thor. An epic by Milos Part 1: Resonant Disc ===========
This is my attempt at crafting a post-apocyliptic world and incorporating homoerotic elements. I can't say much that hasn't already been said in the way of warnings, but if you are offended by gay themes, or love between boys and men, please don't read further. If these themes are illegal in your area, please don't read further. If you would like to drop me a critique, please feel free to send an email to writer_milos@yahoo.co.uk. This work is completely, and very obviously, fiction. Take the rest with a grain of salt.
--Milos
(Written exclusively for the Nifty Archives) ===========
Chapter 3
There is a strange, seemingly odd spire that sits on a mountainside far below. Blink, blink, blink, blink - its steady cadence goes uninterrupted so it can warn low-flying ground traffic of some unseen danger. Maybe a rocky crag juts up from the ground, or some sort of conduit is strewn recklessly across the landscape. I live here, but I have never seen the ground below me; they flew me in from another tethered, war-torn kipper tin.
The horizon is convex. The sunset is shining under the approaching storm, a compressed litter of orange and yellow hues that tell me that tonight is going to be rough on this end of the tether. A faint glow comes from a piece of glass across the room - protein cells in a box somewhere are moving hexadecimal algorithms to help me find the answers to the last codex of the night. I see parts of the messages, but never the full result. I am one of many, but I am also one of few.
The revolving throngs of war - who are we fighting anyway? Alliances are forged, then broken, small civil wars, guerillas, successions, alliances that break old ones... I am a constituent of this perpetual propaganda campaign.
A low rumble of distant thunder shakes the foundation. Curio rattles and a pencil, an archaic writing implement given to me by Madger, rolls off the counter and under the bed. He likes to collect such antiquities.
A chime from my desk requests human attention for my workstation. "Verifiable?:" After I tap on the screen, it will either push out random crap, which means I didn't break the code, or push out something in any given language. If I tell it that it's crap, then it goes back through another couple of cycles. This time it's readable.
"... t=jokulsson=reports=bed.down=in=quadrant ..."
Soldier? Spy? Scandinavian name of some sort. Whoever he is - he's going to have a bad day when they find him. It's not often we get messages in English. I compile the short report and code base, then send it on it's way. It's things like this that start civil wars - but I wonder if there are actually players in all this - actual soldiers. It's a chess game of nothing but talking and negotiations... then once in a while something explodes. Madger would rather have the explosion.
All I want - to touch the ground.
I hear footsteps run by my door. They are small and light - like that of a child. Another set going the other way. A few transients must be exploring the unsecured areas. I hear faint voices - almost taunting. There are a few hollow thuds against the wall outside my compartment, then laughter.
I open the hatch and look around the corner. There are three or four of them holding another kid against the wall - but their victim is behind a girder.
"What's this, then? Scatter - th' whole lot of yeh!"
One of them challenges me with a stare. The other two back away.
"Bugger off!"
He stares at me, but backs away slowly. A fist flies out from behind the girder - the victim puts his whole arm, then body into a punch that lands square in the side of his aggressor's nose. The kid falls back and hits his head on the wall as he falls, curling up into a ball. Thor pauses at the end of his punch, then seizes an opportunity to kick the other kid in the ribs. I can see a big glob of blood blocking Thor's left nostril. The blood on his shirt is turning a brown hue of maroon. These little arse bandits have been at it for a while.
"Vaddirassgat!" Thor yells at the kid, spitting a glob of bloody spit on him.
"Stop it, mate. They'll stick you in the oven."
He stares at me blankly through a mask of black and blue eyes. He runs past me and into my room, locking himself in the bathroom. I look over my shoulder, then tend to the kid on the ground.
"You alright, then?"
The kid moans in agony.
"Now ye know not to take the piss out of'em." I help him to his feet - twelve and starting to cry. "Don't be such a sod next time. Go back to your dorm and keep quiet. If you open yer gob an' they see both you tits looking like that then you're both buggered. Trust me."
He hobbles off quietly.
I walk back to my domicile and find Thor sitting on my bed, his arms propping him forward and his shoulders pathetically around his ears.
"You've gotten me into enough trouble." I scratch my head, "with the wrong Helge, even." There may be several people in this colony named Helge - but I am the wrong Irryn to fuck with. "You trying to get yourself shit-canned? Want to go fight in the fields? Be vaporized in some freak battle? They might just stick you in the oven and be done wif it!" Kids don't do well in the oven. The cells are small, crowded, and lead into an auxiliary chute that spits off steam and heat from all the mechanical nick-nacks that keep this dinner plate in the sky.
He looks at me sadly.
"Fuck! Get up - les' get that crap off yer face." I take him to the bathroom and take off his shirt. He has bruises all over him. From the looks of it, two of them are a bit big for kids to have left. I sigh, "Hold yer head over the sink."
I run warm water and help him clean his face. Swirls of vermillion dissipate and disappear down the drain. I dry his face with a towel and put one of my shirts on him. He looks down at it, obviously far to big for his frame, then meets my eyes with his.
"Nothing broken?" I ruffle his hair.
He ducks away under it and returns to his stagnate gaze.
"What?"
He blinks then knocks me into the wall trying to wrap his arms around my waste. He is crying into my hip, whimpering like there's nobody else in the world.
"Come on, then," I say softly, "none of that." I get my arms around him and lift him up. I take him to my bed and sit him down. After digging through one of my drawers, I find a small chocolate ration I have been saving. I hand it to him, "It's an icing of dark orange."
He stares at it.
"Take it."
He grabs it and slowly takes a small bite out of it. A lingering tear drops off his thick eyelashes, and his shoulders and jaw shudder as one would after having a sobbing fit - happily chewing nonetheless.
"I think a petty officer landed one or two on 'im."
Madger clears his throat uncomfortably and stares out the window. "Who would this officer be?"
"Don' know, sir. Wee bit worried."
"Over some kids hazing each other?"
"Well, the little muppets did their fair share, but these two fist prints were bigger than any of those kids could do. Thor seems... unadjusted."
"He seems pretty durable to me." He sits on his desk in front of me. "I'll see what I can do," he puts his hand on my inner thigh and squeezes, "but you owe me."
I have finally dozed off. The pleasant numbness and the feeling for rolling head over arse in a dark void embraces me. My ears ring slightly and send a tingle down my spine. At first, the sound is almost electric - like one of those hearing tests. It fades in and out, and for a moment it almost sounds metallic - not like a gong or a hit against steel, but like folded aluminum being displaced and rebounding. Then the tone again; the soft calling tone.
My toes tingle a bit, and the sensation starts to pulsate through my body. The twilight of slumber is dawning, and I am sweating a bit. The heaters here either really work or really don't. But I am comfortable where I am - this numbness. My limbs are heavy and I feel like I am about to surpass my running mind. My mind is abstract now, no more worries of the day, memories or the like. Deep... slumber...
The numbness goes down my fingers, and the tone in my ear pulsates. Now I have the sensation of rolling through space - just floating, perhaps swinging back and forth on a hammock. My right side pulsates the tone again, and my eyes see a ripple of water. It feels like a caress - a hug from someone who cares. It feels like a hand on my chest -
Oh God - there is someone in my bed. I sit straight up and take a breath like cold water. The other falls out of the bed and scurries back to the wall on his bum; I almost take the spill too. I am breathing hard, but I think I scared him more than he did me. Looking at the corner, slowly, I run my hand over the orb.
It blinks on.
Thor sits, hugging his legs. Again he appears in nothing but his underwear.
I put my hands over my eyes and fall back into the hammock, "God, you little twat!" I lie for a moment, then look over at him sharply. "What were you thinking just then?"
He blinks at me.
"Don' you have your own bed?"
"Þau letust," he croaks weakly.
"Thah... wait." I think. "Who's died?"
"Þau letust-" his jaw shivers.
"You're out of your mind, mate. Are you sick or something?"
He blinks and stares at me.
"Erm- er yður ilt?"
He shakes his head, "Kalt."
"Kalt - you're cold?"
He just looks at me.
"I don't under - erm," I stumble on my words, "?g skil yður... ekki... yður..." I cover my eyes with the crook of my arm. "Shite, mate."
I can hear him get up, and feel him crawling into my bed again. I can feel him shaking, wrapping one arm over my chest. "P- please. Scared," he whines, "scaaaared." A sniffle.
I look down at the top of his head. "Scared of what?"
"I am scared for you."
"Allt i lagi," I whisper as I softly rub his hair. He sucks his thumb and rocks back and forth as he sleeps. "Allt i lagi..."
For the first time, looking at this transient, this ghost - I really do hope that everything will be alright.