Cure's Aftermath

Chapter 1 / Godspeaker

The moth chemicals in the valley had bleached even the sky itself.

Godspeaker Yansa blinked hard for what felt like the thousandth time; her eyes red and dry and slowly caving into dark circles. The unmitigated sting in her nose had damn-near driven her mad. There was no time or place to withdraw from the routine misery...

But she'd requested this outpost. Asset Perimeter 44 had risen to a sort of fame among the Orion Regime, the training grounds of some of the most brutal--and dedicated--commandos in the militia. Yansa wanted to watch every second of it, and so here she was, eager for the bus to bring fresh little faces, eager to see who--what they would become.

Asset Perimeter 44 produced the finest. Even the naughtiest of children would eventually give in to the divine destiny the Uropa had forged for them--as soldiers of its holy light.

The omnipresent smell of spore rot swallowed the compound, an ever-reminding stench of the planet's current state as Yansa crossed the yard. Although a cure for the plague had long been formulated and put to use, the earth hadn't fully recovered. Humanity was still divided, scattered and colonized with no interest in recovering the bond they once had with one another. And that, Yansa had often preached in her sermons, was why the Uropa sent the Orion Regime.

Up until the tinny whine of the gates pulling apart, Yansa had frittered away the time underhandedly inspecting her guards--hardly Regime commando material, but material nevertheless. No matter. Some were meant to be Uropa's fodder. The Godspeaker whirled around; the bus's engine cut off and the doorway sliding open. 

"Are they everything you hoped for, Godspeaker?" murmured Dr. Clarisse Lencaste after breaking through Yansa's encirclement of guards. She puffed out her chest and narrowed her eyes--as she often did around Godspeaker. Yansa's tall, slender figure, peach red, curly hair and feline-shaped eyes made her a glaring exception to the brow-beaten women in AP 44, who all looked noticeably weathered and, for some, even ragged.

Yansa's damned beauty seemed to put Dr. Lencaste's short stature and onset wrinkles on display.

"They're..." Yansa's lips pressed together together as she...beheld the children hopping off the bus. "Malnourished," Yansa finally said. "And...practically feral!" The toothy smile from a mud-lathered baby ticked a shudder up the Godspeaker's back.

Dr. Lencaste sighed and marked something off her clipboard. "Do try to contain your excitement, Godspeaker. I still need to get each of these little bastards screened."

"Well do it quickly!" Yansa held her portable oxygen filter over her mouth and inhaled noisily. "And for the love of Holy Uropa, please give them a thorough washing!"

O O O

Beyeon linked her pudgy baby hand with her sister's. The rashes on their arms had worsened since yesterday; a common reaction to spore exposure--easier to fix than a moth bite. Having barely reached her third birthday, however, Beyeon could only understand her own aggravation at the ceaseless itch and burn.

She'd wept for approximately an hour, and her high-pitched sobs only intensified with the treatment. No matter how desperately the baby tugged at her older sibling, she seemed to ignore her.

Dr. Lencaste lifted Beyeon off the table, at last fixing her attention to the eldest. "Are you her...sister?" she asked.

No response. Not even a damn-giving look.

"Sister, then." Dr. Lencaste pushed the baby into the hands of the nurses, who in spite of Beyeon's screaming and wrestling, managed to usher her to the bathtub. Flicking the syringe barrel, Lencaste tipped the needle toward the girl's wrist. "I'm glad you're not talkative," she muttered. "I don't like the noisy ones."

Needle sliding under her skin, the youngster fidgeted and loosed a soft whimper, the first responsive motion, the first sound she'd made since the bus had picked her and the baby off the side of the road.

"Oh hush now," chirped Lencaste, setting the syringe on a gleaming silver trey. "It's just the antidote. Leaving that rash to fester would've been much more painful."