Disclaimer: The universe this story takes place in is not mine. And even though their species isn’t, the characters however are mine (yes, all of them)
Prologue
The city was on the third moon of Plun’Darr. But it was not one of the cities most of the Lunar Clan people preferred to live in. They tended to live in places surrounded by their own people due to the idea of their own superiority. This was an arguable behaviour, but it was how it was. This city was not one of the impressing show off places that those people lived in who had been born to live in wealth and beauty. Only the inner city was somewhat impressive, if not necessarily beautiful. It was a center of politics and science where important people of all five moons travelled to and back. Thousands of people arrived at and left the space-port daily.
Less important people lived there all year. If they were lucky they were assistants to the politicians and scientists or worked in offices. If they were not so lucky they were builders, garbage-men or, in the worst case, nothing. Depending on that they either lived in the high houses located at the broad outer belt of the city, or even further outside, in something that was hardly worth being called houses.
It was the kind of city where people best ignored the things around them and cared about their own business. To not get into trouble... but also to keep their minds healthy. Society had little pity for individuals in general, people were taking advantage for themselves. People ignored what they saw in the streets. There was a lot of dirt. And then there were the children.
There were many of these children. For the less important people a child was often the last thing they would wish for. They had enough trouble by themselves. And so a child would sometimes be something to be disposed of. Some of them died quite fast. And some survived.
Chapter 1: Their Life
Varag watched the two men from a distance. He could get very different reactions ranging from great interest to people chasing him away. Someone had even threatened to kill him once. And he knew he had to take that seriously. There had been children or youths that had died because of not being careful enough. He had not witnessed anything like that but stories spread fast and there had been people disappearing from their group during the time he had been in this area of the city. They could have just moved on of course, just like he had been moving around the city for almost all approximately seventeen years of his lifetime. But it could have just as well been otherwise.
Although some homeless children formed groups of some sort they hardly ever shared anything. There was a silent agreement that everyone had to care for him- or herself. They did sometimes trade things with each other however. Like Varag had the things he found repaired by Liran, a tiny, indefinable mixture breed boy who seemed somehow mentally damaged to Varag, as he would stare at people for hours, but was completely unable to look anyone in the eyes, and in exchange he would supply Liran with things he needed. No one actually had an idea how old Liran was but he had a talent for repairing technical junk. At least sometimes. At other times he would wreck things completely. But fortunately that did not happen all too often.
Varag was still not sure if to walk over to the two men or not. On one hand he had collected some rather interesting objects recently and he was quite sure that they worked after Liran had fiddled with them a little, and also selling nothing meant no money and nothing to eat either as a result of no money. On the other hand those men looked a bit too well clad to buy anything from an underage Graviton boy in the streets. That type of people was not really one of the kinds that could get dangerous, but they were likely to get angry or laugh him off.
Another man joined the two and gestured towards the high building at the end of the street. The two followed and Varag cursed silently. Another chance gone. Today was not a good day, he decided and turned around the corner to have a look for more customers.
In the evening he met up with Liran. With the small boy was a Psi girl that was almost unknown to Varag. He had seen her a few times in the area but had not yet been talking to her any. She was special because there were little Psi Clan children found among the homeless ones, just like there was almost no Lunar Clan ones, though Varag suspected Liran to be at least part Lunar because of his diminutive size. They were mostly of the grey skinned worker colony clan people or cross-breeds. Also some Ice Clan, Graviton and Darkling children composed the mixture of them.
Varag took a closer look at the Psi girl. She was more than a head taller then him but extremely thin so it was hard to tell her age. Most of the homeless children and youths of the city were underfed, and Varag was no exception from that, although he did not appear overly frail due to his broad Graviton bone frame. He thought it was surprising that of all people the so shy seeming Liran had apparently taken up contact with the Psi girl. She looked at him with unveiled curiosity and he started wondering if Liran had talked with her about the rest of the people in the area.
“You still owe me something” Liran said in that odd way of his: head turned to the side, eyes staring at an invisible something on the street next to him. Liran was anything but demanding normally. But like all of them he was dependant on getting what he worked for.
Varag sighed.
“I didn’t sell anything. Just not the best time at the moment. All these politics running around, they mostly try to keep the streets clean from those like us. I couldn’t go loads of places I would’ve looked normally...”
Twice a year even more of those highly important looking people walked the city than usually. There were meetings all over the inner city and dirty or ill looking children were even less wanted loitering the streets. But these days it seemed that it was even more extreme.
The Psi girl looked at Varag: “You don’t happen to have any goo do you?”
Maybe staring at him was a better expression that looking.
Varag knew that look.
“No, actually I didn’t own any since 2 years ago.”
The goo was a kind of drug that a lot of the street children were addicted to. Not the majority of them, but still many. More than it could be ignored. It had two things that made it so attractive to them. It made people forget their live circumstances easily and also it was comparatively cheap. It was made out of a cheap headache medicament that was easy to get, water and pressed Ulahki leaves, and those leaves pretty much grew on trees all around the moon The people who sold the pills knew what would be done with them later, but they did not really seem to care. Varag had been addicted to it himself at a point of his life, but then he had not even had the money to pay the pills anymore for some time, gone through violent withdrawal and since then been off it.
Now he also knew what the curiosity in the girl’s face had been.
“Why did you come to this area?” Varag asked.
“Not only to ask random people for goo, or?”
“No actually not.” She paused.
“I think you’ll have to expect more new people here very soon."
Varag had indeed seen a few more new faces, but had not quite been sure about what had caused this mass-wandering.
“They have cleaned out our area.” The girl continued.
“We lived too close to the political headquarters and apartments of the diplomats and scientists.”
“You mean they just chased all of you out of the area?” that was a new way of dealing with the city’s problem.
“They have never done that before.”
The girl looked at him.
“Well fine, but now they did.”
Liran and Varag took Myrrealla, that was the Psi girl’s name, with them for now, to find a place it was safe to sleep in, as she had no experience with the area and also Liran seemed to favour her quite a bit.
Even later Varag kept thinking about what she had told them, about a whole area having been ‘cleaned’ from homeless children. Something more important than usually at this time of the year was going on in the city, and it was nothing that was told very openly, otherwise they would have at least noticed a hint of it before.
In the morning those thoughts were less important for all of them temporarily, as other things had to be done. Liran was up and poked around on a small apparatus that could have been some sort of com unit, but Varag was not sure as it did not seem to be of any of the moon’s production. That was good however, as foreign technology usually tickled the people’s interest more than that what was common. He picked up a few pieces that were supposedly working and put them into the bag that he carried around with himself at almost all times. It contained the items he intended to sell, but also all of his other possessions apart from what he wore. A knife, a lighter and a key card to a place that he had found and taken a while ago. The place was part of a small factory that had closed down ages ago and finding the card had had less to do with luck then the stupidity of the owners, who had left the key card stuck in the slot at a point. Sometimes it was a good place to sleep in, it even had a small bathroom, but it was not always safe to go there, as the original owners still came there at times. Recently it had been un-occupied very little.
He told Liran he did not know exactly when he would be back and went off to find costumers and maybe a few new things he could sell later.
Chapter 2: Unpleasant
Encounters
There were a few good places to look for technical junk. The usual garbage places sometimes had things, too, but there were better places to look. One of those was the one Varag was currently searching in. The owner of the place was an old worker colony clan man. People of his clan were mostly shunned because of how they came into being.
Lunar scientists had originally bred them from Psi Clan orphans. They had hoped to even enhance their abilities but the experiment went awry and they lost every trace of telepathy. When old enough, they had been left alone at a place on the planet, that was today known as the worker colony. Few of them still lived there today, others had spread over the different moons. There they were tolerated, but not wished for.
The old man got paid for getting rid of the waste. He knew about people like Varag coming and taking things but he did not really care much, as that basically just meant that he would not have to find a way of disposing those things and he would get money for them disappearing anyways. But also in a way he could relate to them. They were treated similarly to him by society. He had told some of the children who came there in the past that they could take anything they wanted but for some reason that had exactly the opposite result of what he had hoped for. They were not used to having a nice reaction even every once in a while and the only thing he could guess had happened was that he had scared them in a way. Some of them had never returned, some still ‘stole’ when they thought he would not see it.
And he usually pretended not to see it.
Today did not seem to be a good day for Varag either. There was much stuff lying around but most of it so helplessly broken that it would be impossible to repair, even for someone more educated in those things then Liran, or they were just things that he would be unable to sell anyways. So after about an hour looking through the piles, turning over pieces he gave up and moved on.
He was actually just feeling rather enthusiastic about the day again when suddenly from behind a hand was placed on his shoulder. He slowly turned around to see an at least half Psi Clan man who did not look happy.
“How dare you sell me that crap?” the man asked in a not very friendly way and grinned unnervingly. Varag closed his eyes and started thinking. Who was that man. A vague memory hinted at him being a costumer he had sold something to a over a month ago but he was not quite sure. Varag opened his eyes.
“But I was completely sure it worked!” he tried to sound as convincing as possible.
It would’ve been a lot easier if he could at least remember what exactly he had sold to the man.
“So what shall I do with you now?” the Psi asked in a low, smooth voice while placing the pointed nail of his right index finger on Varag’s chest. The man was not as extremely tall as Psis tended to be, but he was taller than Varag and most likely in a lot better constitution.
“M- maybe you could see if I have anything to make up for it... I have some things with me... something that could replace it, maybe.”
“You better do.” Instead of having anything shown to him however, he just ripped the bag from Varag’s shoulder and poured its content to the ground.
Varag half consciously watched the Psi man looking through the gadgets at the ground. He was not quite able to read the man’s facial expression on how he seemed to like what he saw or not. It seemed to take hours.
Then, finally he picked up three objects and Varag audibly started being able to breathe freely again.
“Yes... I think you’ll get out of this for today. I’ll take these with me.”
It was both a good and a bad ending. It was good in a way that Varag had been able to get out of this physically and mentally un-injured, and it was bad, in that he had lost three things he would have been able to sell. But it was redundant to think about that now. This was how it had happened and he would have to go on.
Walking along on of the side streets of one of the more active parts of the city something caught his eyes. He walked over, squatted and had a closer look at it. This might have been the most peculiar thing that had happened to him in a while. He found things at the places he knew he would find something, yes. Sometimes he would find things at other places too, but they were usually more or less not usable anymore. But this seemed pretty much whole, even though it was just randomly lying at the side of the street in a corner between two houses. Varag looked around. There was no one to be seen, and the houses were habited, but there was no door, not even a window, opened. It was a strange object in general. It was mainly just a metal box, with a small screen-like thing on the side and on top, and a spike with something that looked close to a miniature radar. There was nothing on it that would somehow give away its purpose in any way.
`Haven’t seen anything like that in my life before´, he thought.
“Don’t even touch it!” he heard a female voice from somewhere.
He turned his head to the left to have a look and took exactly the 50/50 chance wrong as the blue skinned person approached from the right side.
“It’s mine!” an icy hissed scream came from said side.
Startled he fell over backwards which gave the Ice Clan girl the chance to jump at him and press her knee into his throat while sitting on his chest.
“Don’t even move or you’ll have a frozen face.”
Varag squeezed his eyes together.
“Bit aggressive aren’t we?” The words came out a little croaked due the knee. He could still feel her cold breath on his temple.
“Not really no.” She seemed to think it was funny, as she was giggling.
“But I have found that... thing before, and I don’t really like anyone taking it away from me.” She lifted the knee a tiny bit to let him breathe.
“Where did you find it?”
She laughed.
“Think I’m going to tell you?”
“Ok, then you won’t. I don’t care.” Varag started to be pretty fed up with this day.
The girl got up and stood next to him.
He got up too, a little slower than her, hand at his hurting throat.
“And I don’t want your... thingie either. Hope it makes you unhappy, bitch. Maybe it’ll blow up in your face.”
She still seemed to be pretty amused.
“Now who’s aggressive?” She smiled in way that made Varag even more angry. But he had to admit to himself that her being an Ice Clan person she had the advantage over him here.
She picked up the device and walked off to one side, while Varag completely willingly took the other direction.
No, not a good day.
When at the end of the day he returned to Liran’s place, he had after all managed to sell some things, even though he did not get an insane amount of money for them. Not that he had ever before, but he was still hoping. Hoping was always good.
Liran was in his niche. He sat under a makeshift hut, made out of poles and a few blankets, as it had begun to rain a while ago and was still, or again, fiddling with the com-unit looking thing. Varag threw him a bag with bread he had bought on the way back after selling a recording device, and sat down under the blanket-roof himself. The Psi girl was gone.
“Where’s Myrealla?” asked Varag.
Liran did not answer. And Varag knew he would not either if he asked again.
Chapter 3: Gianah
More than two weeks had passed and Myrealla had not come back. Liran would not talk about it. It was not very likely something bad had happened to her. More that she had either gotten angry or bored with Liran and moved on. Most people had problem staying with Liran for more than a short time. His behaviour was not the easiest to deal with, but Varag had gotten used to it over time. He had to admit to himself he might not have stuck with Liran for so long if he had not been so good at repairing things.
Personally Varag rather kept away from addicts like Myrealla also however, as they put him into danger as an ex-junkie by tempting him to take up the goo again and also they tended to turn into trouble as soon as they got none of the goo for a while. He sure would not have wanted to be one of the people who had to deal with him during withdrawal. And so he did not pity much that the girl had left again already.
Today, wanting to bring a monitor to Liran for repairs, an unpleasant surprise awaited him. A girl was with Liran in his niche. And he knew her too. It was the Ice Clan girl he had that particularly odd encounter with about two weeks ago. His first thought was to turn around and leave, but he thought it might after all be better to investigate why she was here.
They both were very caught up in talking about the object Liran was holding between his knees, which gave Varag some time to wait at a distance and look at both her and the object for some time. The first thing that he noticed was that the object was the mysterious ‘thing’ that the girl had been fighting with him over before. The second thing he noticed was that she looked different from the usual street-children. She was reasonably clean and healthy and her clothes seemed not to be very worn out. Varag estimated her to be around his age, but she could just as well have been older.
Approaching them he asked: “What are you doing here?”
Her reaction was to rip the object out of Liran’s grip and clutch it closely to her chest, like in an odd hug. Liran looked at her with wide eyes while she stared angrily at Varag who held both hands up as if to say he was not going to do anything.
“I’m not going to steal your treasure.” He said in a mocking tone.
“Told you before I have no more interest in your ‘thing’. I really just wanted to know why exactly you are here.”
She relaxed a bit.
“Well...,” she began and then paused for quite some time.
“Well, as much as I’ve tried to find out what the thing is for.... I haven’t yet managed to find out what it is.”
Varag grinned, which immediately caused her to make an angry face again.
But as he didn’t want to stir the situation up more right now he asked her: “What’s your name anyways?”
“Gianah”, she answered in a not very friendly tone.
It turned out that she had heard of Liran’s skills in repairing and thought that he might be able to figure out what the mysterious ‘thing’ was. So far he had found out that it had wave transmitters and that the radar looking thing had to be at least something similar to what it looked like. What he could not find out was what the device would actually be used for. He had suggested taking it apart completely and using its components as substitute parts for other things but Gianah had rigidly been against that. But although Varag still mistrusted her, she was at least more peaceful than at any point they had been close enough to see each other before.
Surprisingly enough, the next days Gianah started to return to Liran’s place about as regularly as Varag did and he did not make any efforts to hide how much he disliked it. Having made sure neither Liran nor Varag were going to take her mysterious device away, she started to be a little more easy about it however. She usually left in the morning just like Varag and returned either in the evening or the next day, sometimes taking the odd machine with her and sometimes leaving it with Liran for further studies. She even sometimes allowed Varag to have a look at it when Liran did, as Varag still did have some interest in it if only for the reason that its use stayed a mystery still as well. But she did not say where she was going over the days and she was not asked either as she seemed to prefer to keep just about everything she did secret. And actually Varag had stopped caring about it as well. He was happy with not having to see her much.
Two days later Varag found a little darkling boy not far from Liran’s place, who seemed to be very interested in what was going on with Liran. As quietly as he could Varag approached the boy from behind.
“Anything you want to talk about with us? Need something?” Varag asked him in an unusually calm and friendly manner. Normally he was not all too fond of people watching them, but this boy was at most eight years old and seemed particularly small and weak and even though Varag’s first impression had been that he was spying on Liran he could just as well imagine that he had just been trying to seek help with something.
The boy looked at him with those odd darkling eyes which’s piercingness in that so young looking face disturbed Varag slightly, giggled in his high child’s voice and grinned wide. “They told me to watch you.”, he said barely audible. Then the boy turned around and ran off.
Varag looked at him running along the street and around a corner. He shook his head. “Nutcase!”
For a few weeks after that everything stayed calm again.
Chapter 4: Catastrophe
The last days had to be considered rather good days Varag had decided. It had seemed like an unusual stroke of luck had hit him and for a change he had been able to find and sell quite a lot. The weather had been friendly enough to grant them a few completely dry and not too cold nights. There had not been any really unpleasant encounters either. No dissatisfied costumers had tried to harm Varag, no infuriated girls had tried that either. The only not so nice thing had been meeting one of the new people in the area searching in one of Varag’s places he usually found objects to sell in, and Varag had to make rather clear that he did not want anyone else to be there, as the place was good, but so small that it only gave off enough for one person. The boy had left with a nosebleed and a crushed hope. But at least it had not been the other way round.
Something else had happened that Varag felt very positive about. It looked like Gianah had finally decided to leave, and even though Varag was slightly disappointed about not having found out what her strange machine was meant for, he felt strangely relieved about the Ice Clan girl taking it with her.
But today everything should change. When Varag returned it was just getting dark and the temperature was dropping quickly. It was very quiet around Liran’s place and Varag was wondering if the small boy was asleep. That would have been rather unusual as Liran was afraid of falling asleep while alone in his niche, he was unable to defend himself physically. It was part of their agreement that Varag did not only supply Liran with food but also protect him a little in exchange for the repairs. He pulled back the blanket that was covering the entrance and stopped.
Gianah was sitting there with her back turned to him.
“Oh no, it’s you again.” He mocked her and expected an angry reply fro the Ice girl. But she stayed silent. She moved a bit to the side and gave space for him to look at what was in front of her.
Liran was lying on the ground with open mouth, emptily staring at him with also wide open eyes. His chest was squashed and a trickle of blood ran down from a corner of his mouth that had dried already.
Varag’s mind blacked out. He jumped at Gianah and pressed her to the wall.
“You fucking bitch! How could you- Why did you- You’re going to die now!”
Surprisingly she did not make any effort to get away from his grip, she did not move at all. Just looked at him, breathing irregularly shaking her head.
“But I didn’t! Damn, why would I do that? Why possibly?” she suddenly halfly screamed, halfly cried at him.
Varag let go.
Gianah told him what had happened. Or at least she told him the bits she knew about. She had not actually left for good, she had just been on a ‘tour’ for a few days as she called it. When she had returned to the niche maybe about an hour before Varag she had found Liran how he had still been lying there later. All of Liran’s possessions, including his tools and also all the things that were to be or already repaired had been spread all over the niche and outside it. Two of the blankets had been torn down as well, but Gianah had placed them where they belonged again to keep the scene out of view from other people.
Gianah did not show any of the superiority she normally flaunted. In shock was probably the best description.
“I don’t know... “ she looked at Varag. “Why would they kill Liran? What could he possibly have done?”
“I think it looks very much like they have been searching for something. But I can’t tell if anything is missing and Liran’s not going to tell us anymore now.” Varag looked at the tiny body they had covered with an extra blanket they had found in a box. He did not really know what he felt like. It was so surreal.
“Liran didn’t own anything that was worth killing someone for. Most of the things weren’t even worth enough to steal.”
Gianah lowered her head to her knees. “I think I have a suspicion what they searched for.” She looked up, turned around and pulled the mysterious device out of her bag.
Yes, it was the only possibility. Varag remembered meeting the darkling boy quite clearly and even though it was all still supremely odd it somehow fit. But there was so much they did not know. They still did not have the slightest idea what the object was supposed to do, they had no idea why it was so important and most of all, they had no idea who ‘They’ were.
What they did know however was, that with the object they were not safe in Liran’s niche anymore.
On the way to the old factory Varag kept silently wishing that no one would be in the room at the moment. Gianah did not talk. Not knowing how or where to burn or bury the corpse they had been forced to leave Liran’s body in the niche and had taken a few of the blankets and tools with them. At the moment he did not care much about if Gianah was a person he liked or not, but he did not know anything to say either and so they just both stayed quiet.
At the factory he counted it as a good sign that there was no light coming from any of the windows and as he unlocked the door there was indeed no one there.
“Well.” He said, locking the door from the inside and then waiting a while before turning around.
“We should be reasonably safe here. I never brought anyone here. But I think we need to talk about a few things.”
He then turned and looked at Gianah. She had put one of the blankets in front of the only window and switched on the lights. Now she was sitting on another blanket in the middle of the room. It was cold but he was quite sure it did not bother her.
“First of all I think you should tell me where you found that damn thing... and do you really not know what it is and who it belonged to?”
It took a while until Gianah spoke.
“I found it at a fair type thing near the center of the city quite close to the tower. There were all these madly important people around and it looked really interesting and you know... I didn’t really find it.”
She looked to the wall at her side as if something incredibly interesting happened to be there.
“So you stole it.” Varag had to admit to himself that he was quite amazed. If Gianah was telling the truth she had to be pretty skilled. It also meant that the device was not some sort of junk, but actually a very much working invention that was probably not meant to be carried around by two youths who did not even have the slightest idea what it could be.
Gianah nodded.
“Hang on...” Varag pondered.
“One thing though... a fair with ‘madly important people’... How did you get in there to begin with?”
“Well...” Gianah looked at him with a somewhat odd face expression. “I had a VIP pass”
Varag stared at her with wide open eyes.
“And... how did you get a VIP pass...?”
“It was....” Gianah looked to the ground avoidingly. “Lying around somewhere there.”
She smiled at him.
“Um... yeah”. That could not possibly be true Varag thought, actually it was the silliest story he had ever heard. But after all, she did have the machine. And Gianah had not been very fond of telling anything about herself before either. Apart from that he started to even more get the impression that she was somewhat insane.
“And I also really don’t know what it is!” She pointed out in a loud voice.
He looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“O...k...”
Varag tried to sum it up: ”Lets see, so this thing is important enough to make people kill for it. Liran is dead. We are probably never going to figure out what it is for and even if we do we’re not likely to be able to make use of it anyways. What does that tell us?”
Gianah did not look at him from the side and did not say anything either.
He continued. “That we should get rid of it as quickly as possible”
Now she looked at him.
“It would also mean it is worth a lot. And if we manage to sell it we might not ever have to live like this again.”
He had to think about that.
Chapter 5: In Hiding
They were not sure if they could dare being seen outside much. After all, the darkling boy who had assumingly watched them for longer than just the few minutes the day Varag had talked to him and possibly also more often had clearly associated him with Liran’s place and that way also with Gianah and her mysterious object. So they had stayed inside for the last three days with an exception of Gianah having a short trip outside to have a look for some food. Thanks to her apparent skills as a thief she had been successful.
Varag still did not have particularly friendly feelings for Gianah and he was quite sure that was the same for her towards him, but they had somehow arranged themselves to a way they could talk. Complete silence for days could wreck one’s nerves as well.
Sometimes Gianah would induce talks about really random topics and Varag would wonder why she was thinking just right then about that.
It was just shortly after they had woken up on the forth day when she suddenly stood up in front of him and said: “You know. It is rather interesting there are so many cross-breeds among the homeless children.”
“Huh?” Varag was not quite awake yet.
“How is that interesting? They’re just not that wanted.”
“Ever thought about why?” Gianah looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“No...”
“I have thought about it a lot, but actually I can’t seem to think of a logical reason.” She raised her chin and pointed the index finger of her right hand upwards in front of her face in a somewhat artificial seeming gesture.
“Actually every cross between two or more clans should be considered a treasure. In only one of twenty cases a cross-breed foetus actually survives. People like Liran, who are of at least three different breeds are a miracle of some sort.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” Varag looked at her a bit unbelievingly. This was interesting and she did have a point but he had never even heard about it.
“Besides, I don’t really want to think about Liran now.”
She shrugged and sat down again without explaining any more. It was so hard to get anything about herself out of Gianah. She talked about anything and everything at completely random times, but never about herself.
“For how long do you think we have to hide here before it might be safe enough to sell that thing.” He pointed to the object.
“I don’t know. I assume after most of the scientists and politics have left the city again. Although I don’t think that would mean they give up their lost device immediately.”
“Oh great!” That did not give Varag much more faith in the future.
But they could not hide forever, that they both knew.
And after a few days more they started to notice why they might also have trouble hiding for very much longer. They began to get on each other’s nerves terribly. Varag was used to walking around doing stuff all day and he did not know much about Gianah’s habits, but he assumed she was not used to forcibly sitting in one tiny room with someone she did not particularly admire all day. They jumped at anything the other did wrong in their opinion incredibly easily and most of the time they were simply bored. It had begun with Gianah complaining about Varag’s eating manners and the most recent cause for an argument was that Varag had told Gianah that he thought she was arrogant because of the way she brushed her white hair out of her face all the time.
At times they eyed the mysterious device but at one point they had stopped poking around on it. They mostly avoided touching it or even take it out of the bag.
“Varag?”
“Yeah?”
“How did you grow up?” It was the first time Gianah spoke that morning.
“Particularly random today again, huh?”
“I’m interested.” It seemed true. She did not sound mocking. It was possible she just asked out of boredom, but he was as bored, and so he could just as well answer.
“Not much to tell there... I pretty much always did what I was living from until you turned up... Collecting junk carrying it to Liran, he repaired it and then I’d try to sell it again. Since I was about seven I think. It’s odd... Liran did not look much younger back then.”
“How old... was he?”
Varag pondered.
“Really, I have no idea. He must’ve been a lot older than I thought... or actually... I never really thought about it.”
“Hm.” Gianah looked at her hands. She often did that for some reason.
“What did you do before you were seven? Who were your parents?”
“Honestly I don’t know, I assume they lived here somewhere though. Maybe they still do.” He paused.
“Two older homeless girls partly helped me to survive. As I didn’t have anything with me that told anything about me I assume they also gave me a name... although there were some other people around with them who could’ve done that too.”
He closed his eyes and clenched a hand around his thigh just above the knee.
“They found me in a trashcan. I must’ve been about two years old... I guess my parents weren’t all that fond of me.”
She stared at him.
“That’s impossible”
He laughed at her.
“Oh come on... that kind of story is not that uncommon either. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard anything like that before.”
“I haven’t, really.”
It was the ninth day. Varag was sitting leaning against one wall staring at the other wall facing him. Just when Gianah came back from the bathroom someone started beating against the door. Gianah stopped in the middle of her step.
Then everything happened very quickly. Varag stood up, grabbed the bag and frantically gestured towards the window that lead to an inner place of the factory, surrounded by walls but open to the sky. Not the best thing to go for, but there was no other way out at this point. Gianah climbed out closely behind Varag and they ran along the wall into the closest open door they could find. The window fell shut again surprisingly quiet just seconds before the three darklings stormed in through the door.
One of them picked up the blanket and looked around the room.
“They have been here at least.”
“Always the last place you look in...” Another one added.
Chapter 6: On the Run
Meanwhile Gianah and Varag still tried to find their way out of the factory. It was not an insanely complicated building but too many closed doors they had been standing in front of had turned it into a labyrinth. The sound of their feet was loud in the old factory halls and it seemed a hundred times louder in their heads.
At a side of a hall behind a long row of big machines which they could not figure out the former use of, Gianah stopped Varag. He looked at her askingly. Gianah pointed at the space between two of the machines to a door across the hall. He prepared to run. They heard a noise from the side and for a second he saw the reflection of the men following them in the window on the upper half of the door. He frowned and shook his head at Gianah.
“Then better this way” she hissed into his ear and pulled him with her to climb into a tube in the wall maybe a half meter above the floor behind the last machine in the row. They crawled into it as deep as they could just to find a grid stopping them from going any further. It was deep enough to conceal them if the searcher did not know where the tube was and expected them in there, but a trap if otherwise.
The three darklings slowly went through the hall towards the door Varag had seen their reflection in. They went past the tube. Both Gianah and Varag held their breath. And then the men were gone through the door.
Gianah and Varag waited for while and then as silently as they could they went back the way they had come into the machine hall before.
But after some time they had lost their orientation even more. They stopped.
“We won’t make it.” Varag mouthed silently to Gianah and sat down against a wall. She did not look very convinced either but sometimes always having to oppose what the other says has its benefits.
“Pessimist!”
She pulled him up and they went on searching. When they heard something rumbling behind them they sped up again, hardly caring about the noise they made anymore and finally saw an open door towards the outside. Inside the hall a pile of boxes fell over. The darklings were on the other side of the building.
The first time they stopped running was many streets further. Varag sat down in a niche around the corner of a house and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He felt cold even though he had been running for ages. Gianah was visible shaking but it was hardly being cold in her case.
“Those were the people who killed Liran.” Varag said slowly.
“Great! You’re making me feel even better!” at least she was still able to sarcastic.
They stayed silent for a while, recovering.
“What are we going to do now?” Varag finally spoke up.
“Well... we can just stay here and let them pick us up... or we try to find a better place.”
“You know...” Varag looked to the side.
“I still think we should just get rid of that damn machine.”
Gianah laughed quickly and cold.
“Do you think that would change anything anymore at all? Moron. Liran is dead. And he didn’t have the machine when they killed him.”
“You think he had to die just because he knew of it?”
“I don’t know... either that that or because they had fun doing it... Have you seen those guys?”
They fell silent again.
“Lets go.” Varag said.
And they did.
A few hours later, another street, not much different from all the ones they had passed. It was the hottest time of the day, the sun high above them. The bad thing was that they had no idea where they could actually hide. They kept wandering around, but there was no plan behind it. They tried to keep out of big spaces but other than that they were pretty aimless.
“You said we were safe at your place anyways...” Gianah suddenly said.
“Not that safe, huh?”
Varag exploded at that: “How damn naive are you?!” he shouted at her.
“It was you who brought us into all this shit to begin with! It was you who came out of nowhere with some stolen object that someone needs so damn much that that he kills little boys for it! It was you who didn’t even want me to touch said object at first and then later came running with it to Liran. So basically it was also you who caused his death. And it was you who pulled me into this whole thing and now I’m probably going to die just like Liran did.... No! You... are the last one who should complain. So shut the fuck up.”
Gianah stared into his face expressionless. Then she turned her back to him. Varag suddenly realised how loud he had gotten and looked around if anyone could have heard them. The area seemed empty, but one could not be sure.
They walked on. They did not know what else to do.
The day passed. The sun was already going down again when Gianah started to speak once more.
“Varag?”
He didn’t answer and kept on walking.
“I need to tell you something.”
He stopped. That from Gianah was a new one. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I’m serious.”
Varag pondered.
“I don’t doubt that. But what do you want to tell me and why now?”
“I just want to.” That sounded as giving away nothing as usual again. She continued.
“I didn’t happen to live in the city and have a look around at the fair the day I stole that device.”
“What do you mean?” He gave her a questioning look.
“I’m not one of you.... I have parents... I came to the fair because I was bored and curious. And because I had had an argument with my parents. Bought a ticket for a flight to this moon and came here.” She paused again.
Varag looked at her. He was not quite sure if to believe it or not. She seemed to search for words before she went on.
“I got into the fair pretending to be... someone else”
“Yeah of course!” He was pretty sure he had to expect another wacky story that could hardly be true. But once she started to tell things at all it was probably be better not to stop her.
“Er.... and who would that be?”
“My mother.” She
looked at the ground.
“It was her VIP pass.. She is
a scientist and has gone to those fairs before but had an important project she
couldn‘t leave alone the time...“
“Important project? Like what? Fixing her wacko daughter?”
She growled at him but then went on anyways.
“And as I told you I was planning run away... I
even planned to come to this moon... but I hadn't planned to go to the fair
thing... but when I snuck out of the house... I noticed the pass on her desk...
and I just took it with me... that was just a day before the fair.”
Varag thought about that for a while.
“And how exactly did you manage to pretend to be
your mother?”
“Well... About everyone going there is
important... and the people who have a VIP pass are even more so. People stop
asking questions if you show it.”
“Hm.” Varag decided to believe that for now. It sounded at least a lot more plausible then anything she had said before.
“So you run away from your loving parents to have a little fun at a scientist fair pretending to be a scientist. Not everyone’s thing I have to admit, but I guess it’s all fine. But...”
“Yes?”
“Why did you steal that thing?!”
“I don’t know... I was just walking along there, looking at things... and then I saw the machine... and I wanted to have it. I had to have it” She paused.
"It was real easy too... guess once you're inside everyone expects you to belong there."
Then she stopped and looked straight into his face.
“But I’d have never expected it would all turn out like this.”
Now Varag was completely sure she was insane.
It had to be true. There was no sense in making up something like that right now. It did however not make the whole story any less bizarre by that. It explained a lot however. Gianah’s clothes, her knowledge. She had not behaved like one of them to begin with. But even with all that, a part of him was still impressed with how she had managed to steal that object away from under the noses of these people. How she even got into the fair.
Varag chuckled quietly.
“This is a pretty ridiculous situation we’re in, do you realise that? I have to stay with my opinion though... you got yourself into all this. And me with you... unfortunately for me.”
Gianah stared at a place next to his face. It was not quite the reaction he had expected. Then her eyes widened.
“Run!”
It took Varag a tiny bit too long to realise what had happened. He turned around and saw the three darklings come their way. He turned back and tried to run away but a hand caught his arm from behind. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gianah being hit by a stunning gun and then a hard object bounced off his skull.
Chapter 7: Secrets
He awoke a little surprised he was indeed alive, even though he did not feel all too well. His head hurt and he felt dizzy. When he opened his eyes he noticed his sight being fuzzy. Trying to lift his hand to his eyes and rub them he however realised that his wrists were bound to the sides of the chair he had apparently been placed in.
When his mind started to wake up too he also realised he was sitting in front of a black table with anthracite chairs behind facing him. There was no one else apart from him present in the room however.
He looked around. Dark gray walls, no windows, one door which was shut. Light coming from lamps in the ceiling. The air was very dry, filtered. The pain in his head started getting worse again when he looked at the lights, he clenched his teeth and closed his eyes.
It had been just a few minutes, then the door slid open. Two of the three darklings who had hunted them earlier took position next to both sides of the door. Behind them someone Varag had not seen before entered. A Lunar Clan man. Not royalty, he was maybe a bit over a meter tall and walked on his own, in a dark gray suit that matched the whole room and its furniture in a bizarre way, carrying a small suitcase. Behind him the third Darkling guard made the door close.
Varag wondered if Gianah was still alive. That he was alone here might mean that she was dead... or that she had been brought somewhere else.
The man stepped up the small plateau in front of one of the chairs and sat down.
“So...” he said.
Varag looked at him. A part of his brain pondered if the man was not going to say anything more after all this then ‘so...’
“You can call me... Lue” the man said. Varag could guess he would not tell him his actual name.
“And your name, apparently, is Varag”.
He had a surprisingly pleasant voice. It fitted to the overall smooth impression the guy gave off.
He took a piece of laminated paper out of the suitcase and slipped it onto the table. Varag still looked at him in silence. Then he looked down at the paper. It was a profile of him, including details down to his height, things he had not even known himself before.
Lue smiled.
“No, we didn’t know all this before, if you think that. These profiles, we have one for your friend too, were made after we found you.”
“Why?” Varag asked.
“We like to have control.”
“Oh great! And hunting down children is one of your hobbies?”
The man looked at him frowning.
“And you have a big mouth too. No... hunting down children is not one of our hobbies. Tracking thieves, is a different matter however.”
“Well... what does it matter now? Whatever I say or do I’m going to die anyways. Gianah is probably already dead or you’ll kill her soon too, just like Liran.”
“That depends.” Said Lue.
“Depends on what? Didn’t seem to depend on anything in Liran’s case.” Varag replied.
“He didn’t even have your cursed machine at the time.”
Lue looked at him with an unreadable expression on his face.
“My three... employees tend to overreact at times. Their actual order was to bring the machine, and the ones who carried it with them, to us. Maybe it happened because the boy did not have the machine. We however, are civilized beings. It depends on how much you actually know... and how smart you are.”
Varag did not reply.
Lue took a com unit out of his suitcase.
“You can come in now.”
The door was slid open again and a woman came in. For a short moment Varag had the absurd impression that it was Myrealla, but it was a quite a bit older Psi Clan woman wearing a dark grey one-piece suit just like Lue.
She sat down next to the man.
“Alright.” She said.
“We will now soon know what we will do with you.”
Varag cringed.
He did not really know what he felt like when the grey ball was levitating above his head, it was different from anything that had happened to him before. But empty might have been pretty close.
“You will tell me nothing but the absolute truth about anything I ask from you now on. You don’t want to lie.”
Her voice was low and friendly. Pleasant. He suddenly found it hard to imagine this woman was his enemy. He sat straight and tense.
“When did you first see the machine?”
“On a street... Gianah took it with her shortly afterwards.” He replied.
“When did you see it again after that?”
“When Gianah turned up at Liran’s niche.”
“What did you do with it.”
“We tried to find out what it does, what it is for.”
“Why did you try to keep it?”
“Because we thought it was worth a lot. We wanted to sell it.”
“Did you figure out what it is used for?”
“No.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No.”
The Psi woman broke the link. Varag slumped back into the chair.
Both her and Lue stood up and left the room. The two Darklings stayed inside the room and kept watching Varag.
After a while, Lue entered the room again and made a sign to the two guards. Each of them released one of the clasps around Varag’s wrists, took him firmly by the upper arms and pulled him up. He was brought out of the room and along a corridor that lead to another room at the end.
In the room waiting was the Psi woman... and Gianah.
It was the same as before. Two of the guards stood next to the door inside, one outside. Just that now at least neither Varag nor Gianah were bound to a chair.
Gianah curiously looked around the faces of the people in the room, while Varag waited silently looking at the floor.
“As we found out that both of you had no idea whatsoever what the object you stole was” The woman said.
“You are no threat.” The man continued.
“Merely an annoyance.” The woman added.
“So we decided killing you would give us more trouble then you could give us anyways.”
Gianah and Varag looked at each other. This was almost unbelievable.
“Just one thing...”
They both turned their heads simultaneously and looked at Lue.
The man smiled.
“No one would miss you. Really no one misses people like you... so, be smart and stay alive. You have never been here.”
He laughed.
“Besides... who would believe you?”
Chapter 8: Safe
They were sitting on a low wall bordering a green area. It was mid-day, the city almost quiet. The really busy time of the city was over in general. Politicians and scientists left for their home, and they would return in half a year. Half a year seemed long right then. It still seemed unreal they had actually gotten through this without being harmed majorly. After Lue and the Psi woman had told them they were free they had been lead to a glider that had a backpart without any windows in which they had been brought to and dropped out at an empty place in the city.
That had been a few days before.
“You know.” Gianah pondered.
“Actually it is a pity that we never got to find out what the machine was.”
Varag raised an eyebrow at her.
“That depends if you pity having been left alive. If we had known anything about it we’d be dead by now. I don’t really pity that particularly much. And even now I have to admit that I’m not particularly keen on finding out what it was. At the moment I’d love to forget it all.”
“Hard to forget it though.”
“Yes.”
She suddenly chuckled.
“Actually I could ask my mother. Not very likely she knows but maybe-”
“Don’t you dare! You’re not even going to tell her you were at the fair. You’d put us both into danger, so please keep that in mind.”
“Ok”
She grimaced.
“But no, it’s true... actually you’re right.”
It was surprising to see her agree once in a while.
They stayed silent for a moment.
“What will you do now?”
“I don’t know... I caused so much trouble. For myself and for others. Normally I’m proud of not caring much about anything...” She squinted into the sun.
“I think I will go home.”
“How?”
“I carried the return-ticket around with me all the time.” She blushed.
“In my underwear.”
He grinned.
“I still don’t get how one person can be so stupid and so clever at the same time.”
“Asshole.”
They were standing at the spaceport. The ship to the ice moon would leave in a short while. Varag was not exactly sure what he felt like about it. But that last time he had hardly ever been sure about any of his feelings. It had just all been so completely different from what he had lived like before, that he did not think he was really able to judge.
“This is it then?”
She nodded.
“I’ll fly home... play the regretting daughter. I’ll see what happens. They’ll either be happy... or I’ll get a damn lot of shouting at me. Probably the latter. But I doubt they’ll shut the door in front of my face.”
“Ok then.” He pointed to the monitor: “Says your ship is leaving in a few minutes.”
She took the ticket out of her pocket and turned around.
He looked after her but did not feel like saying goodbye. He felt like he had been played with.
`There she goes´ he thought.
`She can go home... and I am left with the shards she leaves behind.´
They had hated each other when they first met. They had forcibly been in some pretty terrible situations together. Two other people might have become friends under these circumstances. But with Liran’s death, and having to carry around the secret of what had happened to them in those two rooms for the rest of their lives without ever being able to tell anyone about it, it had not been possible for them.
Varag did not quite know what he would do now. He would have to live somehow, so he assumed he would take up his old ‘profession’ again. Or at least something similar after Liran was not there anymore to repair the things he found. Liran had been the only person he had been in closer contact with. Although the corpse must have been found by then, Varag had not considered going back to Liran’s niche, and not even been thinking about living there.
He decided to move to a different area. That would mean having to fight for a place in the hierarchy of people living in a that area of the city again, but that did not matter.
This area was poisoned in a way.
It would go on somehow. It always did.
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