RESIDUALS

“Residual female number 7894: Caucasian, blonde, malnourished, common ocular anomaly,” Fazon said into the stem mic below her specs.

The Sid (short for Residual) Seeker crawled down the litter mound, a bone-blade in her teeth. Her black-colored eyes darted about; her nose wrinkled as she sniffed. Intermittently, she’d go into tripod stance, and use her free hand to ensure her ragged cloth top still covered her breasts; some remnant of social programming of the fallen society from which she’d risen.

Officer Fazon glanced at Mank, her spotter scout. “She’s a pretty one. Subtract?” She zoomed in cams on the cloaker drone, her finger hovered over the trigger. 

Mank tugged at a lock of her black hair and sighed. “Hold,” she said. “Let’s see what she’s up to. Never seen one on our side of the mounds. Gotta be a reason.”

Fazon didn’t question Mank, but she did pull in tighter, placing her crosshairs on the Sid’s neck. A silver blur sharpened into the shape of a heart, a locket on a necklace. Where did you get that? she thought. 

The Sid stood straight up and tossed her stringy blond hair out her face. Eyes as wide as screaming mouths, she took her knife into her right hand and snarled at something unseen. 

“Mank?”

“Calm down Faze. She’s nearly a quarter-tap off. I know these things are more animal than human, but she doesn’t have superpowers.” 

In a panic, the Sid began to sprint. Before she reached bottom, something wrapped her ankles, and, at lightning speed, sucked her under. “Woah,” said Mank. “Did you get eyes on that?”

“No viz.”

Mank's tanned face went ashen, and her blue eyes softened. “Never seen anything like that. You?”

Faze said nothing. She eased the drone in tighter on the Sid’s former position. There, nestled in the rubble and waste, she saw the locket. She looked up and shrugged.

Mank cocked her head. “Nothing to say after that, Faze?”

“Odd…” was all Fazon could get out.

Corporal Mank stood. “Call in Cairn to relieve you. I want a full report, ricky-tick. The Brass is gonna crap a golden bunny over this.”

Mank stormed out of Western Observation and slammed the door behind her. Weird reaction, thought Faze, still shocked. Before she rose to find Private Cairn, she pressed her green eyes to the specs, and stared at the locket. I want that, she thought. I don’t know why, but I want it.

The disappearance of the Sid female had taken a split second, but Fazon spent two hours writing her account. Trying to focus on specifics, all she could picture was that locket, which, of course, she hadn’t mentioned in the report. As First Witnesses, she knew she and Mank would be on the investigation squad. Maybe she could get ahold of that thing without anyone seeing.

Within an hour of turning in her account, The Brass had ordered an incident site visit. Faze had barely gotten out her communication to Brad, her husband back on Lunar Gee, before she was ordered to report to Debriefing. She missed him. The Terra Reclamation Project was being carried out by an all-female team. The unmutated human male anatomy could no longer handle Earth’s atmosphere. Since the Blast Exodus, every male who’d made the return trip was dead within days. Scientists were trying to understand the phenomenon, but, with all the other issues they had to overcome, the cause had not yet been found. 

Faze sat next to Mank at the foot of the long, metal conference table. In her dress blues, General Beeda sat at the head, and, on the sides, were two Lieutenants Fazon didn’t know.  She’d never been in this room. The walls were undecorated, smooth steel just like the floors. Everything was sterile and cold, including Beeda and her two sidekicks. No intros, no niceties, all business.

“We’ve examined the evidence, and your reports on Sid 7894,” said Beeda, a slender, dark complected woman. “I’ve been wondering why you didn’t subtract that Seeker immediately upon trespass.”

“All due respect,” said Mank, “we’re an obs tower, General, not a wipe base. It was my call to observe the anomalous behavior instead of terminate.”

“Corporal Mank, we have a singular purpose, yes? To find male Sids and collect blood and tissue samples. We’re not wipers or builders. We have no intention of studying or helping these creatures. They’re all going to be subtracted before Repop Phase anyway. Female Sids don’t help us. All interference from femmes is to be squashed without hesitation.”

“Yes, General, but I thought the odd behavior might have been a part of a mating habit. If a male was following 7894, we didn’t want to scare him off.”

The general stuck out her bottom lip and nodded. “I’ll buy that. However, there was no male. There was a bastard monster under a pile of trash. This is where we are now. You two will accompany an investigation squad and see what the hell that was. I want soil samples swept for DNA, and if the victim is located, High-Res pics of the wounds. Yes?”

“Yes, General.”

“Another thing: if that monster even peeps, I want you both tails up in retreat. Yes?”

“Yes, General.”

Geared up, the team of six walked a shattered concrete path to the mound. The red light of the sunset made everything look pink, and the swirling wind blew dust and trash in every direction. The menacing silhouette of the skeletal city skyline rose behind the mound. At the rear of the formation, Faze and Mank marched in time with the rest, and tried to focus on the target site.

Upon approach the four escorts fanned out, covering the two investigators from all sides, except for the one where the mound rose. Faze pointed at nothing and said, “look at that.” When Mank turned to investigate, she squatted, grabbed the locket, and tucked it into her boot. Then the noise came.

A dozen Sids, eleven females led by a male, armed with rudimentary spears, charged over the litter mound, howling and growling. When the escorts opened fire, Mank screamed, “Don’t hit the male!”

The shooters picked off six raiders on approach, then engaged in hand-to-hand. Blood spattered on the face shield of Fazan’s helmet as PFC Hida Kotch, a young soldier from the W-Quad of Lunar Gee, took a sharpened curtain rod to her throat. In heroic fashion, before she fell, Kotch was able to blast her attacker and the Sid beside her.

The other three seemed to be holding their own as they covered Faze and Mank’s sample retrieval. A cloaker drone fired, vaping two more attackers. Then it was five on two. As PFC Tarcik, a raven-haired woman unknown to Faze, threw a high kick at the remaining Sid female, her plant leg was wrapped by a thin grey tentacle. She was ripped beneath the mound like a ragdoll, body contorted, her bones snapped as she disappeared. 

Even though they were ordered to retreat on sight of the monster, which Mank and the other two did immediately, Faze was determined to get blood from the male. She missed Brad, and this was the solution. She blasted the remaining female Sid in the throat, grabbed the male’s makeshift spear with one hand, and blaster-whipped his head with the other. His temple split, and he fell unconscious. 

Faze knelt by the male and took blood and tissue. Her sampling and getaway were clean. As she neared reentry into Lassimer Tower, the sun vanished behind the skyline and the world turned from pink to blue. She stopped, and, in a daze, watched the colors fade from the sky. It was lovely. Something grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her backwards. 

“Why the hell did you do that?” asked Faze, looking up at Mank.

“You disregarded a main directive. If I hadn’t pulled you in, they were going to lock you out.”

“Whatever,” said Fazon. She stood and tossed her samples to Mank. “I was fulfilling our ‘main purpose’ while you ran like a coward.”

Faze stormed out, ran down the steel corridor to the hover-lift, and hurried to her quarters. Once she’d barred the entrance, she pulled the locket from her boot, and opened it. The picture inside chilled her to her marrow. She’d seen it before. Her mother and father together in Cancun, taken one year before the Flare Alarm that began the Blast Exodus. Being a government scientist, Fazon’s mother got a spot on one of the arks. At the time, she was pregnant with their only child. Her father was left behind.

Confusion, frustration, and anger all set in at once. She pressed the locket to her chest and cried. At some point, she’d either fainted or fallen asleep, because she awoke to pounding. 

“Leave me alone,” Faze wailed. “Start tallying my sick-leave if you have to but go away.”

“Officer Fazon,” said Mank, “this is about more than just you. Get your ass out here ricky-tick before I blast through this damn door.”

Faze kissed the locket and whispered, “I’m coming, dad. Don’t worry.” She began to make her way out to Mank.

Still suited from earlier, Officer Fazon stood with Corporal Mank, looking through the northwest obs window. Sids were swarming the walls. Cloaker drones fired continuously into the horde, killing several at a time.

“How long has it been like this?” she asked Mank.

“Since we subtracted that dozen earlier this evening. After we returned, the Seekers started, one and two at a time. Then, an army came over the mound, and they’ve been rolling in waves since. We’ve already had two breaches on west wall. Lost four of ours closing the holes. We’re an obs tower, Faze. We can’t sustain this level of aggression much longer.”

Faze nodded. “I know what to do,” she said, tossing an envelope on the ground at Mank’s feet. When she bent to pick it up, Fazon slipped out through the main door, and put on her helmet. Mank raced to the window.

“What are you doing? You’ll be ripped apart.”

Faze smiled and put her palm to the glass. “I have to go rescue him. Give that envelope to my mother.” Then she walked into the horde, ignoring Mank’s screams. 

Mank raced down the corridor into West Obs, pushed Cairn aside and put her eyes to the specs. To her surprise, Faze was still out there; still whole. The horde opened in front of her as she walked toward the litter mound. When she passed by, raging Sids went still, and quiet. Their softened postures gave them an air of humanity. At the edge, she turned toward the cloaker, blew a kiss, and waved. 

A thin tentacle wrapped her ankles and pulled her, in a blur, under the mound.

“No!” screamed Mank backing away from the specs. “No.”

With a deep sigh, Mank opened the envelope Faze had given her. Inside was an old, silver, heart-shaped locket. She opened it and gasped at the picture. It was Mank’s grandmother and mother. A picture she knew well, taken at a family reunion, a year before the Blast Exodus. Her mother told her that, because she was old, Gran had chosen to stay behind, and make a space on the ark for her newborn Granddaughter, little Loris Mank. 

What does it mean? she wondered. Could Gran still be alive? Even if she is mutated, she’s family. I must save her.

Mank tucked the piece of jewelry back into the envelope, and the envelope into her pocket, as she walked down the corridor to see The Brass. Moments before, everything had seemed lost. Now, with the Sids retreating, and the clue she’d just been given, there was hope.

“Don’t worry. I’m coming, Gran,” she whispered.

End