With that in mind, I rushed forward. One of the cowering monsters yelled to the Wheelmaster in warning, but it came too late. The monster dodged the first Lightning Stick, but it had been a feint. When the monster jumped to its side, I wrapped a stalk around its neck. Ignoring my disgust, I pulled it closer, yanking its arms behind its back and slithering a stalk around its wrists.
“Release me or...” I began before the doors behind me opened.
Several silver-clad monsters thundered into the room, their Lightning Sticks at the ready, rage wafting from them. Behind them, more followed. I stopped counting at twenty. With three weapons, I might have been able to take a dozen of them, maybe. The Standing Ones made me a realist so there were limits to my wishful thinking and I’d more than reached them with that estimation.
I had a hostage though, and I held it in front of me, waiting for the monsters to attack. Instead, they filled the room, lining the walls and watching me. When the last of them entered and flanked the doors, a monster clad in black from its neck
to its feet stepped through the doors. The cowering monsters at the other end of the room calmed when this one entered.
Instead of the dirt or clay colored hair that covered the other monsters’ heads, both long and short, the one in black had hair the color of clouds. Wrinkles crisscrossed its tan-colored face. It walked slower, holding its head tilted up, looking down on me with its beady but intelligent eyes. It held its paw up in the air and the silver-clad monsters lowered their Lightning Sticks, still staring their hatred at me.
With so many monsters in the same chamber, I had difficulty discerning their scents. Fear, anger and horror filled the air but with that came a hint of calm, the leader I assumed.
It snapped its fingers and a shorter monster, covered in a loose white wrapping, open at the front, hurried to the leader’s side. Sweat dotted its forehead, and it reeked of fear while its eyes shifted between me and the leader. I couldn’t decide who it feared the most.
The leader barked a word and the smaller monster held up a shiny silver case, opening it. The leader pulled a device from inside. Black as its covering, it looked to be shaped to fit over the monster’s muzzle, with a smaller device connected to it with a curled vine. While the nervous monster spoke, the leader held the device over its nose and mouth and then jammed the smaller device into its ear.
“Can you understand me?” it asked, the gurgles and grunts of its brutish language replaced by words and scents I understood completely.
“I can understand you, monster,” I replied, trying to keep my fear from spreading. Even for an inquisitive mind like mine, ignorance can be bliss. I judged these animals as monsters for what they had done to me and my crew. With an inability to understand them, I could only guess as to their motives. What if they were worse than I could imagine?
On the other hand, hearing it speak in the language of my people made it more difficult for me to think of it as a monster. Along with the fear the gold-clad humans and the couple in the Dream Keeper’s hall had toward me, I worried they saw me as the monster as well. These doubts might have lead to weakness so I tried to push them away.
“Remarkable,” the monster replied, shaking its head before nodding to the small one in white, “I can’t believe you R and D guys whipped this up so fast. We’ll be able to learn much more about these things now.”
“Let me go, monster,” I demanded.
“Monster?” it replied, turning its attention back to me. “Oh, we are not monsters, we’re humans, explorers of the darkness between the stars. We seek to understand.”
“You can call yourself whatever you like,” I said, trying not to think of the fear almost everyone in the room held for me, “I know you tortured and killed my crew. That makes you a monster to me.”
“The lives of a few individuals mean little compared to the advances we can gain from studying your anatomy,” the human said, waving its hand to dismiss what I’d said as if my complaints were minor. “We have already learned so much from the others and my people tell me you are even more remarkable than them. Why are you all so different from one another? You especially? Our researchers are very excited about learning how you tick.”
“And you don’t think you’re monsters?” I muttered. If I’d worried hearing it talk in my language would force me to empathise with them, the words it spoke removed those concerns. There was always Plan B. Sure, I’d be dead by the time they cut me into little pieces but they’d pay the ultimate price as well. I could do it now, end this all before the torture. The Standing Ones might not have bred me as a killer, but some problems were too big to be solved by conventional means. That was what Plan B was for, though I wouldn’t survive it.
“There are diseases,” the black-clad human said, pausing for effect. “Diseases that have ravaged our species since the beginning. We’ve gone so far, extended our lives longer and longer but still these diseases, these cancers, they plague us. My team of researchers believe that the key is within you. You can call us monsters but with that information, with that cure, we could save trillions of lives.”
That I could understand, to a limit. What would I do to save my son’s life? Anything, I replied to myself easily, but that wasn’t true, not exactly. I’d already refused to kill the most monstrous of these humans, the Poker, because I didn’t think I could live with it when I returned home to my son.
“Saving lives is a noble goal, but at what cost?” I replied, tightening my grip on the Wheelmaster’s neck until he struggled, I’d only get one chance at this and the odds were not in my favor. The silver-clad monsters readied their Lightning Stick at my action, “I could have killed several of your crew already. I could kill you all right now. I doubt I fear death as much as you if you are willing to torture and murder others to stave it off but there is a line!”
I tossed the Wheelkeeper at the silver-clad humans closest to the monster in black. They tumbled to the floor, their limbs tangled. The leader’s eyes widened and he scrambled back, almost falling over the researcher. I sprang forward, brandishing all three of my stolen Lightning Sticks.
The rest of the silver-clad humans rushed me while their leader fled further down the hallway. I jabbed the first to reach me and it fell to the floor, spasms racking its arms. Two more ran in from the side, their sticks poised to attack. The first dodged my jab while the other thrust its Lightning Stick my way.
I saw it coming and shifted just enough for it to hit only air. Three more came at me from the other side, a fourth rushing from the front. I whipped one of my weapons toward the three, forcing them to leap back, but more followed.
Pain lanced through me and I lost sensation to half my body. Two of my weapons clattered to the floor, my stalks unable to hold on to them. I folded down and tried to scurry between a pair of silver-clad legs, dragging my unresponsive body behind me. More pain hit and I flopped to the ground, unable to move at all.
Plan B? If they would kill me anyway, why not go out on my own terms? My thoughts turned to the couple I’d interrupted in their sleeping chamber. They didn’t seem like monsters to me. Should they suffer the ultimate fate because of their leader’s choices? Did I want my last act to be mass murder, even of animals?
No. I wouldn’t do it. If they killed me and cut me up looking for their cure, they’d likely trigger it, but I wouldn’t have their lives on my hands then. The pain multiplied as more and more of the silver monsters struck me with their Lightning Sticks. At some point, my senses retracted and I fell unconscious.
Epilogue
The pain woke me, that and the smell. Every inch of my body pulsated with pain but something prevented me from moving at all. The dark chamber reeked of fear and suffering. I didn’t even need to extend my senses to know where I found myself: the Undercage.
The lights blinked on, bright and harsh as the desert sun and a familiar monster bellowed in its horrid language. Of course, the Poker would be back. It banged its Lightning Stick against the bars before opening them and walking toward me.