The Fallen

Carly shrugged, feeling the softness of the animal skin on her back. She felt much more comfortable with the soft skin covering her, mostly hiding her alien implants. The pair walked down the streets and into the deserted dark area that made up the vast part of the floor. Row after row of tents stood in jumbled disarray stretching into the dark distance, all the way to the cavern wall far away, under the thin yellow lines of light from the council’s offices up by the roof.

“Everything is empty now.” Holman stated, waving his hand out at the expanse of tents. “Once there were scores of families in these tents – a hundred years ago maybe. Now there’s just us meagre few-hundred, living in one corner. Here, settle down and rest in here.” Holman pulled aside the door of a tent, seemingly identical to the others. “I’ve gotta go see Besaron now, find out what in the hell’s going on. I won’t be long.”

Carly stepped into the darkness of the tent, making out a thick soft bed on the floor, a few fur rugs, and not much else. She turned to Holman, as he was about to leave. “Wait…”

“It’s OK. I won’t be long, you’ll be fine on your own. Just rest a while.”

“This Medea of yours, did you meet… her?” Holman asked from his seat near a wide, lit clearing. Some of the natives were performing a play under the spotlights, apparently a popular evening entertainment for the citizens of Sanctuary; Carly did not understand what it was about and besides, wasn’t paying any attention. She took another sip of the flavoursome wine in a thick ceramic mug on the table.

“Yeah, she’s like, the Mistress of the palace.” Carly replied, setting her cup down on the table.

“How do you know she’s a she? The aliens are asexual.”

“She’s not an alien. She’s human.” Carly stopped as Holman’s eyebrows raised. “She’s blue.”

Holman gasped, almost knocking over his cup as he jumped forward in his seat. “Blue?”

“Yeah. She’s one of your Blues.”

“Now this is going to flip Besaron right out. The Blues disappeared long ago. Maybe she’s a fake – even if she was human, she sure as hell ain’t any more – she’s been alive as long as records exist.”

“She’s immortal?”

“Modified, I guess. The aliens keep their leaders alive forever.” Holman explained. Carly shrugged, and took another sip on her wine. “I’ll have to tell Besaron. There’s reports that the aliens know where we are, and they’re going to wipe us out pretty soon.”

Carly felt her belly tighten up with worry and fear. Having abandoned her duties as a slave and fled to Sanctuary, she was unlikely to be treated well if she was recaptured. “Do they have a plan?”

“Almost. This symbol of yours, it’s a religious marking. The aliens don’t understand religion, so they don’t understand its significance. The spies here have been looking for the Medea’s palace for years. About five local years ago one group reported that they thought they’d found it, so they sent in a team to recon the building. None of them ever came back.”

“What were they looking for in the palace?”

“A computer. The Medea is in charge of planetary security. The central computer controls the security grid for the entire planet. If we could knock out that computer, we could stage an uprising.”

“With three-hundred of you?”

“Hell, we could escape back to Earth. There’s a starport at the foot of the mountains, a day’s walk from here – if only we could shut down security for a little while, we could steal an alien ship and evacuate the whole city back to Earth.”

Carly sat back in her chair and looked across the clearing at the actors, leaping silently around like ballet-dancers. “So this plan goes in motion then?”

“Besaron will want to speak to you tomorrow.”

“Holman didn’t tell you, did he?” Carly rolled over on her bed to look at the speaker: a red-haired woman, older than her – perhaps early thirties, slender and attractive. As Carly blinked in the dim light she noticed the outline of hard objects under the woman’s sash; when she saw Carly studying her body she began to unfasten the tie. Carly blushed almost immediately at being caught looking at her and was about to apologise, to look away and boil in her own embarrassment, but a shiny object under the woman’s robe caught her eye. She looked back and gasped: the woman’s sash fell to the floor and Carly saw she was a slave just like her, complete with implants, breasts restrained by a thin band, nipples covered by metal coins, sex locked away from her touch by a metal shield.

“Didn’t tell me about you?” Carly replied, astonished and slightly upset.

“Didn’t tell you about the juice in his nutrient packs.”

“What about it?”

The woman’s face turned to an angry snarl. “It makes you so fucking horny.”

“It does?” Carly replied, gasping with shock. “I mean, is that what it is?” The incessant throbbing between her legs had become gradually worse during the day, especially when she was left alone. Trying to sleep had become a wet, hot nightmare, writhing under her covers as she struggled to ignore her burning sex.

“Something in that fruit is an aphrodisiac. The girls here drink a cupful on their wedding night, it’s an old tradition. The lab guys here say there’s nothing else that matches the nutrient chemicals as close, but I wonder if there’s some sicko in the lab who does it to me for fun.” The woman spat, clearly annoyed. Carly wondered what to say in response as an awkward silence began to grow.

“How long have you been here?”

“A few… Earth time, two or three years, maybe. We’re not really sure how long a year is here compared to Earth.”

“I’m sorry.” Carly said, uncertain what else to say.

“Don’t be. I was a slave for ten years before that. I might have worked hard but at least I got some every coupla weeks. This is hell in comparison.” The woman sat down on Carly’s bed, seemingly inviting herself for a conversation.

“Do you really mean that?” Carly asked. “Would you go back?”

“No, I guess not. Hell…” The woman lifted Carly’s duvet and slipped into the bed next to her, scooting up against her back and holding her in her arms. She began to rock her body gently, concentrating around her hips in a soothing manner that seemed to calm the fire between her legs instead of fuelling it. “I find this helps.” She explained. “I know what I really want right now. What about you?”

Carly sighed as the answer came instantly to her head. “I want Lonnie.”

“Your companion? You really miss her?”

“Yeah. I love her so much, and I don’t know what she’s going through now.” Carly felt a slow swell of repressed sorrow break out from her insides; she had avoided thinking about Lonnie as much as possible and the sudden memories overcame her in ever-ascending waves. She turned her head and began to sob into the soft fur of her pillow.

“Come on, really, you don’t love her.” The woman said in a soothing but serious voice. “Not really. What you love is some abstract of a girl, twisted until she’s nothing but a slave to you. She’s not the real person any more. You can’t really love that, it’s not true love.”

Carly felt a wave of anger wash over her, but of course – the woman holding her and rocking her had been through everything she had, long ago, and she’d survived ten years of it. She stopped crying to reply. “Do you really think that’s true?”

“That you don’t really love her? It doesn’t matter what I think. I shouldn’t have said it.”

“No, I mean that she’s not a real person?”

The woman was quiet for a moment and Carly began to wonder whether she would answer. “I spent a long time thinking about it, after I was freed.” She explained. “It’s impossible to go through what we’ve been through without being damaged in some way. The fear, the torment, the longing, it changes us. It reduces us.”

“In what way?”

“They made you love a girl, for one. You could never make true love to her, but you thought about it. You wanted to.” The woman said quietly, yet firmly. She must have sensed Carly was about to say something, because she quickly added: “Don’t tell me you didn’t want to, I’ve been there too.”

Carly sighed and remained silent for a while. There was obviously no arguing with this woman, and besides, she was right. Carly had wanted to make love to Lonnie, properly, the way gay women had been doing for millennia. She held that thought for a moment, then replied. “You’d say that reduces us? Because they made us love women?”

“Yes.” The woman answered quickly.

“But why…” Carly tried to argue but was cut off.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not homophobic, that isn’t what I mean. Look, they changed what you are. They changed your companion. They beat her and tormented her until her mind broke, and she was forever changed. Just like they did to you. They took away our humanity.”

Carly let the words sink in, understanding the sentence but not the sentiment. “Maybe I have been changed. Maybe I’ll never be…” She paused, suddenly aware that she couldn’t find the words to describe herself before she had been captured. “…Whoever I was before. But Iam still me, and I still know how to love.” She began to break down into a fit of sobs, pulling her fur pillow into her face to dry her eyes. In a mumbled, squeaky voice she added: “I love Lonnie.”

Escape

Carly wandered out of the long tunnel and back into the bright daylight, basking in its glorious brilliance and opening her arms to embrace the cool breeze. She could never live underground like the natives, she thought to herself as she stepped quietly away from the cave, across the clearing towards the gorge which dropped down steeply to the tumbling white water below.

The wind whistled deeply as it blew up the canyon, making Carly’s chest judder in awe, making her heart race in something akin to fear, such was the depth and power of the sound. She calmed herself, realising she was becoming worried over little things – after all, the canyon was just a big wind tunnel, acting like a giant flute when the gusts ran up it quickly and resonating with a sound as deep as the planet’s breath.

Carly stared straight out at the rolling grey mountains on the other side of the gorge, stretching away to the distance as far as the eye could see. Upstream to the right the mountains were taller, craggier, their sharp peaks sticking out of a snow blanket, some tall and straight like spires, others jagged and sharp like daggers – the weapons of fallen soldiers and their monuments standing proud against the sky. To the left the hills gradually descended until they became brown with distance, lowering into the plains that led their way down to the alien’s filthy civilisation.

What a waste, Carly thought to herself. To leave behind this ancient city and its background, to leave the beautiful mountainside, to walk away from what has always been home to the three-hundred people now busily packing away their lives. Such a shame for the citizens of Sanctuary – but what choice did they have? Carly had been surprised at how many had chosen to leave behind their home, at least in the short term. Those who would have chosen to stay had been convinced otherwise: Sanctuary was being evacuated, the last small stronghold of the ancient underground civilisation was finally moving back to the Home World, back to Earth, on whatever star ship the travellers could steal from the alien starport.

Quiet footsteps approached from behind; Carly didn’t turn around, still gazing out at the beautiful alien hills in front of her. She wanted to remember this land – remember it completely, as if it had always been her home: it was her Sanctuary, her place to hide and rest, her place to plan how to free her lover.

“I like it up here too.” A female voice said beside her. Carly recognised the voice as the slave woman who had comforted her the previous night. Carly had woken early and slipped out from under the woman’s arm, leaving her dozing on the bed as she wandered around the shantytown in the dim half-light. Then Holman had found her, and she had sat with him and Besaron and any number of spies and warriors until they had formulated a plan. After checking with the lab technicians for some modifications to her implants, Carly had been sent to the surface to await her transport back to the Medea’s palace; she had chosen to spend her last few moments of safety alone.

“It’s beautiful.” Carly said after a pause.

“It’s bleak.” The woman replied. Carly shifted on her foot and stretched her shoulders.

“I could live here.” Said Carly, knowing that inside she meant it – the beauty of the mountains and the freshness of the wind was soothing, calming, and just by looking out across the valley she could forget for a moment what had happened to her, and what she had become because of it.

“People do live here.”

“That’s not what I mean. I can see why people came here, thousands of years ago.”

“Not all of the planet is like this.”

“This is the only free place left. But these mountains, they’re so beautiful.”

“They’re lonely. If it wasn’t for Sanctuary there would be nobody here. Without the aliens there would be nobody here. Nobody would ever live here, amongst all this rock, amongst all this loneliness.”

“I would live here.” Carly said again, surprised at how opinionated the woman was.

“One day you’ll remember this conversation, and you’ll understand.” The woman replied. Carly ignored her and again they were silent as they gazed across the mountains. Carly picked out a tiny outcrop of tall, thin plants growing in a crag on the opposite face of the valley, clinging on for dear life to the rock and whatever nutrients were dissolved in it. She realised nothing had been said for some time, and became worried that an embarrassing silence was about to set in.

“You didn’t tell me your name.” She said.

“The people here call me Tahlia. They say it suits me.”

“What’s your real name?” Carly asked, turning to look at the redhead for the first time since they had stood atop the gorge.

Tahlia paused, staring out at the same spot Carly had seemed to fix on. Eventually she took a short breath and spoke: “I don’t remember.”

***

Carly sat hunched in the small autogyro as it skimmed the plains towards the Medea’s palace. Her detailed knowledge of the palace and its computer systems was one of the key elements of the escape plan, but it also involved a team of spies and the starport near Sanctuary, and a good deal of luck. Pushing her nerves to one side, Carly checked her right arm again, making sure that the four extra wires added by the lab technicians were still connected firmly through a hole in the back of her toolbox, and that the cables were still taped to her back, not hanging loose. The far ends of the wires were spliced into cables running out of the back of her knee and down to her false ankle. The lab technicians explained that they could feed power to her toolbox from her own internal power source through a live cable in her knee. They didn’t know how well the toolbox would run on power from her carbohydrate reactor, or how long her nutrient pack would last operating at such a level, but it had worked when she tested it in the lab, and so had to be worth a try. Without it she would not be able to complete the mission.

The console screen on Carly’s wrist box had been rewired to a chronometer, synchronised with Sanctuary, the First Team and the Second Team. She had a number of mental markers to remember – timing had to be precise, otherwise she would be captured. A shiver of nervous anticipation zipped up Carly’s spine as she rehearsed what she was about to do, and what was at state if she or the First or Second teams failed. She calmed herself when she felt her left arm clicking slightly; its extra bulk was attributed to a short-barrelled shotgun that had been strapped hastily where her laser once resided. Of course, she had only ever used the laser to weld, but somehow its presence had been comforting – it would have made a good weapon, if only she could have used it against the aliens. The shotgun was heavy and awkward and could only fire one round at a time instead of a constant beam like her laser, but if the worst happened she would have something to fall back on. But it was best not to get jumpy: the safety catch was engaged, which was lucky – nervously twitching the fingers of her left hand could cause a misfire.

Carly clicked her right fingers and her ultra-sensitive pliers extended, ready for use. She smiled proudly to herself – despite her growing fear and anxiety she could not help but feel a tremendous sense of power. Her alien captors had heavily modified her body, but the Sanctuary spies had brought their most powerful modifications under her control, and she would use that power against the aliens who had brutally molested her.

The autogyro’s console bleeped once and the plane began to descend gently to the rough ground below. The Medea’s palace was still a fair distance away, a collection of blue spires on the horizon; the plane would be detected if it flew too close. Instead it had been programmed to touch down early, grazing a short line of dusty dirt as the propellers flipped upwards and settled the craft roughly on the ground. Carly shook her head and cleared her eyes of dust, quickly jumping off the craft and looking for her marker.

Only a few metres away lay the thick shining lines of the railway line, disappearing over the horizon to the left and into the palace to the right. A narrow stream ran under a concrete bridge – Carly recognised this as her landing marker. Quickly she dragged the ultra light aircraft into the stream, grimacing when its vile murkiness splashed onto her foot and ran through the joints and bearings on her false ankle. Part of her began to hope that the joint was fully waterproof and wouldn’t seize on her right when she really needed it.

As Carly pulled the craft under the bridge and out of sight she noticed the familiar whistle of rail-song. A locomotive was approaching, a train that she had to board, a train that she had to stop by hotwiring a safety relay on the bridge section of the rail. With renewed urgency Carly jumped up the embankment to a small control box at the trackside and pulled the cover open, manually flicking the relay triggers with her circuit tester attachment. As she worked so the rails rang louder until the floor began to judder and a distant screech rolled in from the horizon; with her heart in her mouth Carly flipped one last relay then dived for cover, rolling down the bank and hiding under the bridge.

Carly’s mechanical heart thundered like the ground she knelt upon as the huge locomotive drew closer, slowing down to stop just past the small bridge, silent except for the ticking of its cooling brakes and the rattling of its cargo on the low-loader carriages. Carly quietly shinned up the embankment and slid herself under the engine, her mind filled with the pain and injury she would likely suffer if the train began to move as she was crawling between its wheels. She felt herself breathe a long sigh of relief when her body was finally clear of the rails, underneath the oily bottom of the engine.

Looking up Carly found her hiding place – a plate hanging underneath one of the motors, oily and hot but safe – Carly pulled herself onto it as quietly as she could and lay down, trying to ignore the hot sticky sensation of dirty oil rubbing itself down her bare back. After a short time the train began to move again, its thundering noise and hot smell and rhythmic rocking reminding Carly of her days in the transport depot, working on relays and pistons underneath the rails while carriages rolled past overhead. Dirt and dust flicked up from the rails and stuck to Carly’s oily skin as the train moved towards the palace, Carly’s destination and next challenge on the mission to shut down the security computer and get back to the starport. Carly had made a few subtle changes to the agreed plan that would allow her to rescue Lonnie on the way, or die trying; at the point at which she would implement her changes her necessity in the mission would have expired, so she could risk herself without cost to Sanctuary.