Pahnyakin Rising (13 page)

Dresden stayed in bed for an hour before sighing and ripping the covers from the top of her body.  A faint light from a lamp in the living room illuminated the front interior.  Dresden could hear Dodge’s rhythmic snoring. 

The girl opened the door to what was now a storage room and flipped on the light. 

“Talk later,” Pierre squawked.

“Shh,” she ordered the bird. 

“Peek-a-boo.”

“If I let you out, will you behave?” she asked in a low whisper.  “Huh?  You want to come out?”

“Out.  Out,” the bird bobbed.

Dresden stepped over the clutter on the floor and unhooked the clasp on the Macaw’s white wire cage.  She extended her hand and he moved his scaly gray talons up her right wrist until he stood perched on her shoulder.  He nuzzled the side of his face against the top of her choppy hair cut and purred.

The girl retraced her steps and slowly squatted into a sit so she could dig through a box containing nothing but notebooks and sketchpads.

Pierre’s broken sentences transformed to rapid clicks that annoyed Dresden.

“Pierre,” she scolded the bird in a hiss, “stop.”

Her macaw hushed and remained perched on her flannel over shirt as he bobbed his head gently. 

Dresden picked up a blue-covered spiral notebook and read through her scribbles.  She almost didn’t remember writing its contents; this was the notebook she used to learn Dumi.  Years later, she could still understand the language, but it did her no good.  All of the dead languages she learned were the same.  By now, the few people capable of speaking the languages were probably dead. 

She closed the notebook and tossed it to the floor beside the ripped cardboard box.  She lifted a scrapbook she started a few months before she was mysteriously transported to the future.  Filled with pictures of her family, it was supposed to be a birthday gift to her mother.  Dresden ran her fingers over the last family photo the family of three posed for.  She stood between her mother and father in front of a rose bush.  Each of the three donned flashy white grins.  Were those days truly gone forever? 

Pierre began mimicking the Pahnyakin language and ruffling his feathers. 

“Shh,” she ordered. 

The bird did not listen.  Instead, his clicks sped up and grew louder. 

“Pierre,” she scolded.  “I’m going to put you back to bed if you don’t stop.”

She turned her head to address the bird, but he was unmoved by the scolding from her silent eyes.

Dresden stared at the bird with intrigue.  There was something rhythmic about the bird’s clicks, like a flame dancing in the dead of night against a gentle breeze. 

  The girl crawled around the room on her hands and knees until she came to find the notebook she had tossed aside earlier.  She thumbed through the pages until she could examine her passage about the exoskeletons.  Dodge was right; the Pahnyakins’ exoskeletons were fused to their flesh and used to cover electronic ports and vulnerable portions of their bodies.

When she turned to the next page, she momentarily stared at a sketch of one of the Pahnyakins’ energy silos. 

‘THE SOLUTION,’ she had written in thick scribbles.  She had gone over each letter at least ten times with the same pen.

If only she could understand how her scribbles of ‘overload them,’ and ‘infect them,’ meant anything she could do now.   

She gave a shallow long sigh that began to turn deeper.  A misrouted intake of cool air traveled up the back of her throat and into her nose, causing her eyes to water.  She sat on the floor and drew her knees to her chest.  It was all becoming more and more real for her and she was not taking it in with the grace and strength that Dodge said she had before.  What caused her to be so strong when she felt anything but?  She cried against the upper thighs of her jeans.

A series of bellowing raps on the front door startled the girl.  She rose slowly, trembling, and crept to the hallway, where she blankly stared at the home’s entrance.  Pierre, oddly enough, was the calmest Dresden thought he had been since she first saw him again. 

Dresden could not see when Dodge bolted from the couch, but she could tell, by his swift movements and the way his stomps shook the floor, that he expected something important to be occurring.  He pulled the door open with such force that Dresden thought it would tear from its golden hinges. 

She could barely see past Dodge but could make out a jeans-clad guard with a black sweatshirt and matching midnight baseball cap.  He worriedly kept checking over his shoulder and gripped his seven-pound rifle for dear life. 

“We’ve spotted at least six around the perimeter.  They’re coming in for an attack.”

“Are there more in one area than another?” Dodge asked, now fully alert.

The guard shook his head.  Dresden could make out a scruffy brown five-o-clock shadow on his thin cheeks. 

“Shepherd is preparing a team to leave the gates.  There’s no plan.”  He motioned to Dresden.  “Dodge, she
never
would be thinking of sending people out like this.  Not like this.  All the other times we knew what we were doing.  There was a set course.  You’ve gotta make her do something.  If it’s really her, you have to make do something.”

Beyond the door, Dresden could hear rapid gunshot fire.  In a moment she knew she should have been afraid, she was more concerned with the mystery of what was happening.  She inched nearer the door and bumped Dodge out of the way with the right side of her body.

“Dresden,” he warned, “you don’t know anything about this.  There’s no way you’re getting involved.”

“Shh,” she told him. 

In between gunshots, Pahnyakin clicking filled the air like field crickets during the summer sunset.  She closed her eyes and prayed in silence for an answer to the question of what they were saying to one another.  Pierre began to stir and would click in the breaks of the aliens’ speech. 

“Don’t tell me to be quiet,” he retorted angrily. 

“Shut up,” she hissed.  “I want to listen to this.”

Few lights were on in Easton, from what Dresden could tell as she stepped on the front stoop.  The light from Dodge’s porch ended before the start of the sidewalk.  She turned her head in every direction in an attempt to count lights, but other than flicks of candle flames in windows across the street or dull streams of yellow from flashlights clicking on, the girl could only see bright white lights every few feet along the far side of the border.  She walked to where two other guards anxiously shifted their weights and she looked towards the gate.  Its surrounding area was lit up like the light of day from black box spotlights placed along the ground.  Warning sirens wailed from every side of the town. 

From the left, she could see Shepherd stomping in her direction.

“Did you do this?” he screamed. 

Dodge emerged from the house and called to Dresden.  “Okay, come back inside.”

“Dresden,” Shepherd yelled again.  “Did you do this to us?”

He was feet from her. 

She shook her head. 

“I didn’t do any of this.”

“She was asleep,” Dodge lied.  “And I’ve been with her all day, so just back off.”

“Stop covering for her,” Shepherd said, pointing his index finger in Dodge’s direction.  He did not slow as he came closer to the girl.  His face was centimeters from hers.

“Tell me how many they have and how many more are coming,” he ordered her.

“I don’t know,” she replied fearlessly.  She knew she had done nothing wrong.  Though there was a dull ache in her stirring stomach, she knew she needed to remain calm.  She had done nothing to cause this scenario.  She was amazed at how much more collected she was when she knew without a doubt that she was innocent.   

Dodge remained on the stoop and balled his fists.

“Don’t lie to me,” Shepherd screeched.  He grabbed the collar of Dresden’s flannel.  “Tell me.”

Dodge moved to yank Shepherd away from Dresden, but she had pushed hard against his torso. 

“Don’t touch me,” she spit. 

Shepherd’s eyes sparkled and he smirked.  “Or what?  You know, I’ve wanted to take you on for years.”

“Dresden, don’t do this.”

“Stop telling me what to do, Dodge,” she yelled. 

Pierre paced on the girl’s shoulder, but with such little area to move, it felt as if the bird was kneading bread with his thin talons. 

Dresden turned back to Shepherd and was met by a hard blow to her left temple.  Pierre attempted to take flight but only landed two feet to the girl’s left.  Dresden stumbled backwards but did not fall.  She groaned and pressed the palms of her hands against the side of her face.

Dodge moved to pull Dresden from the fire, but the two guards at the edge of his yard held him at bay. 

“This isn’t your fight,” Shepherd shouted to him. 

“Every one of her fights is mine,” Dodge replied.

The dark-haired guard from the front door stood at Dodge’s side.  “Let her do this, man.” 

Dresden seethed.  She balled her right fist in anger and took a swing.  Fighting someone a foot taller than she was proved difficult.  Nick dodged her punch and landed one of his own against her right cheek. 

She felt lightheaded and specks of white light appeared in her vision.  But she refused to let that be the end for herself.

Dresden gasped and collected enough cold air to make her lungs stretch.  She grunted and ran full-speed towards Shepherd, knocking both of them to the dewy ground.  She threw her fists against his face until he could manage to lift his forearms to guard his mouth and nose.  He rolled his body and knocked her against the grass.  Her head smacked the Earth with a hard thud and blood trickling from the corner of Shepherd’s mouth dripped on her chin as she turned her head away.  She drew her left leg upward to make contact with Shepherd’s crotch and he breathed backwards.  Dresden, ending the fight, smashed her left elbow against the bridge of Nick’s nose.

Shepherd pulled his body away from Dresden’s and collapsed on his back to her right.  The two panted and groaned in the midst of gunfire in the air.  While Shepherd struggled between the decision to focus on his swelling genitals or bloody nose, Dresden sucked in air and hissed as she gripped her aching elbow.  The pain in her ankle felt like light bruising compared to the sharp pain radiating up and down her arm. 

The guards released Dodge and he sprinted to Dresden’s side.  He wedged his right hand under her back and pulled her upright.

“I’m fine,” she muttered.  “You don’t have to baby me right now.”

“Where did that come from?” he exclaimed. 

She shrugged.  “I just got mad, that’s all.”  The teenager winced.  “I think I cracked the bone or something.”

As Shepherd’s three guards attempted to set his broken nose and Dodge tended to Dresden’s superficial injuries, none of the six noticed a rogue Uni creeping nearer through the black night.  It entered the front of Dodge’s yard from the rear portion of the house.  It was only when the creature blocked a section of the front porch’s light that it cast a shadow on the lawn.  Dresden looked up in fear but could not manage to speak.

Whooping bullhorn sirens began blaring again and from the gate Dresden could hear guards shouting, “Perimeter breach!”

“What is it?” Dodge asked her.  He turned his head to inspect their surroundings and was yanked from the ground by the shoulder. 

The Pahnyakin effortlessly tossed Dodge to the sidewalk. 

“Dodge,” Dresden squealed.  She hopped from the ground and everything began to spin.  Her cheeks puffed out before she exhaled sharply.

The red-hued being had its focus set on Dresden.  It did not have to remove its visor for her to know that.  It was the same feeling she had when Ba’rek was in the gym. 

Dodge coughed from the sidewalk and waved his arms.  “Hey.  Hey, jerk.  Over here.”

The Uni began to turn its head and Dodge nodded.  “That’s right, you piece of crap.  Over here.”

Dresden stepped back and attempted to run, but the Uni’s head snapped back and it grabbed her upper arm with its pincers. 

“Argh,” she hollered in pain. 

She was consumed by fear as the guards shot at the Uni with their guns.  Shepherd slowly stood but did nothing.  Dodge, Dresden could see, attempted to push himself from the ground but could not sit up. 

Gunfire was not working, but it appeared that the guards did not care.  They stepped back.  They were strictly interested in keeping the being away from themselves.

  Dresden placed her hand against the Uni’s lower chest and attempted to pull its steel-plating away from its torso. 

“I don’t have anything that can pry it off,” shouted the guard from the door to the other guards.   

“They’re not helping,” Shepherd calmly stated.  He called to the Uni, “Take her.”

“You son of a—,” Dodge shouted.

Dresden spotted another approaching Pahnyakin.  It was an Imperator. 

She closed her eyes tightly, expecting to be torn in half by the two, but instead, she heard the Imperator click to the Uni and then felt the pressure on her arm ease.  She opened her eyes and saw the Uni jump back from her, almost as if it were in fear of its life.  The two Pahnyakins exchanged rapid clicks before creatures jogged away like they had run from the Gaia.