Subterra Heart

Chapter 39: Tess Ritty

"Who are you?" demanded Tess, as the thing-that-was-once-a-man continued his whistling laugh. His head lolled between his shoulders, and his black eyes stared up at her, wide and unblinking. He didn't reply.

"Answer me – what is your name?" said Tess, and she pointed back at Bastet. "Are you one of hers?"

"No, no, no," said the miner. "My name cannae' be said wi' dis tongue." He opened his jaw to let his necrotizing tongue hang out for a moment. It looked like he meant that literally. His words did sound incomplete to Tess. There wasn't any crispness to them. He had trouble controlling his consonants. "Call me..." the miner paused as he cast about for a name, and then his mouth cracked into a grimace...or a smile. "Ben. Dis body's name."

"And what do you plan to do here...Ben?" asked Tess. She adjusted her grip on the shard of hearthbox glass and glanced around for a lighter – a bit of flint – anything to cause a spark. 'Ben's' grin widened even further - enough to split his lip. His whistling laugh turned into a cackle, and his tongue lolled about like a dead slug. Tess felt sick.

"That is not a Host, Tess," growled Bastet. Tess glanced back towards her. The cat's ears were pressed flat against her skull, she was baring her teeth. Her tail was fluffed to twice its size. "The Dweller is merrrrely speaking thrrrrrough this body and is not herrrrre. Do not waste morrrrre time on it. We must leave."

'Ben's' head whipped sideways, and his eyes latched onto Bastet. "Cousin!" he exclaimed, "Join us! Id will be a feas'!"

"You drrrain yourrr subjects so wastefully," spat Bastet. Her voice dripped with distain. "This human's body cannot be morrre than a few days old. Even Fenrir had betterrrr sense than to act like this. You have forrrgotten your purrrpose."

"Purbose! We hab no purbose. We eat!" Ben giggled and wheezed. Tess glanced wildly between Bastet and 'Ben.' What was happening here?

Bastet hissed. "Tess," she said, "put this corrrrpse out of its miserrry. Then, we leave." When Tess hesitated, Bastet flicked her ears in annoyance. "Smash its face in," she instructed. "This 'Ben' does not need to see any morrrre of us."

~~~

As with all places in Heart, this mine had a transport system for intra sub-city travel. However, given how vulnerable the mines were to bloodrot, each one could only connect to one sub-city. This one, luckily enough, connected directly to Heart Central. Bastet really had thought things through when she'd led Tess here.

"Come on, come on!" grumbled Tess. She pounded her fist against the unyielding control board. She and Bastet had hijacked the mine's transport, and Tess had been confident that she could work the controls from the cab up front. After all, she had all the right memories. What she hadn't accounted for, however, was that the mine was already in lockdown.

She slid her right foot back and forth across the cab's cold, hard floor. The stripped skin should have scabbed over by now, but she kept trying to scrub away the icky feeling of smashing 'Ben's' face in as Bastet had instructed. It didn't work. She was just smearing blood across the floor.

"What is wrrrong?" queried Bastet.

Tess tried fiddling with the controls again. She'd managed to get the thing powered up, and soft yellow light filled the tiny metal cab, but that was about it. The control board kept throwing errors, and no matter how many levers and buttons she pushed, nothing happened.

"The mine's in lockdown," she said. "We're going to have to walk the rest of the way. This stupid thing's useless." She kicked the control board's metal frame and yelped, hopping up and down on one bare foot. "Founder's...farts! 'N dark...'n rot!" she squeaked. Bastet, for her part, found a Bug-sized box to hop into beneath the control board, where she watched Tess's antics with catlike amusement.