with dragons! Come with me if you will into the realms of machine and magic...

Excessive Force

I

When the urei had finished giving the instructions for the procedure, Cillian navigated the crowded laboratory to his station. The instructions, as written on the urei’s handout, cycled through Cillian’s head. At the station he glanced over the instructions for their task—primordia conversion—and was interrupted by a clatter of crystal ware. Cillian looked at the dishes then at his partner, Joshua.

“Are these the air-filtered ones?”

Joshua looked sheepishly from the supplies to Cillian. “I got them from over there.” He pointed to the stack of oval dishes between the crystalline tubes and a jar of some thick muddy substance.

“Okay then.” Cillian snapped his gloves on and took a final look at the procedure’s outline. “Let’s get the burner ready.”

Their preparatory steps went smoothly enough. Cillian passed their tube of soil sample through the flame. While Joshua held the tube of primordia steady, Cillian obtained a small bit of the liquefied primordia and introduced it to the soil sample.

“Great, first dish down. Go ahead and sterilize the dipper.” Cillian flipped to the next part of the experiment. The urei’s repetitive demonstration of the procedure had completely wiped the written description as he had memorized it from his mind.

“Hmm…maybe needs more flame.”

Cillian glanced at the burner and felt a chill seize hold of his insides. The gas was still on and as Josiah gave the nozzle as slight twist, a yellow-green flame burst from the burner and washed over the primordia vial. Cillian blanked out; he heard the urei hurrying toward them shouting though it sounded so distant, as did the reactions of his colleagues. A spark of primordia hit Josh as the urei reached their station. She pushed Cillian aside, tossed a thick blanket of Joshua and reached under the burner to shut off the flame. Sprawled on the floor beneath the blanket, Joshua began to writhe and convulse. Guilt held Cillian in place despite the flow of students exiting the laboratory. Thick vines had begun to snake out from under the blanket as primordia-fueled forest growth overtook Joshua

“Out of the way!”

A cold, gauntleted hand shoved Cillian aside. The pain of the collision with the stony floor snapped Cillian back to reality. As he picked himself up, he saw a cluster of slagepkar and licensed reigraneers standing around a thick patch of vine and nettle-chocked form.

My fault…its my fault I should have watched him closer. He’s dying and its my fault he’s being torn apart and its all my fault…The thought played through Cillian’s mind over and over throughout the rest of his day and long into the night.

II

Samantha Faye looked up from a book detailing the primitive ritual of the tribes on the Penal Islands to find the young man sitting across the cabin had abandoned the history textbook. Instead he was watching the green and white mountains as the zeppelin navigated the Greencap Passage.

“Feeling better?”

“A bit. According to the old records, there’ve been worse accidents in the field…but it doesn’t excuse our lack of communication.”

“True.” Samantha replied. She put her book away and plopped down beside Cillian. She laid an arm across his shoulders. “You know, some time away will do you a world of good. Fresh air and old friends are a wonder for the soul.”

Cillian smiled—actually smiled—for the first time since the laboratory mishap. “Oh yeah. Playing hide and seek in the general store and climbing the gravel piles in the track yards.”

Samantha smiled as well, thinking back to the incident Cillian had told her about where he lost his class ring sliding down a gravel pile because one of his friends thought she saw a patrol of slagepkar.

“Plus the mountains should really fuel the old creative spark.” Samantha added. Cillian pulled her close and their shared a kiss.
KER-WHAM!

The lovers both jumped; another solid hit landed on the door.

“Open up for routine inspection!”

“What the hell?” Cillian asked. He turned back to Samantha. “I thought your father said they wouldn’t bother us.”

“He did—”

The slagepkar outside pounded the door again.

“Take it easy!” Samantha shouted as she stuffed the bag with the penal rituals book into the luggage rack. She shoved it all the way to the back and hastily pulled her and Cillian’s suitcases over the lumpy parcel. Cillian was approaching the door when the slagepkar

“I’ll give you one more warning!”

Cillian glanced back at Samantha and offered a weak smile then unbolted the door and slid it aside. Standing in the hall was a trio of men decked out in crudely welded plate-like armor. The unit’s leader was armed with a gauntlet-mounted primordia-fueled firearm while the other two each had the standard reiore nightclubs.

The leader of the party, WALTERS according to the breast patch, looked down on Cillian with an appraising eye. “There’s something in here, boys. Get these two out into the hallway.”

As she followed Cillian into the hallway, Samantha noticed he’d put on that blank look he usually wore when the Winnie Pooh hit the fan. She took his hand in hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

We’re in this together.

Samantha sensed motion out of the corner of her eye. She saw Cillian leap at the slagepkar Walters as his arm shot out and griped her by the shoulder. The slagepkar simultaneously yanked her into the cabin and violently shoved Cillian back into the hallway.

“Lookee what we found in your bag.” Walters held out his free hand. One of his subordinates handed him the penal rituals book. “This Winnie Pooh is illegal, woman.” The slagepkar opened the book and flipped through the pages. His already blotchy red face flushed a deeper shade with each page he passed. Finally he tossed the book against the seat. “What’s the matter?” Walters pulled Samantha closer. “Don’t like the look of a civilized man?”

How the hell did we get onto this topic? Hell, the barbarians are a lot more civilized than you are. Don’t say anything…just let him do what he wants and let the system grill him.

“Nothing to say, eh? I guess the your little barbarian harem’s got your tongue eh, you filthy little female dog?”

“Hey!” Cillian shouted from the hallway, “watch your—” A swift jab from one of the slagepkar’s nightclubs silenced him.

“Oh ho! What’s this?” Walters was now holding a stack of papers held together by a rubber band. With the eagerness of a child opening a present he snapped off the rubber band and started going through the poems.

Amazingly, his already drunken-red face flushed deeper still. Samantha felt Cillian tugging at her sleeve lowered her head.

“I think he likes them.”

Samantha smiled. Good to see he still has his sense of humor.

“Calm down, Steven. Calm down,” the slagepkar Walters muttered to himself. After a long struggle his angry frown jerked into a demented grin. He regarded Samantha and Cillian with a malicious look. “I’ll have you on treason…” he said gleefully. Then added: “And I’m sure your cellmates will have you too. That should be fun to watch.”

“Treason? They’re poems!” Samantha said.

“I guess the little whore’s never heard of secret coding…” Walters said smugly. He gathered up the poems, the book, and turned to his boys. “We’re taking her in.”

“Hold on,” Cillian interjected. “They’re all mine.”

“Cillian,” Samantha hissed, “don’t!”

Walters’ head snapped back toward Samantha. “What’s that?”

“She didn’t say anything. I said they’re mine.”

Walters turned back to face Cillian. He seemed to have partially recovered from the hit with the nightclub. “You make me sick.” Walters growled. Then without warning he lunged at Cillian, pinning him to the hallway wall. “You’re a coward hiding behind your woman like that. I’ll personally escort you to the westlands.” His fist pulled back and slammed into Cillian’s gut.

“Stop it!” Samantha shouted. “Stop it they’re—”

“You keep on shouting and you’ll join him on the floor, woman!” Walters bellowed. He returned his attention to Cillian who lay in a fetal position at the slagepkar’s feet. “I’ll even offer you up to their fertility mumbo-jumbo deity myself.” He delivered a hard kick to Cillian’s midsection.

“Can’t you do anything!” Samantha cried. She turned and saw that Walters’ subordinates had decided to watch the mountains passing by rather than witness their leader’s abuse of power.

Unbelievable. Un f****** believable…they’re afraid. Whatever happened to equality and camaraderie?

“Reaching for a weapon!” Walters exclaimed. “That’s it!”

Samantha glanced at the scene in the hall and felt her heart jumped. Walters’ was charging his firearm and in Cillian hand she saw—

“It’s not a weapon!” she cried, slapping Walters’ firing gauntlet away from Cillian. “Look it’s not a weapon!” She pointed at the little card he was holding out.

“Eh what’s this.” Walters bent and snatched the card.

Samantha knelt by Cillian and gently moved his hand away from his stomach. She unbuttoned his vest, raised the shirt and took a look. The skin looked nasty, its color going from angry red to bruise-purple and had a slightly lumpy feel.

“Looks bad?” Cillian asked.

Samantha nodded. “Yeah, but just wait, we’ll take him in the court.”

Cillian managed a smile. “Until then I’ll be hoping I don’t die of ex-sanguination.”

“We’re out of here, boys.” Walters watched his men march from the cabin then looked down on Cillian and Samantha. “He’s good as a traitor but we can’t touch him. You lucked out this time, reigraneer.” The unit leader tossed the card onto the floor and marched down the hall to ascend to the ferry-zeppelin’s third level.

“Can you move?”

“Yeah, just don’t put any pressure on the sweet spot.”

Carefully Samantha helped Cillian to his feet and walked him back into the cabin. She situated him on the couch and slid the door to.

“Thanks, Cillian. What was on that card?”

“It’s my apprentice license. We got em after the first week in the Refuge. It keeps me from being converted to one of the count’s pitbulls…that is if last week’s debacle doesn’t get me kicked out.”
“Cillian you need to get over that. It’s been a week—”

“And I haven’t seen Joshua back at the Refuge since.”

Sometimes you’re impossible.

“I imagine the incident shook him up to. Did you think of that?”

“Well…I…”

I didn't think so. Yet again you pretend to be the Pillar.

“Cillian, you don’t need to take the world upon your shoulders.” She leaned in and they shared a passionate kiss. “Besides, it’ll be another month before you go back. We’ll both be reborn and ready to tackle whatever they throw at us.”

“You do realize we’ll be staying with Armand Walker, right?”

“He can’t be that bad.”

Cillian chuckled. “That’s what my step brother said.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.

"Said?"

"He's dead...presumably."

Samantha chuckled as she dug out a fresh paper and began jotting down the details of their encounter with Walters as they came to her.

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Urei = Mentor
Slagepkar = Militant police force