A brief exchange

Ivix regarded the stranger with wide, wary eyes. It was a man, though this was undoubtedly stretching the term. He wore a filthy outfit that was comprised mostly of putrid brown rags knotted around his limbs, with a white cotton vest that bore a large, blood-soaked gash down the front, a crude indicator of its last owner’s luck. What flesh wasn’t covered was stark white and leathery, with red boils springing all across its surface. His leather trousers came to the knees of thin, bowed legs and one of his shoulders was hunched, giving him a strange, shuffling gait. His face was a parody of humanity, with a broad grin that bore at least three rows of razor-sharp teeth and an impossibly bulbous nose.

His eyes were gone. The flesh where they might once have sat was set about with sharp, crimson coloured scabs that oozed a foul smelling translucent puss.

This strange being came to a stop slowly, turning his nose up in Ivix’s direction and taking a series of long sniffs.

“Are you man or machine?” He asked suddenly.

His nose twitched again.

“Both…..perhaps.” He added slowly.

The man cautiously picked his way through the wreckage, keeping a respectful distance from Ivix until he came upon one of the bullet ridden corpses. He looked upwards.

“You might want to look away.” He advised respectfully.

Ivix continued watching. The blind man shrugged and lifted one of the corpse’s arms to his mouth. In one movement he sank his teeth into the muscular forearm and tore away a chunk, his tongue wrapping itself around the meat and drawing it into his mouth, where the teeth made short, bloody work of it.

“You’re not shocked easy, are you?” The man asked with a full mouth, blood dripping down his chin.

He turned his eyeless gaze over Ivix.

“Want some?” He asked, offering the arm.

No response.

“Hmnph.” The man grunted. “You don’t really know what you want do you?”

Something about the phrasing of the question struck Ivix. It should have sounded rhetorical, but instead it sounded insightful.

“What do you mean?” Ivix asked.

The man explored the arm with his own hand before answering. He toyed with the fingers, twisting them into alien gestures for a while before closing the palm and laying the limb down.

“I mean it seems like you’re only stood there because you’ve got nowhere to go….” He explained slowly. “How does that sound, accurate?”

“How could you tell?” Ivix inquired.

The sightless man laughed to himself.

“You’re stood too still.” He replied off-handedly. “Nobody with a place to go stands that still.”

Ivix loosened his stance instinctively.

“You’re not from The Voidlands are you?” The man asked. “You’re from the Mechanicons.”

“How-“ Ivix began, but his inquiry lost its snergy.

The blind man reached out his hand and tried the stability of some wreckage, seating himself upon it once he was satisfied. He held out his hand.

“My name is Verex.” He said.

Ivix looked at the hand until it was retracted.

“I am Four of Nine.” He stated.

“Four of Nine…..” The man said thoughtfully. “Ivix….Nine what?”

Ivix thought to answer, however the more he regarded this simple stranger the further away his life as a Questor seemed. So far above, so far from what mattered. Instead he shrugged away the question.

“It doesn’t matter.” He answered finally.

“I suppose not.” Verex agreed.

They waited in silence. Dust devils beat about their feet but the mist itself was unnaturally still.

Ivix looked over the corpses and wreckage. There were bullet holes in the wooden wagons and the dead pack animals. Everything of worth had been removed, including the clothes from most of the bodies. One of these bodies looked at Ivix with terrified, pleading eyes. He couldn’t return the gaze.

“Friends of yours?” Verex asked.

“No.” Ivix answered. “I don’t know what happened to them.”

“Slavers.” Verex said. “They were slaves as soon as they left Bolton. A slaver Helo entered the area days ago. Place is crawling with them.”

“Helo?” Ivix asked..

“Slaver gunship.” He explained. “Most who live outside the cities will get snatched sooner or later. Why did they leave?”

“They couldn’t have children.” Ivix answered. “The young ones left for a city.”

“Corinth?” Verex asked.

“Yes. They were going to Corinth.”

Verex nodded solemnly. “A lot of people are going there now. The radiation in the Undercrust is making people infertile. There aren’t many young people left; they’ve become something of a commodity. This isn’t the first caravan I’ve seen bound for Corinth. People remember the Corinthian Exodus, when humans lead by a man named Corinthian extended an offer to build a city with him. It was years ago, before your birth certainly….I assume you’re young?”

“Twenty one.” Ivix answered.

“Yes….very young. It was before your birth, they set out to create a city, a proper city, not like these junk-settlements. At the time few people were willing to make the journey. Nobody knows if they managed, of course. This caravan was chasing a dream.”

“You mean they didn’t know whether or not Corinth existed?” Ivix inquired.

“That’s right.”

“And they knew how dangerous it was?”

“I imagine so.”

Ivix looked at the wreckage. “That makes no sense.”

Verex leaned back a little. “What doesn’t?”

“Them trying to find it.” Ivix answered. “If they didn’t know it was there how could they have looked. How did they even know which direction to travel in?”

“Well they didn’t!” Verex laughed. “They had no idea where they were going, but they went anyway.”

Ivix shook his head. The filthy man smiled until he was sure there would be no response.

“You don’t know what it feels like, do you?” He asked.

Ivix looked confused, something Verex seemed to detect.

“Purpose, boy.” He explained. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a purpose.”

It wasn’t a revelation for Ivix, it was a fact.

“Why do you care?” He asked coldly.

Verex laughed dryly.

“I don’t, it’s just interesting. If it’s any consolation I think you’re more honest than they were.” He said.

“How so?” Ivix inquired.

“Well you’re not pretending to have a purpose are you? You’re not trying to make something of your futile life. I imagine that if I hadn’t turned up, you might have stood on that very spot until you died. You still might.”

Ivix was beginning to feel as though his innermost thoughts were being raided by this being’s consciousness. He had intended simply to wait, to die a coward’s death in the shadow of the Mars Mechanicon, to allow starvation or radiation or whichever manner of beast roamed the Voidlands to destroy his life.

“It’s one way to do it.” Verex went on. “Or you could just go back to the way it was before.”

The Joining. That gaping wound in his very Soul which could not be healed. The man’s words caused him to feel it once more, and he gasped for air as long-buried feelings began to work their way into his mind.

“What could you know of my life before this day?” Ivix spat.

It was Verex’s turn to remain silent.

Ivix recovered, slowly. He swallowed the bile that had worked its way into his throat and steadied himself against the side of a bullet-ridden wagon, a little way in front of the other person.

Verex gave him a fatherly look.

“Poor lad, you’re carrying more than your fair share of grief. Let me offer you some help.” He said kindly.

He pointed directly ahead of him.

“In that direction there lays a great fissure in the earth. In its depths is heat enough to do what your fall did not.”

Then he indicated behind him.

“This way there is another settlement. They’re cautious but friendly people. If you’re so inclined, you might find a home amongst them.”

Then he indicated to his right.

“The Slavers went that way with the survivors. If you head in that direction they will pick you up. They’ll know what you are, you’ll probably be taken back to The Empire.”

And finally he indicated to his left.

“And that way there is nothing except lethal levels of radiation.”

And with that he pulled himself off the wreckage and knelt by the corpse to continue his meal. His teeth tore sickeningly through bone and muscle, producing a sickening “crunch-squelch” noise as he gobbled down great mouthfuls.

Ivix considered the four directions. He thought about death, either instantaneously within the ravine or drawn out as he receives lethal levels of radiation. The slavers might lead to the Mechanicons, where he could seek out his Symbiote.

No; the surface was too far away. It was death then. However the courage that had driven him to fall from the Mechanicon was gone. Apathy had taken his place. He had the nerve only for the easier death, the radiation.

Ivix had one last question before he left.

“How did you know I fell?” He asked.

The old man simply smiled, and the boy walked on.



(Author's note - dialog is too fast and a little unrealistic, there is little to love about the two characters, Roman Numerals were completely wrong)