16 - You've Done Your Part

The two of them hunkered down under the edge of a wash-out, where an upgrade patch hadn’t taken, ragged strands poking through above their heads like grass roots.  *If I hadn’t been in Milari so long, Ilax, I’d be... upset by this landscape.*

*Because it’s so green?*

*And because it’s all so different. I'm used to the desert.* He motioned with his chin at the night time image, the gesture minimal. *Trees with thin stalks and these flickering, broad, flat, fragile things.*  His fingers took one up and tore it into shreds.  *Not toxic, my fingers aren’t blistering, it didn’t try to dissolve me for my nutrients... like the valleys in Milar.  These leaves aren’t thick and lumpy, holding every drop of water... and the images of water everywhere.  I’d almost be afraid of drowning while I breathe.*

*And this makes you uncomfortable?  Nothing’s trying to kill you?* Ilax’s smile carried through the words.  *Some of our people did drown in the air of home... but that was because of their lungs not because of the water in the air.*   

Kyrus peered out at the image of a moon that was nothing like the real one.  This one didn’t glitter and sparkle in the night sky.  It was almost flat silver/grey, with dark patches on its face, like a lopsided figure.  Perhaps a face, perhaps a figure carrying a basket.  To him it looked a bit like a bush dragon mouth.

*It still makes me uncomfortable.*

*A good place to approach Prime’s files, then. Through his ideal memories of home. He might be less inclined to see attacking monsters from here.*

*Yes.*  Kyrus stretched cautiously, checked to see if any of Prime’s fiery dragons were on the horizon.  *He seems to need a lot of security for someone who all the public files say is so beloved.*

Ilax snorted.  *No guano. He’s defending from his own people’s illicit programs, outside sandsheets that I have no idea what they are to do, and we’ve seen rivers of tiny programs like oyuck eggs and peacock snake pods.*

*People are trying to break into his secure files all the time, if what we’ve seen holds true.”

*Be careful scouting.  I’ll hold the line here.*

*We need to get back soon.  We’re running on empty here. I’ll be quick.*

They’d been forced to go into quiescent mode a dozen times to escape detection.

*Find what you can, husband.  We’ve got strong people holding open our trail home.*

Kyrus leaned over and met Ilax coming to kiss him good luck.  Even in code, your mouth is thrilling. Ilax smiled and ghosted into a mist and trailed away long the ground toward the centre of Prime’s power, the main node.

It was a long wait, and Kyrus minimized his speed so that his coded self was barely ticking over, both to be inconspicuous, and to minimize the draw on the zardukar and the zon. He folded himself into the form of a bee, waiting, antenna flickering slightly as he passively took in information, ready to sting or fly as the case warranted.

He almost roused once, when thunder and flares of dragon-fire and lightning shocked the surrounding woods from darkness into a pale, bright green.  But there were only two strikes and then it faded to a low rumble, a wave travelling through the owner’s country like a wave under earth.

*I will not panic.  That was probably not Prime blowing my husband into single bits of code.*

The remembered sun was coming up behind the too-regular mountains before Ilax oozed into the hole where Kyrus snapped awake and gathered him in his arms.  His code was so thin it was almost transparent.  He was a fraction of himself,  the owner code hanging in tatters as if something had tried to claw it open, and failed.  Pale and transparent and his edges shimmered and broke apart, but his smile was there, even though bleak and thin.

*I couldn’t get near.  I couldn’t even get close, yet.*

*What did you find?*

*There are roving eyes all around the shore. He has a mercury lake around it.  It goes down as far as I could dig, a wall to hold that lake in place and in the middle he has a glass mountain. A glass mountain.*

It was a full clock tick before Kyrus responded.  *Fak. Fak.* He gathered the faded ghost of Ilax in his arms and carefully stepped back along the glowing trail home.  *We knew it would be hard.  Now we know how hard. Rest, husband, you’ve done your part.  I’ll get us home.*