Nobody Left Behind 18

It's nice having some time to write again. I like this. Really can't wait until next fall when I get to switch to writing full-time!

Anyhow, Sarsuk has pissed off Siki with his candor. She's been fuming about how he treats the geroo, and it's time for her to uncork.

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Sarsuk waited while the little geroo glared at him. And he waited, and waited. When he finally opened his mouth, Siki raised one palm, and he shut it.

She stood. She drew a breath and slowly released it. None of the scientists were around, and the laboratory had grown so icily silent that her words felt like a shout. “If I do get a transfer to Lakeside,” she said in a slow, even tone, “it still won’t be far enough away from you.”

Sarsuk’s auxiliary heart ached, and he felt a stabbing sensation in his throat. He shouldn’t have cared, but he did. Siki was the only friend he had—or the closest thing he had to one, at least. They’d talked non-stop, every day, all summer long, but from the set of her ears, he could tell she meant it. She hated him.

Siki turned and walked toward the door.

“Wait,” he said, making her pause but only for a moment. “Come back.”

When she headed for the door once more, his anger and cruelty returned like a waitress with the check. “Stop right there, slave!” he growled.

Siki froze, her pelt standing on end. Then, she slowly turned. “Don’t you dare—!”

“Don’t tell me what to do, you little vermin,” snarled the head. “I’d crush your parents just to watch you cry. I’d tear your boyfriend’s—gak!”

His words cut off suddenly, and not just his words, but all air through his throat. He struggled and strained, but no matter how he tried, air would not flow. He was caught between breaths, unable to inhale, unable to exhale. His venom turned to panic, and his virtual body rolled onto his back, grasping at his throat. He put his fingers against his tongue, trying to open his airway wider, but it didn’t help. No matter how he tried to cough or choke, there was nothing.

On his stomach now, he beat both of his fists against the carpet until his wrists ached. Big hot tears formed in the corners of his eyes. He was suffocating once more like when he was beheaded. He needed air. He was desperate for it.

With eyes closed, Sarsuk stumbled to the kitchen and ripped open the junk drawer, feeling through it just as quickly as he could, tossing rolls of tape and old pens aside until his pads stopped on a dull pair of scissors. Gripping them in one first, he used his pads to locate the softer hollows at the base of his throat, spaced between the harder rings of cartilage that lined his trachea.

If he could just pierce the layers between his hide and airway, he could twist the blades and open up a space for the air to flow…

As he pressed the scissors’ point against his neck, he opened his eyes to find Siki with tablet in hand, ears low and furious as she glared at him.

“Okay, that is more than enough of that,” she hissed. “I really didn’t think I’d have to use this—you’d been so civil all summer, but I will not tolerate your insults. I will not allow you to threaten me and my family. I am not your little kicking bag, and you will not treat me like one. Do you understand?”

He did not understand. What had she done? Why couldn’t he breathe?

“But of course, you can’t answer, can you? Well, let me explain,” she said. “You don’t have lungs anymore, since you’ve got no body. When you inhale, no matter how real it might feel, that’s not your diaphragm drawing in the air.”

Siki pointed at the wall behind him. “There’s just a big fan back there, or a pump, or something. That’s what’s sucking in air through your … your…” She tapped at her throat with her fingertips. “What’s this? Your trachea?”

He tried to croak, “Yes,” but the air still wouldn’t flow. He managed a nod.

“Good.” As if taunting him, she drew a deep breath and released it slowly. “Doctor Palani warned me that krakun could be loud and that I shouldn’t try to shout over you if you got moody.”

She set the tablet back down on the lab bench. “He said that if you wouldn’t listen, then I should feel free to turn off the pump so you couldn’t talk. That way, you wouldn’t have any choice but to listen.”

He waved his invisible claws wildly in the air. “No! No! You don’t understand!” his lips pleaded silently. “I can’t breathe! I’m suffocating!”

She retook her seat in silence and waited for the krakun to settle down.

His lips kept moving, silently begging, “Please turn that back on. Please. Please turn it on!”

“You don’t need to talk,” she said at last, “and honestly, no one needs to hear it, if threats and insults are the sorts of things you’re going to say.”

Using the air in his cheeks only, Sarsuk struggled to sound out individual syllables with each puff. “I!” “Am!” “Suf!” “Fo!” —

“Stop making those disgusting sounds so you can hear what I’m saying!” she demanded.

He closed his mouth and lowered his trembling chin.

“You don’t need to talk!” Siki repeated. She held up her index finger and thumb spaced closely together. “In fact, I’m this close to leaving it off all weekend just so the janitorial staff won’t have to listen to you when they empty out the trash.”

Sarsuk shook his head in wide arcs, his snout nearly touching the walls on either side of him. He was still in a panic, but the reasoning portion of his enormous brain was coming back online. She could leave his breathing off all weekend. If Doctor Palani’s machines truly were adding oxygen into his blood and removing carbon dioxide, he wouldn’t die. He would just feel like he was going to die … all … weekend … long.

He tried to visualize not needing to breathe. He didn’t need it. Breathing wasn’t keeping him alive. It was only a way to talk. He needed to control his fear.

When he first became a commissioner at Planetary Acquisitions, they’d required him to take a class on surviving emergencies. He hadn’t needed the information in centuries, but he still remembered every lesson.

Step 1. Don’t panic. Remain calm. Focus on your breathing.

…

Fuck!

He stretched his neck as far forward as he could. He looked Siki in the eyes and demanded with his lips. “Turn! It! Back! On! You! Stupid—!”

Siki glared at him, all her fur standing on end. “All right. Screw this.”

Sarsuk froze. His eyes opened wider.

“I only had one week left before the fall semester started anyhow,” she explained to no one. “I hate you. I hate this job, and I can live without one additional paycheck. I quit!”

“What?” he mouthed, frozen in place.

“I quit!” repeated the geroo. “And frankly, I hope they leave your pump off until they hire a replacement for me. It’s not like Doctor Palani understands your words anyhow. I’m sure he’d appreciate the peace and quiet!”

At this, the former commissioner lost the last vestiges of his temper. How long would he feel like he was suffocating, unable to ask someone to turn the pump back on? Weeks? Months, perhaps?

Tilting his head to the side, Sarsuk lunged forward just as far as he could stretch his neck. He snapped his jaws shut, savoring the sensation of something rigid popping between his teeth. Siki screamed, and Sarsuk thrashed his head from side to side, up and down. Ceiling tiles exploded and one of the fluorescent lights sparked and flashed as his horns ripped it from its mountings.

Sarsuk whipped his head back and opened his jaws wide enough to release his prey, the momentum throwing it all the way across the lab, turning an entire cabinet of glassware into a heap of jagged shards.

The krakun rested his blood-covered chin against the ground. He wanted to pant, to heave, to regain his breath, but still the air wouldn’t flow.

Within moments, several researchers rushed into the wrecked lab. Doctor Palani paused just inside the doorway with paws over his mouth, but then he rushed to Siki’s side. They spoke in the Lio language, and Sarsuk couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they gestured at him repeatedly as they spoke.

Another one of the scientists carefully fetched Siki’s mangled stool from the pile of broken glassware. He turned it around in his large paws, stunned at how much damage the krakun’s teeth had done to steel and plywood.

Palani pressed a fingertip against a spot on Siki’s scalp, and it came away with a tiny drop of blood. Then, he stood and fetched a couple items from the emergency medical kit bolted to the lab’s wall. With a squirt of ointment on the tiny wound and a cold compress he activated by bending it back and forth a few times, he treated where the falling light fixture had hit the intern’s head.

With her health squared away, Doctor Palani brushed the sawdust and gypsum from Siki’s tablet, then tapped the button to reactivate Sarsuk’s airflow.

The krakun gasped over and over, the air replacing his panic with exhaustion.

When at last, Sarsuk returned his attention to the two, Palani spoke in tight angry phrases, then waited for Siki to translate each.

“I am sending Siki home for the weekend now,” they said. “I will speak to her mother. We will see if she can return to work next week.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CLeYSkw8Go_2ZQsJzMmF5lYd2QzY1XDLBDpl3RinstE/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?