“Well, shit.”
I turned a corner and saw five guards running down hill towards me, us. Lom and I. Weapons ready and then they saw us. I played to soldier card.
“Guys, I got the alert, what’s going on?!”
They stopped, panting lightly to address me. “That guy broke out, Solid Snake style, KO’d some kid, then ran for it. You see anything, call ops asap. Heard?”
“Heard that, I’m going ahead, I’ve gotta report in, then I’ll join y’all in a minute or ten.” A nod between us all and they passed me and Lom. They didn’t even shoot her a look. “Lom,” I looked at her confused expression. We shared a smile then trotted quicker up the next bend to find a dock.
An airdock, that is. For the blimp, or whatever it was, to dock at. Unguarded and unimportant. I took the rope from my wrist and called to Lom, then loosely tied it to her. I kissed the top of her head. “We got lucky, let’s keep going.”
She nodded as I gave her a slight shove. She led the way to a large house with a cloud, a superimposed with a unicorn horn. Lom stopped and pointed a hoof ahead of us. “Hurt.”
“Ah, I get it. Let’s go get ‘er.” We approached the clinic to be stopped by a bird tweet. I looked to my friend in the clouds, since we were too high for birds to just be chirping about at random. I waved him down and he tossed me the gem.
“I listen to your plan. Foalish. You cannot attack a clinic in honor. You can not kill those that are unable to fight.”
I looked at him incredulously tossing the gem back, he nearly missed but caught it. “I have no intention of harming anyone. I need to get my little girl, Strong Heart, then I’ll get outta here. If I come across my bodyguard then I’ll free him too. Do you have a plan to get me in there? If not, bug off.”
He sneered at me, but it was a pleasurable sneer, like a smile through hate. Weird. He threw the gem at me, really hard. I caught it, cutting my hand slightly on an edge.
“Fucker! What the hell? Goddamnit, that cut me you fucking…” I looked to my hand and the smirk on his face. I rolled my eyes and began to walk past him, tossing the gem to him and letting the rope fall to the ground. “Wait here, Lom,” I motioned for her to stay put, and I went inside.
The clinic was simple enough. A large two story house with medical charts of minotaurs here and there. The entrance was a room full width and about fifteen feet in with a waiting area and check-in. There was a long hall with six rooms, three on each side. The doors of rooms in use were closed. There were two closed doors. Those had to be it.
“Medic? I cut my hand being a dumbass.”
A woman in medical scrubs came from a room at the end of a hall. She looked at me and did a quick assessment as she walked up; authority and confidence in her job exuding from her.
“What’d ya do?”
“Cut my hand, just need a stitch. We’ve got an alert.”
“How’d you cut it,” she asked taking my hand and looking at my injury. Before I could say anything she slapped my hand with her other one. I yelped. “You are a dumbass. I’ll get you a bandaid, be right back.” She rolled her eyes and went into a side room.
Crap, maybe I can get in from the windows outside. Just then I saw a flash of light from the room she went in. Followed by a bird’s chirp. Jogging to the room I saw the pegasus’ cloud floating up. That son of a bitch.
I didn’t look a second longer, jogging to the next room, opening the door. Oh my. Not her, I closed the door as I saw a female soldier that had been beaten, asleep on her bed. My teeth ground together as I thought about finding the guy who did that, but I had other, more pressing issues.
The next room I found her. Asleep on an infant's bed. No plugs, monitors, tubes, or anything attached. I looked around the room quickly before I went in, there was a basket of vegetables and a note to feed her every four hours. I can do that.
“Heart, sweetie. C’mon, let’s get moving. We have to go. Can you hear me?”
She wiggled her ears, then stretched her rear legs. A cute little yawn squeaked out of her and she smacked her lips. Her eyes fluttered open in the most adorable of ways and she rolled to her belly.
“Zrny?”
“Heart, it’s me,” I said happily. She looked at me, groggily, and a smile crossed her face.
“Mocha?”
Her voice was music to my ears. Her mane had been trimmed, as was her tail. She looked good in short hair. It seemed they had some nanotech, it’d healed a couple scars on her flanks, making them look like she’d never been hurt.
I almost felt a pang of guilt.
If they could heal her scars, maybe. No, no maybe. No maybes. If I leave her she’s as good as dead. Slavery will claim her again. Maybe she’ll be kept as a pet. Not a life to live. Not for her. Not for me. I had a moment of realization then. Or me. Spending a life in servitude to a country. Just another form of slavery, no more.
“C’mon, we’re going.” I grabbed the vegetable basket in my left hand then gently picked her up.
I made it outside and sighed. Eight guards were pointing weapons at me. Machine guns, mostly.
“Specialist Mocha. Says here you’re armory. Is that right?” He asked walking around me with a datapad in his left hand.
I looked at the sergeant and huffed. The small room I was in was once a child’s room, I could tell from the decorations that were left up. I struggled against the duct tape binding me to the three legged chair I was on.
The room was lit with a few candles against each of the five walls in the, otherwise, bright room.
“I have nothing to say to you. Let us go.”
He looked down to me as he stopped by my left side. “You attacked and rendered two soldiers unconscious. One with a concussion. The other has burns from the taser you used. The nurse you tasered is still unconscious and we’re not going to waste time trying to find your weapon or where you got it.
You got help from somewhere and I want to know who they are. If you tell me, I’ll make sure they go easy on you. Apparently, you’re some kinda hero amongst the local troops. The women especially. Something about you being so resourceful, saving a little pink prissy pony instead of yourself,” he shouted at me, “instead of yourself. Does that sound about right?”
I glared at him as he walked around me, behind this time, I turned to face him.
“I found her, saved her from slavery. She’s a daughter to me and I was and am willing to die for her to live a life free of slavery. I would have given her what water I had if you’d given us a drop in that cell.”
“That wasn’t a cell-”
“It was the only place I’ve seen in this whole city with a metal door! Solid granite walls, dirt and hay floor. A bucket for us to shit and piss in. Obviously a five star hotel, my mistake.”
I braced myself, he raised his hand for a strike. It didn’t come.
“You, were misplaced.”
“Mis-fucking-placed?! You nearly killed her. One more day and I’d have had no choice. I’d have had to do something so horrible and vile,” I spit at him, “and to her. The first one to actually love me in my life. I’d have had to eat my own family to survive?”
The look he gave me was nothing short of shock.
“If I’d have had to do that, every. Single. One of you would be dead,” I glared at him before turning forward again. It hurt to twist to see him. I just growled at the floor in front of me.
“Well, the important thing is that you didn’t have to. Who, um, w-who helped you? Who gave you the taser?”
I tensed and growled louder. “You almost took away everything in my life. My family, my sanity, my humanity. And you want me to turn over and let you rub my belly; just so you can look good in your next review?”
“Look, son-”
That was it. The second I lost it. I never had a father, my mother made it clear that I was a droughter’s debt and that’s all I was. Having some asshole a few years older than me call me ‘son’ was the last I could take. I braced my feet on the ground and pushed, arcing my head back.
The sound of his face cracking was a horribly satisfying crunch. I landed on him and the chair cracked at just the right place for me to pull my arms free. Sure, I broke a pinkie in the process but I was starting to stand up, didn’t matter.
He was groaning on the floor, holding his face while I stood over him. “Sir, you can fuck yourself,” I kicked him in the belly, “and I will never betray my family and friends,“ another kick. I could hear people approaching, “and I’ll save my family no matter how many times you catch us!”
I fell back onto my butt and rolled to my stomach, hands still behind my back, and waited.
The door was knocked in, and I felt a knee in my back, between the screaming of ‘stay down’, and ‘don’t move’. Which was ironic since I was doing that when they came in.
I was done talking. Done playing their games. Done with it all. It was time to go.