The Wild Ba’Neesh Chapter Fifty-Three ©2019 Fay Thompson All Rights Reserved

Mick scanned the Ba’Neesh surrounding Mael. The one with the massive rack, he couldn’t mistake her, she was Moira. He also recognized Anya, the petite twin-horned Ba’Neesh who wore the black cap pierced through by her horns. Mael’s Anya. Or, could there be partnerships? Behind the eight approaching Citadel Ba’Neesh were more of the Akaitapi. He recognized the leader although her name escaped him. He whispered to Elias, “Do you remember the lead Akaitapi’s name?”

Aapisowoohta snorted, then her name slammed into both Mick and Elias’ brain including pronunciation, “Ahhh-piso-wooh-ta.”

Mick rubbed at the sides of his head, saying, “I’m sorry, okay. It’s like scrambled eggs in here sometimes.”

“You will remember me properly, Fucking Mick.” She answered, aloud this time.

“What did I do?” Elias fished through his pants pockets, hopeful of a stray analgesic. One of the guarding Soek helpfully provided two doses. He’d assisted one of the Reserves medic guys earlier and then asked for extras.

“You didn’t know it either.” Aapisowoohta said firmly to Elias. “Now that we better understand direct thought, it will be easier to encourage proper behavior amongst you Soek.”

“Great. Now everyone will blame me for that too.” Mick said, gratefully swallowing the analgesic Elias gave him. “Like teaching the Battle Ba’Neesh profanity wasn’t enough.”

Elias nudged him. Mael would have too, had he been closer. Mael decided he should get closer so he edged around the dead Ba’Neesh carriers and climbed up to sit next to Elias.

“Quite a view.” Mael said looking uncertainly at the bodies of the dead Ba’Neesh gruesomely, but efficiently, cut in half for easier carrying and then at the field of dead Soek. He frowned, he knew Brad would encourage him to deepen his understanding of Mick by closer observation of the boy’s choices. What did this display of the dead tell him?

“You are bringing the other youngers here?” Mick answered, totally ignoring the comment and throwing both Mael and Elias off guard. Thorne, still aboard the aircraft, leaned in and swore roundly. He had just got the Oxine youngers moved to a stadium. What did the kid want now?

“The others?” Mael focused tight to understand the odd sound of Mick’s voice.

“All Tule Soc Ba’Neesh must be here.” Mick said, fighting with his mouth but still a click escaped at the end. He sighed.

Mael opened his mouth to ask why when Moira interrupted. “You have our Ba’Neesh, Mick.” She stated, a slight threat underlying her tone.

Mick looked up and out to fix on her. He should get up. He was pretty sure he couldn’t at the moment. “I do.” He answered. “They are my Ba’Neesh now, my dead Ba’Neesh.” He stated with as much firmness as he could. He could sense a new type of battle ground, a struggle for the Beloved. It was a fight he knew he wouldn’t lose. Aenor and Freya would come. His Ba’Neesh, they were all coming.

Mael flinched, the kid’s words indicated possession, a feature not present in Ba’Neesh culture. A new shift, or a much older way?

Moira shifted her weight and snorted. Anya stepped closer until she was nearly touching the dead. “These are Cassia and Berlina, Citadel Ba’Neesh.”

Mick nodded. “Thank you for their names.” He said, “I won’t forget their names.”

Anya took her turn to frown and then she shifted, as if trying to shrug off her temper. “They are Citadel Ba’Neesh, Mick.” She repeated with a stronger edge.

Mick lifted his chin as high as he reasonably could. “Yes.” He said. “As soon as the youngers arrive we must go into the woods for the Agnosin Ritual. We could use a suitable boiling pot.”

It was possibly the last thing that any of them expected to hear. First, that Mick was taking the Ba’Neesh back into the woods of Fels. Second, he was positioning himself as an integral part of a secret Ba’Neesh ritual.

Anya gasped. Moira trumpeted. Neither of them was entirely sure of the shifting shape of their long-held secrets.

Aapisowoohta spoke from behind Mick. “We will find a cauldron. Tonight we celebrate.” It was inclusive, not Mick’s I but the softer We of the collective.

“Thank you, Aapisowoohta.” Mick answered and then the strain of holding his body upright became too difficult and he curled forward again.

Mael was recalculating. Thorne was busy making sure his drone was capturing every possible word out of their mouths. Ba’Neesh secrets, after two plus centuries, a kid had broken through. He was also ordering the immediate removal of the wakening youngers to Fels.

“We will want their Beloved too.” Mick said, fatigue pulling at him again. “Can you find those, Mael?”

Mael nodded, those discussions had already begun, way above his political level, but he knew about them. Evgeny had intel. As he once again turned to ask the questions now pressing his mind, he was again interrupted by loud hoots from the front of the building and then the still-tense Citadel Ba’Neesh broke rank and ran toward the sound, scattering the Soek Army in their path.

Youngers streamed uncertainly out of the facility, still groggy, seeing the first rays of morning for the first time ever. Most were making sounds.

Elias pointed upward. “We are on International media worldwide it seems. All nations are being warned to stay out of the area, all non national flights are banned. Thorne is saying national is loading transports. Apparently they find the wakening youngers, difficult.”

Mael snorted, back to watching the spreading field of youngers surrounded by elders flowing toward them, chattering, unafraid. Painful emotion washed through him, how many years had he not forced this evacuation, allowed the early deaths of older Tule Soc Ba’Neesh? Whatever the kid’s faults, he had accomplished this.

The Soek Army mostly gaped at the youngers, so nearly human, the youngest of them, so absolutely non-human, the elders. The youngers, some now running, headed straight at Mick, as if he wore some banner. The first to arrive might be five or six. They halted and pointed at the dead Ba’Neesh, saying something in Neesh.

Ahh, Mael thought, they came to see the dead Ba’Neesh. Just when he was certain that was the answer, one of the youngers climbed past the dead to ascend the stone platform and stand inches from the three Soek.

“Sofia!” She announced and thumped her chest. She held out her hand with her elongated fingers wide spread. “Fünf!” She exclaimed. “Du Fuck Mick?” She asked looking from one Soek face to the other.

Mick groaned, saying to Elias in a whisper. “Aenor did this. Revenge.”

The younger laughed and then spun around like a top, coming to a halt to stare at the field of dead Soek. Her chin lifted. “Gestorben Soek.” She said, turning to look at Mick, her eyes far too wise for her age.

“Yes.” He answered and then was horrified that the word was followed with a honky chirp.

She snorted and then giggled and then pointed at him and then other youngers were climbing up and around trying to get at him.

Elias yelled out, “Soek, protect Mick.” And, seven of the eight former Soek mules hurried forward to carefully lift the Ba’Neesh youngers and set them down away from Mick’s platform. They discovered they had to stand on all sides as the youngers were persistent.

“Aapisowhoota, can you do something?” Elias called out, thankful her name was now etched in his brain.

A trill sent the wave of youngers back to play on the stairs and further down, some running in among the Soek dead, playing, touching them, taking things off their bodies to show to each other. The guards around Mick stepped back, watching uncertainly.

Mick took one look and ignored the youngers. He figured they likely knew what he should do with the dead Soek, a problem he had taken on himself for reasons he didn’t want to disturb in the recesses of his mind. There was something that must be done, just as critical as the Agnosin Ritual was for the Ba’Neesh. It mattered not what was on the bodies, it was the bones that were critical.

The youngers came out in waves as room after room was opened, emptied and cleared. The oldest of the freed Ba’Neesh carried the infants and herded the youngers who were barely walking. By then, the Soek Army had turned itself into a large playpen, not allowing youngers out of the Turtle. Few were fathers but all were curious, the young seemed so much more approachable than the elders. So, they faced inward and were assaulted by questions in German, hundreds and hundreds of questions and more than a few Vrill pranks as the youngers discovered their Vrill was no longer inhibited.

A steady stream came to see first the dead Ba’Neesh still held by the Soek in green and then to throw questions toward Mick, usually things like if he was really a Soek or why did he have the dead near him, the most common question. He had no answer and eventually he simply shrugged and glared, which seemed to make most of the Ba’Neesh amused. He had the sneaky feeling he was the font of a widespread joke. And, every single one of them told him their names and a number, their age. He wallowed in the impossibility of clearly putting names to faces even with his excellent memory. He had a resistance to receiving the names of the Ba’Neesh, and every one of them seemed aware of it. Even Elias and Mael felt sorry for him. Clearly he was being punished, Ba’Neesh style.

Eventually, the trickle slowed enough for conversation to resume. Jeffrey arrived to join the three of them on the slab, noting that Mick refused to move, to change positions or to reveal anything but what was obvious. It was too noisy and active to attempt the private conversation both Mick and Mael wanted. During the day, Mael and Elias noted Mick’s voice continued to alter, becoming increasingly strange and oddly similar to the honks and whistles of the Ba’Neesh. He wouldn’t allow Jeffrey to examine him. He did accept more pain killers and was getting nicely high when Aenor, Karl and Freya returned.

“Was that really necessary?” He said almost before Aenor got close enough to hear him clearly over the din.

“What?” She replied, her expression oddly satiated and softened.

“You know what, Aenor.” Mick said, “The damn youngers are all calling me Fuck Mick. How am I supposed to remember every damn name and age?”

She looked up at him and then tilted her head. “Do you need to know them?” She asked.

He hadn’t expected that. He shook his head and then slowed. “Don’t make me look.” He said, as if to an elder which technically she was.

“You entered the Lamentation.” Aenor shrugged. “I promised not to ask. I go to find my daughters now, they have much to remember and fast. We wait on the others?”

“Elias says they are in flight. “Thirteen hundred sixty-five from Oxine and eight hundred and forty-two from Kuriwa.” Mick quoted the numbers. Elias had already told him that was four thousand and seven former Tule Soc Ba’Neesh, all told. The number frightened him, it wasn’t enough. It had to be enough.

Aenor shrugged. “You talk soon, Mikha’el, all Ba’Neesh here attend the ritual tonight, you cannot keep silent to us when awake.”

Mael and Elias turned on Mick. “What? Why is she calling you Mikha’el?”

Aenor had taken a few steps before she turned toward Karl and Freya, now hovering over still-seated Hans. She stepped closer. “We celebrate Steffi tonight too.” There was both acute sadness and a sort of pride in her tone. “We have much to celebrate.”

Mick tried to stand, intending to go to Steffi. He found himself unable to rise, instead he toppled into Mael who propped him back up. He panted, shocked back into himself by the burst of sudden pain elicited by the movement. A day without moving. He was now uncertain that had been such a good idea. “Steffi!” He yelled out, unaware in came out in Neesh or what Elias and Mael heard as Neesh. He loosed his bereavement in a hard, loud, honk. The Akaitapi behind him echoed the sound and then the youngers roared to life making the honk roll out and away across every person within range. Mick gasped, thrusting a claw up over his face. He hadn’t intended to do that.

The youngers had silenced and turned to face him. Curiosity and an almost covetous interest radiated off them. Mick cowered back.

Brad, across the field of green Soek was monitoring the Mick feed, as he was calling it, while continuing to attend to the attractions Perisee and Lemista made to the youngers. All of the youngers wanted to climb Brad, and he was willing enough. He found the increasingly active youngers, a dangerous delight. He had to keep telling them not to Vrill his exo, even though he had covered the thing in permanent sigils just in case. They kept wanting to test why their Vrill bounced, turned into spinners, poofed, sparkled or otherwise transformed depending on which sigil they shot their finger at. He hadn’t realized he was turning himself into a toy.

“Do you think that’s spelled Mikha, Elias?” Brad messaged over to Elias, reminding himself to send Elias a better external than the crap one he’d stolen from Tule Soc.

“Why?” Mael leaned over to talk at Elias’ external.

“Well…” Brad said with an elongated pause, “That name has a history. Has he told you yet what this is really about? You did ask him, it’s been hours, Mael?”

Mick, of course, could hear all of this. He was glowering at Elias, Mael and the device.

“Don’t you dare ask me.” He yelled out, followed by a chirp. That caused him to pull his right hand away from where he was hugging his knees to slap the claw at the slab surface. “Don’t you dare. Aenor is bad enough. I’ve got enough damn pain. It totally isn’t fair.”

Mael wanted to spare the kid, but he was Mael. Anya, Brad and Xasper and eventually Calypso and Ornius were at risk. Pain or no pain, he needed answers, they all needed answers.

Mick seemed to read Mael’s intent on his face. He tried hard to press himself to his feet only his muscles weren’t helping him properly. He got half way up and again toppled, crying out. “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”

Elias and Mael shared a glance. They settled Mick back down. He was rigid and staring forward. “I don’t know nothing.” He said aloud. “I want to talk to my mother before I can’t talk anymore, not properly, anyway.”

Mael nodded. “A trade then, Mick?”

Mick turned toward Mael. “You can reach her, for sure?”

“Thorne? What do you say?” Mael asked into Elias’ device.

“The nationals in her nation/state have her guarded for her own protection.” Thorne answered. He too wanted to know what Mick had to say. The certainty of gaining that knowledge had slowly overcome the logistics of the past few weeks. Range weapons. Neo and Morty still chasing more and more hidden ballistic rockets, secreted by former nation/states in defiance of International law. Thorne knew that every citizen was watching footage of the events at Fels, seeing the monsters, the Army, the Turtle. The world was waiting.

“I’ll get her, Mael.” Thorne said, ordering Jordy to turn the techs on getting him a secure line to a nation/state that overtly considered the Directorate to be their number one terrorist organization in the world. He sucked in a breath and went to change into one of his better professional suits. Let the world meet a Soek. He knew his job, he finally knew his job, he was fronting for Mick, the rogue non-citizen in control of an Army with weapons and skills the world had never seen before. He knew, they would listen, everyone would listen.

(Are you worried about Mick? I am. I am so very mean to him, full on body torture happening here and even the youngers are teasing him. What’s a gamer to do?)