Torchworld: Outsiders Collection Read online

  Lilith scrunched up more on the seat, bringing her knees to her chest. “I don’t owe anyone anything. But I will explain, only because I can’t do this by myself.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “So, I murdered two people in cold blood. Two boys, actually.”

  “You what?”

  “They had it coming.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. What’s that got to do with Markin though?”

  Lilith stared out the window. Was she going to answer? I wasn’t sure until she turned back to me.

  “For a long time Markin had kept me at arms length. After years of him being the only man around I could talk to, I started to like him. In more than a platonic way.” Lilith pressed her lips into a tight line.

  “I take it he didn’t feel the same?”

  “No, I think he did, that’s the frustrating part. It’s like I’m not worth his time. For about a year now, he’d pushed me back further than usual. I saw him watching me. When we were alone Markin was so much softer around the edges.”

  “I can’t imagine that man being soft around anything.”

  Lilith’s face broke into a pained smile.

  “But you can imagine how that would happen right?”

  With a sage nod I patted her arm. “It’s pretty natural to develop feelings for someone you spend a lot of quality time with.”

  Lilith bit her bottom lip. “Anyway, the night I fucked up with those boys he saved me from being mobbed by the pitchfork crew. Carried me back to our bunker. Got me cleaned up. I was unstable. I needed him to fucking tell me what I knew he felt.” Lilith swiped at her welling eyes with the back of her hand. “I wanted him to treat me like an adult and someone that he cared about. He didn’t. Quite the opposite.”

  The sky began to deepen into night as I let the silence stretch between us. Was it a bad idea to push her? I’d forced it despite her recalcitrance.

  “What happened afterwards?”

  Lilith sniffled and breathed deep. “Nothing. I moved out into the warehouse. You came along a few weeks later, and I saw the opportunity.”

  I squeezed her hand. “I appreciate you telling me.” But was it everything? That, I couldn’t be sure of. Close enough, for now. “Hey, it’s your turn woman.”

  “My what?”

  “Questions. Your turn.”

  “Oh.” Lilith glanced over at me and I grinned. She scowled and tapped her fingers on the screen. Messages I couldn’t read from my seat. The chair she sat in reclined and Lilith laid back with pale arms folded behind her head.

  “What if I want to save it for later?”

  She giggled when I poked her in the arm. “Gotta do it now, smart ass.”

  “You might regret that you know.”

  “Nope. Don’t regret anything.”

  Lilith turned her head to face me. “Really?”

  I nodded. “Nobody should, if they thought well and proper about what choice to pick. Every choice was something you wanted at one point.”

  “Hmm, makes sense when you put it like that. Well, I have one. What do you think of the Akhataree? Markin hates them. I’m not sure why, though.”

  The question took me off guard and I shifted my feet around. I’d expected her to ask about my background, but not that.

  “I read your file. I know about your unit going missing.”

  By the Ahka, the woman didn’t forget a thing did she?

  “Not missing, but non-existent now.”

  Lilith squinted at me. “Is that why you ran?”

  “Mmhm. Found out something I shouldn’t have.” I drummed my fingers on the Mercury’s smooth dashboard. “I don’t want to be deleted.”

  “What do you mean by deleted?”

  Suppose there’s no reason I shouldn’t tell her what happened. Only fair. As far as I knew the Akha didn’t expect me to survive out here.

  “They were removed. Gone. No one remembers them, not even their families. Erased out of the world system just like a file.”

  Lilith frowned. “What the hell are you talking about? How could you delete a person?”

  “You know those crackpot conspiracies that people like Markin talk about? About how the Akha are lying to us? It’s true. There’s more going on and I don’t know what. But I know people just disappearing from history ain’t normal. I’m the only one that remembers these guys after what we saw. It’s like they never existed!”

  I was shaking my head while Lilith just stared open mouthed. “What the fuck? What did you see to make them want to kill you off?”

  “Me and another guy, we overheard a Phoenix agent talking about the last day before the Restore.” Lilith opened her mouth but I raised a palm to stop her. “Sorry. Phoenix are the contingent the Akhataree put on Earth to manage us. Ego, she’s a Phoenix too.”

  “Oh,” she replied with a nod. “I always thought it was weird that nobody ever questioned what happened on the last day. Especially when no human knows.”

  “Right. Well it’s complicated. They were talking in Akha so we only caught bits and pieces when they mentioned names. We passed it off as random alien chatter until the people in my unit started disappearing. I thought something wasn’t right about it and told my soldier to zip it. Either he didn’t or someone saw us. The latter probably.”

  “Markin was right then. Close, at least. Wonder if he left for a similar reason? Phoenix were probably afraid he’d talk to the public. I get that impression.” Lilith retook control of the craft and settled us down in a large cavern. ”We’ll stop here for the night.” She twisted a piece of hair around her finger, frowning. “I wonder what they thought you heard?”

  I shrugged. “Something big. I have no doubt that the Akha are lying their asses off. I’ve been thinking about what they could be lying about though, or why they felt the need to keep us in the dark.”

  “I’m sure someone knows. Markin came close, I figured that much from his sleep talking. Mentioned someone called Alere before, and something about farms? Didn’t click until now.”

  “Do you have a connection to Visnet from here? I have an idea, the name sounds so familiar.” I pulled up an input screen and began to login.

  “Sort of. It’ll be slow and ghosted.”

  “Works for me.”

  Lilith typed a few commands into her console window, bringing up the Visnet search on mine.

  “Visnet, search query. Notable figures: Restore generation. Filter: First name: Alere.”

  After a few long minutes, Visnet piped up. “500+ results.”

  “On screen.” Scanning the results, I verified my hunch. I pointed to the stack of news articles at the top. “Alere Vox Valerius. Founder of Sky Farms, Father of the Restore era.”

  Lilith picked through the results. She pulled up a video. “It says there’s other founders too. Visnet, play clip.”

  We both stared with jaws agape as Alere stood proud in between two friends. It wasn’t him we were shocked at, it was Markin standing next to him, with a laughing woman on the other side.

  “Aquila and Serena Emet survey the new Sky Farm facility outside Opalesk City.”

  Lilith slammed her hand on the dash. “Fucking asshole!”

  “Stop clip.”

  The screen froze, and I slumped back in my seat. Lilith looked pissed. He face was even paler than before, teeth gritted. Not knowing what else I could do, after a few minutes of silence I closed the screen and moved to get up. I could at least stretch a bit, or maybe lie down.

  The Mercury was big enough to have a sleeping pod. It’d be a welcome break right now. Hadn’t thought about why I left since leaving Opalesk. The strain of all this was tiring.

  “I want to ask you something before we keep going.”

  Lilith had curled up with her back facing me, long legs stretched out to rest her feet on the dash. “I’ll take first watch,” she replied.

  “Not that. Do you regret bringing me along yet?”

  Lilith sat up and pushed her snarled hair
back into a ponytail. “Not really. Requires some rethinking, but I’d assumed you had a good reason for fleeing Mil-Sec. They don’t chase people past the drone range, though. I think they assume we’ll die from lack of resources, before getting a chance to tell the cities what’s going on.”

  The tension in my muscles dissolved.

  “Did you make the right choice in coming with me Kharl?” she asked while typing on the screen in front of her. A tense grimace spread across her face as she read something then closed the program window.

  My shoulders shook with laughter. “Yup. You’re the most interesting, fucked up piece of work that’s come my way in a long time.”

  Lilith suppressed an snorting giggle and slapped my arm. “You’re calling me fucked up? I’m not running from an alien empire.”

  “Well, aren’t we a pillar of the community, Little Miss Serial Killer.”

  We both stared at each other, waiting for a reaction. I began to worry I’d pushed it too far when she pouted, bottom lip quivering.

  “Shit. Too far, sorry.”

  Lilith moved closer, inches away from my face. Staring like a starving tiger, she gripped my arms with strong hands.

  “Just fucking with you.”

  The screwy feeling in my stomach subsided. “You’re a fucking maniac woman.”

  She only gave me a sly smile as she moved back to her seat. I’d met dangerous types but she was in the top five for sure.

  “I feel better now. Way to make a girl feel good Kharl. You love it though.”

  “Hell yes I do.”

  Her cheeks flushed. Wasn’t sure if I’d amused or embarrassed her. Moving on then.

  “What’s the plan then boss?”

  Lilith flinched. “Don’t call me that, of all things.”

  “You’re awful picky with names girl.”

  She shrugged. “I just like Lilith.”

  “Alright. Answer the question.”

  “From here I know of a couple rumoured settlements. Some or all of them may not be there, but we can scavenge or build off what they started. We need to be far away from Markin’s camp, but not so far from anything that I can’t get supplies. There’s another city on the coast. Further northwest.”

  “Show me.”

  Lilith pulled up the map on a projection. I sat down to better view the entire thing. Expansive landscape extended over the front window and ceiling. I studied it carefully as she pointed out Opalesk City, Markin’s camp, and then the coastal city up the coastline. Most of the landscape was desert and small rocky mountains like the Blades. Maybe 200km, we could make that in a day with ease.

  “That city, it’s Cinisesk. Close to the Phoenix Headquarters.”

  “I know,” she replied, zooming into the local area around it.

  “Hometown of the people that want to kill me.”

  “Scared?”

  “I might be crazy but I’m not stupid.”

  “We’ll be out of sensor range. I’ve been up there before, they don’t even use ground transport. The odds of us being found are minuscule. The odds of them caring we’re there is near nil. Trust me.” The floor creaked as I stood up. Lilith stood up in front of me, barring the way. “We both need to find out what’s going on. I want to know what the fuck happened to my family, and you’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t know why your friends were killed, Commander!”

  Gritted my teeth, clenched my fists and bristled from head to toe. Lilith was eye level with me and glared.

  “Read your file, remember?”

  “Stupid fucking file. I’m going to sleep. And yes, you’re right, I do want to know what happened. But we can’t go charging into there like a pack of hungry wolves.”

  “I don’t intend to,” she said. Lilith found a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Go to sleep.”

  To be continued. Keep up with new stories from Torchworld at http://www.torchofprometheus.com