Well, they don’t come to this neighborhood. . .” the voices trailed off down the alley, leaving Vaals and Ryan alone. Vaals turned and began to walk briskly, eyes flicking around the dark streets. Ryan hurried after him.

“What the hell was that back there?” Ryan demanded.

“What was what?” Vaals said absently.

“You lying to your brother like that, letting him think he’d torn my eye out?”

“You’re complaining that I made you look good?”

“No- well, yes, actually.” Ryan said. “You tear me down every chance you get. Hell, you manufacture chances. Then we get to your family, to whom you have this psychotic loyalty, and you start lying to them?”

“Shaved ape- at that point, I could only tear one of you down. I could let him think a human who he knows to be worthless had made him look weak, or I could show him that you were actually worthless. He needed the humiliation more than you.” Vaals said. “He needs to build more tolerance than you.”

“Oh.” Ryan paused. “Thanks.”

“And I’ll have plenty of opportunities to tear you down in the future.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“Anytime.”

They completed their walk back to the apartment in silence, picking their way back up the horror-movie stairs into the reeking corridor. As Vaals unlocked the door and kicked it in, there was a loud click.

A visibly female Hura was standing in the corner, muzzle trained on the door; her eyes bugged as Vaals raised his hands. “Vaals?”

“Yep. Hi, Sehk.”

She put the pistol away. “What brings you here, and where the hell is everyone?”

“We got Jaast back. It got a little bloody.” Vaals said.

“Jaast is fine? In one piece?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Take me to him so I can beat the stupid out of him.”

“He, Kaan, and Thae are heading back to the lodgings where my company’s at- I’m going to see if I can get you off-world.” Vaals said. “I want my nephews to hatch- not going to happen if you don’t survive to lay the eggs.”

Sehk made an indistinct noise. “And this is the shaved ape?”

“Yeah.” Ryan held out his hand. “Ryan O’Ryan, pleasure to make your-” his eyes bugged as she clamped down on his mangled hand with her vise-like grip. “-ow-”

She flashed a grin and let go. “So- we going? Taxi stand isn’t far from here.”

“Need to bring anything?” Vaals asked as she tucked her pistol away.

“Not if we’re going to a hotel.” Sehk walked past them. “Come on.”

Ryan and Vaals followed her, Vaals pausing to close and lock the door. He threw a glance at Ryan. “No. Just- no.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Ryan protested.

“‘Pleasure?‘” Vaals repeated. “Even if she wasn’t my sister, you’re incompatible.”

“Biochemically, sure-”

“No, physically. We inherited some specifics from the Radjiccs, particularly the part about stimulated ovulation. That means the males have spikes on their-”

“TOO MUCH INFORMATION!” Ryan shouted, covering his ears with his hands.

“What’s going on?” Sekh shouted.

“Nothing.” Vaals called back. “Let’s get going, shaved ape.”

***

Ryan leaned against the wall of the hotel elevator, feeling dead. He finally had a minute to himself, and the enormity of that evening crashed into him like a runaway train. When floor number 144 finally lit up, he dragged himself out of the elevator and started scanning the numbers. 88. . . 89. . . 90. Finally. He slammed the palm of his hand against the door. “Naha! Open up!”

There was a click and the door popped ajar. “Come in!” Naha shouted.

Ryan stepped through the door into a pitched space battle. A massive planetscape was filling the room, with three spinning-top shaped satellites busily blasting a huge cruiser in half. As Ryan watched, the center of the ship buckled under the onslaught, exploding outwards in a cloud of vapor and glittering fragments. He reached out, trying to touch it.

It fizzled and vanished, along with every other component of the battle. “Oh, sorry.” Naha said. “I was watching the news- that was the Paradox Prime getting destroyed. It happened a few hours ago when Federation’s tried to retake their capital.”

“Really good holograms.” Ryan said. “The ones Ding generated were very translucent.”

“Well, ones this good require exponentially more power.” Naha said. “A lot more cost for a little more performance- but we’re currently sitting pretty, so I’m expensing everything. We can afford to relax this once. Where’s Mnnnnda?”

“He and Vaals are getting Vaals’s siblings settled in. I’m sure he’ll be around soon.” Ryan sat down heavily in one of the chairs, feeling the tension drain away.

“You look like a wreck.”

Ryan shook his head. “I’ll be fine. Mnnnnda said nothing was seriously damaged, and I get my new eye tomorrow. So how’s the war going?”

“Not as expected. The Oligs made a good first strike, but the remainder of the Federation fleet was able to mobilize a lot faster than anyone thought. They’re going to be tearing each other apart for a while.” She exhaled loudly. “At least this has left Sehah without a leg to stand on.”

“Sehah?” Ryan said. “Yeah- he was the one making a big deal about something stupid, right?”

“Yeah. Trying to ferment unrest.” Naha said dismissively. “The thing is, him trying to overthrow the Emperor was guaranteed to attract support from the Federation or the Oligs- but they’ve got their own problems now, and suddenly his friends don’t want to be seen with him. Do you want something to eat? I’ll buy.”

Ryan’s stomach grumbled. “Food sounds great.” He got to his feet and glanced at the wall where the planet had been. “So problem in the Imperium just went away, huh?”

“Yep. So- you’re omnivorous, right?”

“Right.” Ryan glanced at the wall one last time as he followed Naha out of the room. “Really, you’d almost think someone had planned it.”

FIN