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

Brad waded through the adoring youngers trailing two of the most wicked Ba’Neesh in all known Soekdom, Lemista and Perisee. The two infamous Citadel Ba’Neesh were busy teaching those nearest youngers rotten new tricks to try with the small ones burgeoning Vrill. This was accomplished to a chorus of giggles and challenges. He arrived at the platform now hosting four of his favorite people. He handed Elias a high-tech DireSec com.

“Mick?” He said, carefully assessing the boy in person. Mick was a changed being and not just with the peculiar body alterations either. He was surrounded by the dead. Extraordinary. “Thorne says they will have the connection secured in a few moments.”

Mick nodded, his eyes flickering across Brad to the two Citadel Ba’Neesh and the crowd of attentive youngers. “You have an entourage, Pirate.” He answered, pleased to be able to control the delayed post-verbal honk successfully.

“I do.” Brad nodded. “I may need to adjust what were supposed to be protective sigils on my exo, I appear to have miscalculated.” This statement was accompanied by a Vrill arc out of the group of youngers, giggling and exploding sparklers on Brad’s shoulder where the Vrill arc landed.

“Do you know where that reprobate Rojer has gotten lost to?” Mick asked.

Rojer, sucking lemons over being outside of the events, glared at the holo he was watching of Mick. He parodied Mick’s words. “Where do you think, Mick?” He asked back at the holo. He had been in purgatory from the moment he had separated from Mick. His father, DireSec and OrderSec all found his recent behaviors unsatisfactory in some way, relegating him to piss-ant duty guarding a stash of goods currently parked in a landing zone awaiting national’s permission to transport.

“I do.” Brad answered, surprised that Rojer had entered the first face-to-face conversation he’d had with Mick in weeks.

“He’s supposed to be here. Right here. Right now.” Mick click honked. “Rojer, when you hear this, move your ass.” Mick said.

Rojer gaped and then snapped his mouth shut. He turned and walked away from his post. The small floater from the sub was parked along with the goods. He shrugged. If Mick could steal a floater Rojer Kirsan sure as fuck could do so as well. Fuck his father and all the political words that kept him stranded here.

Brad stared at his system feed. He’d toggled Rojer’s location when the name was mentioned and now he saw that Thorne’s personal override codes were being used to hijack the submarine floater. He rather admired Rojer for finally showing some balls. Thorne wouldn’t like it. Nationals would add to their bitching. Brad grinned. “Rojer appears to be enroute, Mick.”

“Fucking A.” Mick said, “He’s my voice, you know. My own voice won’t last much longer I don’t think. It’s been getting worse all day.”

Brad catalogued Mick’s words. My voice. A possessive much as he’d taken the dead Citadel Ba’Neesh. What did it mean? Brad understood political power and leadership and this kid didn’t appear to be any of the models that Brad knew well. Yet, his use of the possessive indicated an expression of leadership, an orientation. Mick was a direction and Brad could tell, much as Mael could, that Mick was increasingly knowledgeable about what he claimed not to know. He was being secretive.

Helewidis and two Ba’Neesh unknown to Mick arrived behind Perisee and Lemista, scattering the youngers with a few gestures and Neesh words. The youngers retreated to a safer distance and quieted, stopping to listen. It was contagious, their attitude and attention spread like a virus and soon the entire area had quieted.

Helewidis glanced over at Steffi’s body, now laying next to Hans who wouldn’t leave it. She sighed. Then she edged her way up what was becoming a path up and over a side wall to get closer to the now crowded platform. Brad stood aside to give the Ba’Neesh clear passage.

“Stupid Soek.” Helewidis said abruptly. “Make room.” That order swept the other Soek off the slab to stand next to Brad.

Mael felt bad, the kid had asked to talk to him, likely about his physical changes. Being right there with him and still it had felt impossible to have that conversation.

Jeffrey was the closest to the slab, having just moved off its surface.

Mick, now alone and isolated on the slab realized he was the center of attention. He tried to scowl but his face felt too tight and the muscles were in new places and it hurt just trying to figure them out. “What are you going to do to me?” He stared past Helewidis to the two unknown Ba’Neesh who were clearly much older and their horns were running heavy with Vrill.

“Straight you out. Stupid to receive the adjustments all balled up like that. Going to hurt.” Helewidis said.

“Fuck.” Mick tried to evade her hands but he was twisted up like a damn pretzel. With the three Ba’Neesh on three sides of the platform and Jeffrey on the last, his efforts merely caused him to topple over on his side.

“What’s wrong with his back?” Elias could now see that Mick’s backpack, which should have slouched when he moved, had remained in place.

“Exactly.” One of the other healers said, snorting.

“Do you know what’s happening to him?” Jeffrey asked Helewidis. He couldn’t stop looking at the frozen backpack. He looked over at Mael, at the turtle shell helmet curled around his head replacing all but a center cluster of hair. That shell helmet had never been explained to his satisfaction and Jeffrey had no intention of allowing this second evolutionary event to transpire without information being shared.

“He entered the Lamentation with Edda last night.” Helewidis said, “He is in the Lamentation.”

To Jeffrey’s ears this data meant nearly nothing. He knew of the ritual in a distant way, it was one of the secret things Ba’Neesh did only when totally unobserved. It was how they became Channels.

“What do you mean, exactly?” He said.

Helewidis glanced at him and then shrugged, dismissive. Then she backed away from the slab with a shout and angry Neesh words as a blue apparition manifested next to her. Iiyiko.

“What do you want?” Mick wasn’t exactly pleased to see the Neeshatari either. All of them had some bad idea that he knew for certain would make his already hurting body even worse. Iiyiko, he knew, had a cruel streak when it came to Soek and their pain, she seemed to enjoy it.

“Jeffrey, you can’t let them do what they want to do to me. It will hurt bad ass bad. I just know it.” Mick pleaded, trying to unpretzel his body enough to reach Jeffrey, so close yet hopelessly so far.

“Only stupid Soek not sleep through Lamentation, nicely stretched out. Fucking Mick.” Helewidis said, her tone not exactly a friendly slab-side manner.

“Jeffrey?”

Jeffrey was watching the boy’s short, painful movements. He could guess that this Lamentation process was mutating the boy’s bones, tissues, tendons, muscles and everything else and indeed, based on what he was seeing, Mick was stupid. He turned to the Ba’Neesh healers, “How can I help? I have pain killers with me.”

The Ba’Neesh laughed and it seemed to echo through the listening crowd. Perisee turned to face the crowd. “Never enter the Lamentation in a squat, like a stupid Soek.”

Jeffrey didn’t wait for permission. He knew as well as Mick did that the Ba’Neesh had other interpretations of pain. He doubled the dose he gave to Mick and even though he could see that Mick thought of him as a betrayer, he tried to convey some assurance by reaching out to grasp Mick’s left clawed hand. He almost dropped it. The hand burned, was stiff, was leathery and it had hardened nails that Jeffrey instantly thought could likely rend metal they were that hard. He had to force himself to remember that Mick was just a kid in trouble, no matter what he looked like.

None of them noticed the little younger who snuck her way up next to the Neeshatari until she said, “What is his Chimeric aspect.” In German.

Karl with Freya back up on his shoulders was tall enough to have an excellent view. He translated, knowing most of these Soek favored English.

“Good question.” Aenor found a space crowding the corner to stare at Mick. “I think Edda confused.”

Mick was floating, he could hear them and he wanted to resent their cavalier attitude and what was Sofia doing watching him. She was cute.

“I think she try for hawk, like his gamer name.” Aenor continued.

“Edda?” That name rippled away. “She is in the Lamentation too?” Mael blurted out the question. “How is that possible?”

“Old ways.” Iiyiko surprised everyone by answering. “Mikha’el remembering who he is, as do we all.”

Jeffrey pulled out a scalpel from his his med kit and started to cut away the backpack. He couldn’t explain why he was trembling. But the crowd silenced again and those with the best views, stared. As the fabric of the pack peeled away bits of medical kits and survival supplies fell out.

Jeffrey pulled them away on his side and Sofia confiscated some on her side, shoving her booty in the air with a Neesh shout before reaching in to grab more. That didn’t interest the adults, they were all staring at something clinging to Mick’s back. It wasn’t bones. It had a skin of sorts covering an uncertain shape.

“What is it?” Mick asked at the silence surrounding him, the cautious concerned faces of those staring at him.

Sofia half climbed onto the slab and leaned her face down to where his lay on its side. “Edda maybe grew wings. You too crooked to tell. I want wings too.”

Karl’s voice translated, albeit with some hesitance. Mick’s back would make a great horror story, some bizarre parasite growing out of his back. He couldn’t help but stare in a totally creeped out kind of way.

Jeffrey reached over to touch the growth. He wasn’t sure what to call it. It was tangled up. The healer in him started the process of pulling and tugging.

Mick said, “Ouch. That hurts even with me narced out.”

Jeffrey nodded as Helewidis and the other healers moved in to assist him. “It appears the Beloved Edda has joined with your body, Mick.” He said as if discussing the weather.

Mick’s thinking, now seriously slowed by the drugs, took a long time to process this impossibility. Edda was dead. He’d eaten her properly. She was bones in a backpack.

“Those look like prehistoric dinosaur appendages.” Brad said, unable to look away.

Mick continued to complain as they forced his legs to elongate, thrusting Vrill into his joints. Jeffrey continued to cut away his clothing, wanting to see the whole of Mick, unadorned or covered.

Sofia circled between the adults and the slab with the best view of all. Eventually she returned to Mick’s face, still laying on his right cheek, panting. “Brad say you dinosaur Chimeric maybe. You old.”

Brad. She already knew Brad and by her tone Mick could tell Sofia, like the other youngers, liked Brad. He was jealous. The youngers just teased him. What now, Dino Mick? Was that an improvement over Fuck Mick? He groaned.

He thought it would never end, this massage and manipulation of his limbs. They did it all, even the joints of his elongated toes. Vrill bliss washed out the narcs and left him feeling pliable. He could imagine himself standing up. Naked. In front of two thousand and five hundred youngers and how many other female Ba’Neesh? He looked over at Jeffrey who was standing so that Mick could see his face.

“How bad is it Jeffrey?” He asked.

Jeffrey blinked. To his mind Mick was the most amazing creature he had ever witnessed. Strange looking, but hey, he was less than twenty-four hours into his morph. What he would look like was likely very different from this awkward creepy sort of mixed up mutation.

“I think you will eventually have wings.” Jeffrey quantified. “I can’t tell you how long because this rapid mutation process has only happened once before, to Mael, and that was before anyone knew to really observe him to document every tiny change. With Ba’Neesh, the mutations continue through their life. I am unaware of any this rapid before. I have noticed all of the Ba’Neesh in the Vrill battles that jacked into massive Vrill are rapidly altering. I need to get you into my lab, all of you.

Mick sighed. Changing or not, his body was what it was. He would have to learn to live with whatever shape Edda was designing. He noted she was hiding from him, being mute to his inquiries about what the hell she had done to him. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere, he thought. He knew where she was going to be, awake or not awake.

The adult Ba’Neesh around him shifted and a few stomped and snorted as this thought reached them. A Soek inside the Lamentation.

Iiyiko leaned in. “Get up, Mick. Time shortens.”

He looked up at her. The memories he was so avidly avoiding were closer now, as if sneaking up on him, to flash into him without notice. He pushed himself upright off his distorted palms. “You knew about this, didn’t you Iiyiko?” He said.

“I remember.” Iiyiko stated firmly. “I chose to remember. I remember I chose to remember. I know you. I find you. It is time, Mikah’el. Time shortens.”

She wasn’t using compelling speech on him. She didn’t need to. Mick could hear the truth in her words, as if pulling him out of a tiny hole into a bigger space. Painful but necessary.

“Time shortens.” He said, followed with the distinctive click, hoot of Neesh. He blinked, noting two sets of eyelids, the mucus that had earlier troubled him, gone. He tried to recognize if his words were English or Neesh, he wasn’t sure.

He swung his body around to sit, panting, to find Sofia right there. “Am I speaking Neesh, Sofia?’ He asked her, allowing the clatter of alter speech to flow at the end.

“I hear you.” She answered, avoiding the question like any proper Ba’Neesh would. She grinned and then reached over to grab his left claw hand. “Come.” She said and although Mick could hear Karl translating, he understood her fine. Sleep with German-based Ba’Neesh and understand German. Enter the Lamentation and understand Neesh? That price felt enormously heavy. He stood up next to Sofia. Every joint popped and snapped. He was naked. He let go of the human concerns for the absence of clothing. He wasn’t cold. He was Mick, no matter what name the Ba’Neesh tried to foist on him. He was Mick Huxley.

“Ahh, Mick.” Brad interrupted Micks self talk, “I have your mother on the com. I am blocking the visuals on our end.”

Mick managed the three steps over to Brad with Sofia continuing to lead him, as if he were totally gimped. He didn’t trust her not to be pranking him. He didn’t want to release her small hand either.

“Mom?” He hoped he was speaking English.

“Mick?” Her familiar voice shocked him with its impact. He sucked in a deep breath.

“Yes, it’s Mick.” He answered, tightly forcing his mouth to behave.

“You sound funny.” She said, “Are you okay?” Her voice sounded strained to Mick. He could sense she was tired and anxious.

“I am okay.” He said, “I wanted to say something to you, its been bothering me.”

Everyone leaned in, not wanting to miss a word. All of the Citadel Soek didn’t know their mothers, had been raised by creche. Mick had a foster mother. Most were envious of the opportunity to call someone mother.

“I’m here, Mick.” The distant female voice softened. “You know you can tell me anything, no matter what.” She said. It was a loaded statement and Mick correctly recognized she was being coached. He modified what he had intended to say, his mind hardening as new thoughts chased into his thinking.

“You were right, Mom.” Mick picked out each word carefully, “My profanity use has unexpected consequences. I should have listened to you about that.”

Of all of the things he could have said, this was as off the wall as could be.

“Profanity?” His Mom’s tone demonstrated the feeling of all of them. “You are talking to me about your profanity?” Her tone snipped.

“Mom. I think this line is limited.” Mick said, looking over at Brad who correctly guessed something else was afoot. “Is Dad with you?” He asked.

“Right here, Mick.” An authoritarian voice answered brusquely. “I have a lot of questions…”

“Dad.” Mick interrupted. “Can you liason with the Reserves Admin here in this nation/state? I am moving around ten thousand people into the Reserves and your expertise and interface would be enormously helpful.”

There was a sharp pause that extended out for nearly a minute.

“We are in protective custody here, Mick.” His father’s tone shifted from aggressive to an almost professional tone.

“I think we can arrange transport. It’s for the good of everyone. Stay on this com line, Dad, and bring Mom with you. I need a chance to see you and talk in person, make things right.” Mick gestured at Brad who was already running his system.

“Okay.” His father didn’t argue.

Mick nodded, even though his foster parents couldn’t see him, he could see both of them, their stiff body language, their wandering eyes. Tension. Fear.

Mick gestured for Brad to cut his end of the feed.

“What’s going on?” Brad asked aloud.

“I’m ruining their lives, permanent if I can.” Mick answered. “They are becoming tools. If I don’t move them into hiding now, I will be forced to kill them later. Acquire them, Brad.”

(Hard chapter to write. Some are. It is just the nature of writing to deadline and a story that is pushing hard inside my mind. Writing is not for wimps. ::grins::)