Down in the Underworld

Chapter 34 - Making friends

Growing tired of staring at Phoenix’s bruises, Spectra sighed. Without a word she stood up and walked the small distance to her medical bay before returning with a small syringe gun and a vial of a viscose red-purple liquid.  

‘What ya got there, friend?’ asked Phoenix, eyeing the vial with suspicion.

‘Military grade healer, one shot of this and you’ll be feeling a million times better in about 2 hours.’

‘But why would you help me like that? You know, I could like beat you up or something,’ Phoenix cocked her head to one side, and stuck out her tongue, but she wasn’t feeling jovial. In truth she was not a little worried and apprehensive.

‘I’m sick of looking at your busted-up face,’ Spectra smiled, ‘do you trust me?’

Phoenix had to think quickly. If she said yes, she might die, after all who knew what was in that magic potion? But if she said no, she’d destroy the atmosphere of comradery she’d been working to build up for the last three hours. And Spectra might honestly be trying to help her. If she recovered, she would be in a better position to defend herself. She had to take a chance.

‘OK grrrl, bring it on,’ Phoenix smiled through her swollen lips, and held out her arm.

Spectra filled the syringe from the little glass bottle, and leaning over Phoenix, jabbed the gun in her arm. Phoenix sucked in a breath as the icy liquid entered her blood stream.

‘Woah momma!’ she whistled as the medicine made its way through her body. It was like being hit with 1000 volts of electricity, and she found herself finding it difficult to sit still.

‘It’s good huh? They made us carry it in the field, it got many of us out of a jam, but I don’t have much left, and I’ve no idea where I’d get more, so consider yourself lucky,’ Spectra mused.

‘What can it heal?’ asked Phoenix impressed. She was already feeling better. The stabbing pain from her wounds instantly fading into the background.

‘Pretty much anything non-fatal, I’m not 100% sure what it’s made of but there’s some kind of nano-technology at play, you should already be noticing things feel a bit less broken and puffy,’ Spectra explained.  

‘I can! That is amazing! Have you got a mirror?’ asked Phoenix excitedly.

‘Sure, there’s a bathroom down the corridor to the left.’ 

‘OK, I’ll be back in a sec,’ said Phoenix, who to her surprise was able to jump up and almost walk normally, ‘holy shit!’ she added, turning back for a moment to smile at Spectra, before walking away.

Spectra watched her go with a touch of sadness. She knew that in a couple more hours she’d have to hand the girl over to Demise, but she was starting not to want to. Phoenix was not at all what she expected. The only other Underworlders she’d spoken to before was Demise, and so any information she’d had to go on when it came to people like Phoenix was from him or the Overworlders she contracted out to. Even her own mutant Mellion-human family thought there was something wrong about these exiles, and they had no idea that their own families had rejected them for being different.

A moment later Phoenix came sashaying into the room, full of meds and feeling fine.  She caught the pained look on Spectra’s face as she perched herself on the edge of one of the control panels, but she didn’t push for an explanation. Phoenix didn’t know if she should push Spectra again for information on the machine, but she knew she had to keep these good vibes going. The easiest way to do this seemed to be to talk about herself or Underworld life. Spectra clearly had something on her mind though.

‘Have you ever met anyone from the other dead zones?’ Spectra asked suddenly, but Phoenix noted she seemed to be asking out of interest rather than having a tactical purpose.

‘Once or twice, those poor folks always seem to develop weird mutations or suffer from these awful illnesses. It’s really sad, there’s like real small kids out there and stuff you know? I mean it makes sense right, constantly breathing in that dust and eating chemically altered food, drinking poisoned water. That’s why we raid the Overworld so much, it’s a healthier option. But what they go through would be like what we’d face if we came into contact with that water out there and couldn’t get cleaned off after. I keep hoping we’ll find a way to fix all this, but for now well … at least we have … each other,’ Phoenix finished. She realised she had wanted to say at least we have the Arbour, but she didn’t trust Spectra enough to put that small pocket of paradise at risk.

‘Can’t you take them food and stuff?’

Phoenix knew it wasn’t an accusation. She’d asked herself the same question.

‘Look it’s tough you know, like there are hundreds of people in the Dead West and the Barrens, and we’d have to be constantly making raids and running goods to them, I just don’t think it’s physically possible for us to support them that way, I mean we struggle enough as it is sometimes, we’ve missed plenty of meals because we couldn’t get a successful raid together, I’ve asked Lady about this too and she always says the same thing, which is to imagine we can support 20 people full-time, so how do you choose those 20 people out of the hundreds? What makes them more or less deserving? I think she’s looking for an opportunity to make a difference, but right now, in this moment, it feels a bit hopeless.’ 

‘Yeah, that makes sense, but it still sucks,’ mused Spectra quietly.

‘But what about your folks? You guys sound like super soldiers or something, have you ever thought about raising a rebellion against the Overworld?’

‘I won’t lie, there was talk of it, but it’s not like there’s tunnels full of us living under Londinium or something, and we’re not one big, happy mutant family or anything, once the fighting was over, some of us followed our Commander off to who knows where, and the rest of us became, well mercenaries really, I guess you’d call us, muscle for hire. We’re friendly with each other, and some of us are quite close, but our bonds mainly formed fighting the Mellion, so yeah, it’s not really a family,’ Spectra explained with a long sigh, and in that pause, it hit Phoenix that Spectra really was just on her own, and she didn’t seem to be one hundred per cent cool with it.

‘Damn, I’m sorry, I thought I had it bad with my biological family but at least I have a crew to fall back on when I need them,’ Phoenix shook her head slowly.

‘Yeah well, you can’t win ‘em all,’ Spectra smiled darkly, before reaching for the bottle of tequila they’d started on earlier. Taking a long pull on the bottle, she seemed to be mulling something over in her head.

Phoenix watched her carefully, and kept her mouth shut. She knew something was about to change but what it was she couldn’t say. It was killing her not to talk, and just when she thought she was about to burst, Spectra finally opened her mouth.

‘So, what if there was some tech that could fix up the deadlands?’  

Phoenix frowned. What did Spectra mean? Fixing up the deadlands would take hundreds of years, and the Overworlders would have to stop dumping their toxic crap there too. Phoenix just didn’t see it happening, but she had to find out what Spectra meant.

‘Grrrl, what are you talking about?’ Phoenix knew she was being familiar, but she was also now a little bit drunk.

Spectra looked at Phoenix for a moment. She knew she was on the edge of doing something quite radical, but part of her was anxious about taking that next step. This was something she couldn’t walk back from. If she went all in because she liked this girl and wanted what she felt on some subconscious level, she was offering then she would be locked into a new life.