The Coordinate

Chapter 12: Citybound

           Wounds heal rather quickly here on Terra. The moment Swallow expected when he woke up was stinging  pain in his torso and cold-numb limbs, instead there was barely anything at all. Whatever that girl treated him worked like a charm. Antiseptic wasn’t supposed to heal him as quickly as this, but perhaps it was some chemicals in the air or on that secondary substance. It may even be that girl’s bodily fluids. Whatever it was, it was useful, and obviously, he asked some of it. He took both a little bottle of both that antiseptic and that other substance, just to make sure. What he also didn’t expect was that upon waking, he’d be greeted with another kind of human food. ‘Bread’ that old man called it. It didn’t taste bad, but it didn’t taste that good either, if anything it was something that filled his stomach.

            Soon after, however, he had announced his departure as the sun sat 45 degrees from the horizon of the gas-covered sky. He would have loved to stay, all things considered. A night like that was perhaps the ‘break’ from reality that he needed. A nice feel-good session with a human was surprisingly pleasant, and that thick, yellowish plasma that he was served last night wasn’t half as bad as he expected it to be.

            Swallow had always wanted to stay and work for something simple like trying to raise and care for a family. That would have been nice, wouldn’t it? Verily, that is the primary directive of all kinds of species in the universe—to create a family and reproduce, and he wanted a piece of it. Instead, he was given the responsibility of the future of corpi novaienkind, and perhaps even the fate of the entire galaxy.

            He trusted the two humans enough to give him his name, and for a frame of reference, he remembered their characters. If these were the average personalities and attitudes humans had, then he had no reason not to help them. Helping a stranger was almost a taboo back in his homeplanet, but those two people, and especially Winter, who introduced to him this foreign concept of kindness to strangers, was a little hard to adjust to, but a very welcome one.

            The surface of the underground city was filled with buildings built from stone, wood, and cement, but mostly, it was just flat structures, and simple square houses, reminiscent of the residential areas back in Novaien. Novasapien cultures have long been already established in this planet, it looked like. The surface city itself didn’t seem like it was much influenced by novasapien architecture other than the residential houses. Judging from his old simulation trainings, this was your typical human city. There were a lot of destroyed buildings, shaved terrain, and collapsed infrastructure, but he didn’t care. There were many isolated areas too, like that cell he was kept in. He could only imagine it was full of guards already, trying to find any remnants or anything they could use to track him. But Swallow had burned the rest of the Zion Guard’s clothes and bodies before leaving.

            Thankfully, the old man let him borrow some smelly rags before sending him away. It stank, like a dried reproductive fluid mixed with rotted-corpse blood. It probably did not smell like it to humans, but to novasapiens like him, it was utterly unbearable. A blessing in disguise, he thought, literally.

            Entering the urban area, he was greeted with white-covered, busy streets, obnoxious honking, and robot-like movements from the other humans. It was like watching a school of fishes moving in sync with each other, but unlike the fish, where their movements were smooth, the humans and A’vin’s movements were stiff and rough. Thankfully too, the people here didn’t stink as they did back on those cultivating sites.

            First, he decided to know the layouts of the city to plot escape routes, and his previous escape to the city outskirts helped a ton. The ultimate goal, however, was to get into the underground city, find and retrieve the Coordinate’s information, find his ship, and then get the hell out of here.

            …Kidnapping that girl, Winter, might be unavoidable too.

            Help.

            She wanted to help.

            Swallow scoffed at it. He scoffed at himself.A Help was so rare to him--like rain in Novaien—that he asked for it instantly without taking into account the consequences. He regretted it a little too much. He should have shouldered the pain of piloting a spacer ship solo if he was just going to be shot down a few minutes later.

            He joined the crowds to blend in with the masses, making sure to appear as if he knew where he was going despite not knowing truly where. A map of sorts was his first priority, or some sort of GPS system, but staring long into a city map in public directioneers would attract suspicion.

            He kept joining groups of marching humans until he could eventually bump into an underground entrance or something. Stupid plan, he knew, but what else could he do? He only happened to get into the underground by shooting himself through his ship and breaking into the surface city’s soil and into the underground city’s streets, and that ended pretty fuckin’ badly.

            Eventually, however, he found a small and compact, glass-walled establishment where a television program seemed to be reporting yesterday’s incident, and thankfully, the program was showing the city map, including details of each major building.

            He immediately stepped in calmly and finding two humans male and female human customer, and a female human server on the counter. The walls were full of pastel colored wallpapers, and an interface on the front of the counter.

“Good morning!” the woman on the counter said, “What would it be?”

            Swallow gulped. He went near the interface and swiped, choosing between selections of large glasses with different drinks. He didn’t understand any of the words, but he had to kept a façade of interest to not appear suspicious. He stopped on random.

            “This one,” he said.

            “That will be nineteen, ninety-nine.” The girl said.

            What?

            Is that their currency here?

            He cursed himself for not knowing. He was taught a lot of human terms and such, but his training was cut short. All he had to guide him was vague memories from seven revolutions ago.

            He took out a small red paper bill from his hooded cloak, courtesy of the old man, of course, then offered it to her. She received it happily and handed him a green colored bill and five metal circles.

            “Please wait for about three minutes.” She said, then proceeding to type words into the interface.

            He exhaled and loosened his muscles. He then sat on a chair opposite of the two humans, focusing his eyes and ears on the television device overhead.

            Old world fanatic attacks.

            Zionous murder attempt.

            State-wide search.

            Swallow’s face flashed on the screen

            Novasapien fugitive on the loose.

            Identification tag checks for all establishments.

            That part got him. Thankfully, that worker wasn’t on the counter to hear that advisory and see his face, but even then, he had to expect that there will be another way people would be notified. A’vins were paranoid, sons of bitches. Like in Novaien, they should also be spying on every single person in this planet who owned any piece of technology, and to counter this, Swallow had to be as equally paranoid, or even more so. He learned this the hard way. He decided he should leave as quickly as he could.

            Everytime the map was shown on the screen, he took in every microsecond to burn it into his head and cram it into his memory. Flash photographic memorization was a must in every spacer. It was a skill that separated the spacers who can traverse the cosmos with only the stars as their compasses and marks, and the spacers who suffered a long, lonely, and painful death in the depths of space on a system failure.

            Suddenly, he felt eyes burn at his skin. It sent an unpleasant chill through his spine. He pretended not to know as he scanned his periphery for anything out of the ordinary. He looked for bugs, cameras, anything. He looked the glass walls for any faint sign that he was being tailed, but found only people passing the establishment by.

Then, a faint blackness led his eyes to the two humans sitting together across him. He forced off his itching need to leave immediately so as to not appear suspicious. Pretending to be intrigued by a news program could only do him so well.

            Did that couple know who he was? He couldn’t even tell if they did. They were unfamiliar, and they gave off no odor. He took a short second to glance at them, but their eyes met for a brief moment.

            A young man and a woman, around Winter and Julie’s age. Their faces burned into his head.

They were a hazard.

            He continued his focus onto the television, and with a four second flash of detailed descriptions of underground entrances, he finally had what he needed.

            The server came out of a door with a tray of human food and three large plastic cups. She first went to the couple, and then to him.

            Swallow took the cup with gratitude and immediately left. Even as he turned, he still felt the gaze of those two people burn at his back.

            He exhaled. Nothing was wrong, he thought. Infiltration and spywork was one of his strong suit, and for a good reason.

            He slunk into a small gap between the establishment and another building while hiding behind a large waste bin. His arms were ready to ensnare, his fingers itching to snap.

            He heard the establishment’s door open and close, and then a conversation between a male and female voice.

            “That was the novasapien. I know it is!” the male voice said.

            “We can’t be sure, right? I don’t quite remember what it looked like but-“

            “Blue eyes. Rough, sharp hair. Jagged, unclean horns, and defined jawline. I burnt that picture in my memory with extreme hatred. I f*****g know it was him!”

Swallow stayed silent. His suspicions were confirmed. How they knew, and what they knew didn’t matter. Their deaths were decided here.

“What would you have done? Called the police? Brutalize that guy right then and there?” the girl challenged.

            “I would have done both if you hadn’t stopped me, goddammit! We should have at least notified the authorities!”

The restlessness in Swallow roared up. Three feet to the left, and they would both be dead, and he can go about his business without worry…

            Just three feet…

            “We could have caused unnecessary trouble for an innocent man, Jordan. We could get sued for something like that!”

            “Are you hearing yourself?! No wonder you’re only as good as a sheep-like soldier—your brain is the size of a goddamn walnut, for the Zionous’ sake!”

            “You…” the girl’s voice started to break. She then took a deep breath and recomposed herself. “Look, I know you’re mad Winter got hurt because of that but you have to know that we can’t just accuse anyone that happens to fit the description and look like what we just saw!” the girl said. “I mean these are the New World Government we’re talking about. You trust them, don’t you? They can handle this!”

            Swallow’s eyes widened. Winter?

            These are Winter’s friends?

            “Really now? We needed to man the railgun to shoot that ship down ourselves because that particular novasapien was something else. It escaped the Zionous’ entourage, nearly got the Zionous himself killed, and managed to slip under the N.W.G.’s noses. That novasapien is a threat the authorities can’t handle, so they’ll need every help they could get, and thanks to you, you numb skull, we just lost a valuable suspect!” the man yelled.

            Footsteps. Angry footsteps tramping away.

            “H-hey, where are you going!?” the girl asked, her voice shaking

            She wasn’t responded to.

            Swallow heard her sniffle and walk within range of his grasp.

            Swallow took a deep breath. With a spring of his torso, he leapt out of from behind the waste bin and nabbed her. Swallow shoved his hand into her mouth while his other hand coiled around her throat. In few short seconds, she stopped struggling.

            He debated killing the girl. If this was Winter’s friend, it would definitely…be a pain in the a*s in the future if he were to murder her, but if he let her live, then the chances of him succeeding, especially with his biometrics mixed into her skin, would take a deep dive

            He had killed many civilians out of necessity before, but killing this one proved troublesome. He kept thinking about Winter, and what it would mean for him if she knew he killed one of her friends. Two-pilot systems required consent and mutual acceptance, so how would Winter ‘accept’ him knowing he killed her friend?

            In any case, if her previous conversation were to be taken seriously, then this girl did him a massive favor. His real target was that man, which judging from the way he acted, must be Winter’s lover.

            He stared at the unconscious body of the girl in front of him and wondered what he should do with her.

            Swallow sighed, taking a sip from the awfully sweet drink.

            I suppose I can hack her drive for information.