Sykport

Previously

Arthur was leaning over me, pressing a needle into my right arm. I jerked my arm in a reflexive movement, and I heard the needle break off under my arm. I grimaced and Arthur held my arm down with one hand and pulled tweezers out from his pocket with the other, “I apologize,” he said, “I had been waiting for you to come to and became impatient. I can pull it out, I think, if you’ll only hold still.”

“What are you…” I started, but held my quiet, for the tweezers were now below my skin, poking around. I felt my chest pumping air in and out and realized that it was hard to breathe. I touched my face with my free hand and felt a layer of sweat, and then pulled my hand out in front of my face and saw that it was a sickly yellow coloring. The fingers trembled, but I was not afraid. I then realized that I was sick. I looked past Arthur’s tweezers and his hands and saw my injured fist; it was a black and brown mottled color.

I looked all around the room and thought that I was back home, and that Bishop was coming over to play, and then thought that I was in the great spherical room with the engine and that it was torturing me to reveal the location of the cryonauts (a word I was unfamiliar with) and then finally I came back to the idea that I was no longer on the engine, that I was on foreign soil, and that I had not been having a good time of it.

I thought of my distrust of the slave owner, and desperately wished that I had not tried to escape. I cursed my rashness, and then fell calm. I turned my eyes to Arthur who was examining the broken needle tip, held between the tweezers. It was dripping a vicious black liquid. “You never told me…” He said.

“Told you what?” I saw his eyebrows relaxed, his mouth hung open slightly. He looked surprised but also resigned; grimly accepting whatever it was I hadn’t told him.

“That Livingston had cut you with her sword. You may only have minutes left to live.” Arthur ended my hopes; his words cut my thread and let it drop into the water. “And there’s something about this liquid, I know I’ve seen it before…”

Bishop knocked on the door, and Arthur turned and almost fell over, “It’s her,” he said.

“Bishop’s here?” I asked. “I thought he was supposed to arrive later.”

“Who’s Bishop? This is Livingston, I presume,” and she broke down the door. In my hallucinations I derived that she was at once my friend, Bishop, come to rescue me earlier than he’d let on. I saw his hair turn white and his masculine features turn to feminine. “Livingston!” He shouted.

She saw me prostrate on the bed, immediately, and her eye widened in delight, “I’ve wanted an excuse to kill you; harboring an escaped slave is quite a good one.”

Arthur did not reply.

Livingston stepped forward into the room, and Arthur sprinted to where his gun lay, and raised it to fire. There was a great commotion that my diseased eyes could not behold; and then Arthur lay, the gun in an outstretched arm, his chest sliced open. Livingston stood over him, perhaps laughing. I saw Arthur’s organs, though, and saw twisting snakes and worms beneath his skin. “So you are like me?” I asked.

Livingston saw me, and walked over. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes danced with malice. She prepared to cut down into me, and then there was a bright flash of light accompanied by a sickening crack, and Livingston’s shorn body fell on top of me. I weakly pushed it off, and saw Arthur slowly pulling himself into a sitting position, with his smoking gun extended to where the assailant had been standing. “Yes,” he said, “I am. I did not realize I was not unique. Until I was giving you the antidote. There is enough for me, we will both be fine. But we will need to escape. Rasputina will kill us both once she finds her sister.”

I found my strength (which had helped me remove Livingston’s body from on top of mine) and lifted myself until I was sitting. I watched Arthur’s chest seal itself, and then watched as he injected the antidote into his chest. “Antidote for what?” I asked.

“Her sword was poisoned,” Arthur said. “It should have killed you seconds after it struck your blood, but like me, you are stronger than that.” He walked around a corner and I heard him rummaging around in one of the other rooms, items fell onto each other. Some sounded like clothes, and other items were distinctly metal in nature. He returned with two backpacks, one in each hand. “We must leave now, grab this,” he tossed the backpack in his right hand to me, “and take Livingston’s sword. A simple stab will quell most opponents outright while the poison persists, and when it fades, you will still have a fine blade.”

I slipped the backpack around my arms and, grabbed the corrupted sword (a rapier, I believe it to be called) and then slid it into Livingston’s leather sheath. I untied it from her waist and then affixed it to mine.

Arthur, at the door, beckoned to me, “We must leave, now,” and he stepped out. I left the hut behind, and smell of burnt atmosphere heavy upon the air.

Arthur led me through the forest for some time (I cannot say how long, for I was distracted by my thoughts and by the gnats); we crossed the river at a bridge and then followed the river to the edge of the building. The trees became less and less sparse until the grass turned to loose soil and finally metal. The wind brought snow towards us, and I was cold again. Arthur turned to me, with a worried face, “This is as far as I’ve ever come since my time here. There is no turning back.”

“Why do you tell me?” I asked. “I thought we had to run, that there was no other option.”

“You’re right; I don’t know what I was thinking…” But he did not believe himself. “Maybe I’m steeling myself for what’s to come.” His eyes stared at my face, worried. He broke eye contact, and stepped towards the edge.

I saw his foot clear the termination of the steel and started forward to grab him, scared that he was stepping into oblivion; but I saw that there was a steel staircase, with no rail, leading down the side of the structure into the darkness.

With the fading light, I followed him, my steps uneasy on the cold steel. I could feel the absence of warmth through my shoes, and I was scared that I’d fall. On our left, the sky showed emptiness, enough that it seemed I might fall in that direction as well as down. In front of me, I could see Arthur’s slow advance as he carefully stepped upon each platform (stairs, I realized) descending towards a seemingly infinite set of platforms that disappeared into the dark.

It would be pointless to continue to dwell on this. The precipice to our left held my mind more than anything else, so I did not think. The cold was not a distraction. I realized at one point that my backpack was quite heavy, and almost slipped at my broken concentration.

Arthur stopped me at one point and I asked “why.” I could see the steel stairs still descending, and then saw that we had come to the edge of the tower. The stairs stopped. Next to the last step was an open doorway.

The sound of the wind consumed Arthur’s words, but I perceived that he was simply telling me that we were to go inside. He pointed out to the left, and I looked and saw that there were clusters of buildings below us now, instead of the endless depth.

I laughed at having come so far. And then Arthur moved the rest of the way towards the door and stepped into the opening. I rushed, maybe recklessly, and followed him inside. The wind roared now, but I could hear other noises. The whir of machines. We were at the entrance to a tunnel, that led towards a light, down its length.

I was reminded of the engine, initially, but felt that I heard something more like the ship that had carried me to the city I was in. Arthur turned to me and said, “These are maintenance tunnels, I think. Rarely used, so we shouldn’t run into anyone. The stairs were of the same purpose.”

“Why is this the first aperture?” I asked, “I did not see any other openings on our way down.”

“They were there, but closed, and blended in with the wall so that you would not see them without close inspection. I guess we are lucky that this one was opened. I had thought those stairs led all the way into the city’s heart, but I was wrong. We must find our way through here then,” Arthur finished, looking down towards the light.

“What is the city that we are in? Is it Sykport?” I asked.

“It is,” he said, “Did you not know?”

“I knew, but I required confirmation.” I said.

“Ah,” he exhaled. He turned and walked towards the light, and I followed.

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