Companionship - beyond flesh

Rescue

The door to the room of horrors slid open, and Max followed Riggs into the dark. A sweet musty smell flooded his nostrils and Max was glad he’d taken a hit of some chemical mutator that he couldn’t remember the name of -- all he needed to know that it would trick his brain into converting bad smells into the scent of flowers. He recognised this scent to be chamomile, just my luck he thought as he hated the smell of the small daisy-like flowers that he knew from those that were growing in the hortus.

Riggs raised her arm in the 'full light' gesture and there it was, the horribly beautiful pyramid of bones sitting in the middle of what had been a large storage room spanning three levels. Atop the stucture hung a naked man from a cross. The machine sitting off Churchman’s right shoulder looked alive with bright lights flashing, but the man himself looked dead. 

On a throne within a recess in the pyramid, the solid orr statue of Emma Yee sat midway up facing them. Max had Emma Yee on his mind every day (literally) due to the recurring dreams. Here, her statue looked so life-like that he thought she blinked at him. He altered Riggs nervously, “Did you see that? She blinked at me!”

“Impossible.” Responded the auger, “It was just a relection of the light. That figure you look at is not like Her.” Riggs emphaised the ‘her’ as if the word were poison, “This statue of Emma Yee is made from orr in its solid form and is tougher and more rigid than any heavy metal carbide.” Riggs turned to look at Max and tapped one side of her horns, “Trust me, I know.”

Max was pleased with how Riggs had been treating him this morning. She met him after breakfast seemingly a changed person, civil, calm and relaxed wearing a dark grey administrative uniform rather than the black battle armour he had seen her in yesterday. The horns still made her look evil, but Max thought that he could live with happy evil. 

Max’s stomach churned as he looked up at the Churchman. In the full light the torture of the man had become fully apparent, his arms stetched so far that they seemed to be hanging out of their socketts, “So how are we going to get him down? Did you want me to climb up and…” 

“Climb up and what? Unplug the machine that’s keeping him alive; pull him off the cross; put him over your shoulder, and climb back down?” Riggs’ tone was short and impatient, “Think before you talk stupid man.”

So much for happy evil, thought Max. “Sorry, my fault, I should have thought before I spoke.” 

Riggs just shook her head and took a small device out of her pocket. She showed Max a small metallic sphere, “We use this.”

“What is it?” 

“Gass.”

Max’s jaw dropped, gass was an alchemade material highly rare and extremely valuable.

“Yes, she’s making the stuff here. I won’t bore your great mind with the details, but no one would have thought it possible before." Riggs changed the subject, "Now, can you ask Ms Orr to re-instate my SIS interface? I’ll need access to the outpost's systems to make this work.” She lifted the small ball of metal up for Max to see better, she then tossed the sphere at Max, who was taken by complete surprise.  He threw his arms up awkwardly to catch, but missed the target. The small ball made a clang as it hit the floor, barely bounced heavily once and rolled into the corner.

He was unnerved now, more at Riggs' request than at the impromptu game of catch, Oh Shit, he thought, just like that Riggs wants me to ask Emma to bring her augmentations back on-line. I don’t know why, but it sounds dangerous.

Riggs noticed Max’s hesitation, "Don’t worry I couldn’t cause any damage even if I wanted to; She monitors and controls everything". Then, “Nevermind,” stated Riggs, “She’s monitoring our conversation even as we speak and has already activated my interface to the outpost’s systems. Ah, that feels better.” She grinned manically at Max and mimed an explosion with her hands and lips, ‘pow’.