Bastion 2 - Chapter 5

Fear overtook all thought, and I dropped the sacks of rice where I stood. I rushed to the door and threw it open to hear Daegon screaming, “Stop, get off!” Daegon was beating his fists against a man in a tattered gray cloak on the front of the motorbike.

I rushed down the street toward them, yelling for Daegon, Se-hun, or anyone to help as the bike sped off toward the outskirts of town.

“Stop that thief!” I heard a gruff man shout far behind me as I pumped zo into my legs and chased after them.

“Mae, help!” I called as my heart pounded in time with my feet. The man on the front threw an elbow into Daegon’s face and he rolled backwards off the bike—

But his cape caught on the seat!

Daegon grabbed at his neck, pulling on the ratty cloth tied too tightly to escape. The thief drove on, dragging Daegon behind him.

“Mae!” I screamed in desperation and suddenly, I felt the bike again. The curves and creases, bumps and welds. I felt my way to the engine and cut the feed of ma munje. The bike slowed and I pushed myself forward as Daegon’s face went from red, to purple.

“Hold on, just hold on,” I yelled.

Daegon’s hands went slack and his head rolled to the side. The bike began to wobble and the thief looked over his shoulder at me with a snarl.

“Go away! I need it!” He screamed as putrid yellow ma munje burst from his hands into the motorbike. My connection to the engine died as he forced the last of my munje from the reservoir.

Se-hun blazed past me, his face contorted with anger. He pulled up next to the thief and kicked the bike with a burst of black zo. Se-hun and his bike hurdled left and the thief tipped and skidded right.

Daegon’s lips were blue when I reached him. I ripped the cape at the neck and he rolled free into my arms. I shook him gently. “Get up,”

Mae boomed through the fear in my mind. “Put him on his back, tilt his head, plug his nose, and blow air into his mouth. Do this twice.”

I did as she ordered.

“Good, now put your hands on his chest, here,” a blue “X” appeared in my vision over Daegon’s sternum. “Push down with force in time with this beat.”

A drum beat in my mind and I pushed down to the rhythm.

“Breath again,” she ordered, and I followed as tears burned my eyes.

I blew into his mouth and pumped his chest over, and over, until finally, he gasped. I pulled him up into a hug, squeezing him tightly.

“You’re okay, you made it.” I whispered into his hair.

‘Thank you.’ I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes as I imagined what would’ve happened without Mae. I saw Daegon resting amid a bed of roses on a tall pyre in the yard, mother dressed in black, a torch in her hand as she sobbed. I pulled down a deep breath and willed the images to stop. He was alive. He was okay.

There was a deep groan and the motorbike shifted beside me. I opened my eyes to see the thief, still half pinned under the machina, shaking his head with confusion. My tears stopped as fire blazed in my heart.

Black zo rippled over my body and filled my vision. I could hear Mae’s distant pleading, but I couldn’t stop. I set Daegon down and stood over the bike, looking on the pathetic ganhanwho almost killed my brother.

I pulled the bike off him in a single fluid movement, then wrapped my hand around his throat. He kicked and sputtered as I yanked him from the ground. His eyes were bloodshot and dingy gray. His broken nails clawed at my hand and his bare feet kicked at my shins. I squeezed as the black closed in around my vision and all I saw was his despicable face.

“Jiyong, stop!” Mae boomed in my mind just as pain lanced through my lungs. I curled back in on myself and dropped the thief as blue lightning zapped across my chest. I panted as the black, zo infused tunnel vision faded.

Daegon stepped up beside me. His face was red and streaked with tears, snot running down his lips as he sobbed, “Don’t kill him. You’ll get beaten.”

I pulled myself up and shook off the buzz from Mae’s warning. The pain had been swift, and intense, but dissipated quickly. I looked back at the thief lying prone on the ground. He was still breathing, so I hadn’t crushed his throat.

I rubbed Daegon’s back as he cried. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

“Little help,” Se-hun gasped and I spun on my heel. I ran to him, Daegon close in tow, and we pulled the bike off Se-hun.

“Stay with him,” I told Daegon and looked back at the thief.

An older man who’d been well-fed his whole life was wheezing his way down the street toward us, but it appeared he’d still be a few moments. I stepped closer to the unconscious thief in the gray cloak. There were red marks in the shape of my hand at his throat, but then another mark stood out to me. I bent down and turned his chin to better see the five red dots below his ear.

“Those are puncture marks, for sure,” Mae spoke calmly in my mind. “There’s something wrong with him. His nanites are all flowing in a strange way, and I’m detecting a signal reverberation from them.”

‘What does that mean?’ I scowled down at the man as he mumbled incoherently in his sleep.

Mae sighed. “I don’t know yet. If can you pull some of his ma munje from the motorcycle reservoir, maybe I can analyze the signal.”

I looked back for the bike I’d tossed and found it laying in the center of the road, front wheel bent. I cringed as I imagined how upset Aera was going to be when she saw it… but she’d be happy to know we were all safe. I pulled it upright and pushed down the kickstand, then placed my hand over the seat.

My ma munje swirled down into the tank, then pulled a small bit of the thief’s munje back with it. Sickly yellow mist drifted out of the reservoir and into my hand. My ma and the thief’s pushed and pulled in my palm, warring against one another as my munje worked to convert his into something usable for me.

The violent shimmers and shakes subsided until I felt that all the munje in my palm was mine to command. I pulled it back into my body, feeling the taint of whatever drugs the thief was using crawl across my skin. The munje flowed up my arm, bringing a shiver with it, and left a bitter taste at the back of my throat.

“Analyzing,” Mae stated coolly.

The well-fed man finally arrived on the scene. He was dressed in an alchemist’s apron, stained with caustic materials and dyes. His black hair was falling out of the oil hold he used to slick it back, and a sheen of sweat sat on his forehead.

“You caught’m,” he remarked as he paused for a breath.

I nodded to the man who must’ve been the shop owner the thief had stolen from as I stepped closer. I knelt at the thief’s side as his sleep-talk went on. He was saying something about “The crescent moon,” and, “Sharp in my blood,” which made my skin crawl. His face was gaunt, like my mother’s had been not long ago. I recalled the desperation in his voice as he tried to warn me away. What was going on inside him?

“You did good work, boy,” the healthy shop owner said as he huffed and puffed his way closer.

“What did he steal?” I asked as I stepped back from the thief.

“What he took’s my business,” the shop owner barked with a hint of panic.

I stood and stepped back from the thief, allowing the shop owner to collect what was his. He searched through the man’s pockets and pulled free an ornate wooden box no longer than his hand. It was a deep red with an engraving on the top I couldn’t make out. It was painted with silver, and the colors of the five munje. The shop owner ferried it away into his apron and straightened up before wiping his forehead with a cloth.

He turned to me, hand held out. “For your trouble,” he said, and I took what he offered; one silver coin—ten guli.

“Thank you, sir.” I bowed and he gave a curt jerk of his head before waddling back down the street.

Se-hun groaned as he stepped up beside me. “So, what do we do with him?”

In real outer-city, the shop owner wouldn’t have left him here. The other people on the street watching from far away—trying to catch a glimpse of the action—wouldn’t have left him here like this. But Pi-Ki was as close to inner-city as outer-city got, and the customs seemed to rub off on the people who lived here. There weren’t interested in helping one another, especially not a junky like the thief.

I sighed and crossed my arms. “He needs help. I think he’s on something. His munje was tainted.” I looked down the road back into Pi-Ki. A few streets in there was a tall sign with a glowing green symbol for Li. That would do.

“Daegon, stay here with Se-hun,” I ordered, and he nodded, his hand absently ringing his throat. I stopped, patting his shoulder. “We’ll put some mint salve on that when we get home, okay?” He nodded again, giving the briefest smile.

I knelt and lifted the thief up into my arms, instantly regretting my choice. His scent was foul from afar, and rancid up close. Old, sour sweat stained his loose dobok, and there were several unidentifiable stains on his pants that I didn’t want Mae to identify.

He was lighter than I expected, a telling sign of his health. It only took a few short minutes to walk him to the clinic. When I stepped through the door, the old woman behind the counter eyed me.

“No! No junkies!” she declared and pointed me toward the door.

I looked down at the mumbling man and his purpling neck. I had done that to him, and I needed to undo it. “I’ll pay for his treatment. His neck is injured.”

“Show me the guli,” she snapped as she rose from her seat like a hound on the hunt.

I laid the thief gingerly against the wall and leaned him up to a potted plant. “How much is it?” I asked as I stuck my hands in my pockets, feeling out my money. There was at least one-hundred and sixty guli left by the feel of the coins, and I only needed one-twenty for the rice.

The old woman stood over the thief with her hands on her hips. Her graying hair was curled nicely, and there was a soft dusting of face paint that highlighted her blue eyes. She used no ry to hide her age, which made me wonder if it was lack of skill, or lack of food.

She hummed loudly, then squinted up at me. “Fifty.”

My mouth dropped. “You can’t be serious?”

Her frown deepened. “I am! What if he steals my supplies, then what can I do? Fifty or get out!”

I pulled out five silver coins and passed them to the woman.

“What’s your name,” she said as she snatched the money and returned to her desk.

“Law, Jiyong.”

Silvery ry munje leaked from her fingertip and onto a page in a thick, black book. “City?”

“Namnak.”

“His name?”

I looked back at the thief. “I don’t know.”

She snapped her book shut. “Fine. I’ll send word when he’s healed. If he does damage, I will charge you. Okay?”

I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t just leave him. I dipped my head to the woman. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Pay me! Now, get out.” She harrumphed and pointed toward the door.

I returned to the shop where thankfully, no one had taken the rice I’d left sitting on the floor. I was able to haggle the shopkeeper down to one hundred guli for the twenty kilos, and made my way back out to the bikes where Se-hun and Daegon waited. With the bike tire bent, it was impossible to drive. Though I had the know-how to fix it, I didn’t have to tools. Se-hun went on ahead with Daegon and the rice.

“Anything?” I asked Mae as I walked the dilapidated bike home.

She appeared in my vision beside me, walking at my pace. “His nanites were badly corrupted. Whatever he’s on, he’s been on it for at least a few months. I was able to decrypt a bit of the signal, but it wasn’t anything much. The reverb was just his nanites sending back standard health information, nothing that seems important.”

I scowled. “Sending it where?”

“It was hard to tell. Your detection range still isn’t that wide, but when you walked him back toward the city, the time between reverbs reduced, so it may be in the direction of the kingdom.”

“What would someone want with that information?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t guess. What’s weird is… it was written in my language—an old code language.”

“Someone figured out the language of machina?” I half turned to her as I walked the broken bike.

“I don’t think so,” she said as she shook her head. The space between her brows pinched, and her forehead wrinkled in thought.

“What is it?” I asked, knowing she was holding back. If only I could read her mind like she read mine.

She smiled. “You wouldn’t want to, trust me.” The smile melted away and she sighed. “I don’t know yet. I don’t want to tell you something that might not be real.”

I stopped. “Mae, we’re in this together.” I knocked my knuckles against my chest and held them out to her. She did the same and her ghostly hand bumped mine with a tingle of cool.

“I’m worried someone has found another ghost like me. The signature on the code was advanced—but not just advanced. It was…” she broke off for a beat, then looked back to me with fear. “It was me.”