Chapter Vor: Consume

[© 2006 Kyrinn S. Eis, All Rights Reserved]

AS The dark vehicle rolled into a garage with ramps to higher levels, Kynkrea was overcome by an odd and sudden vision, in which she were a youth at this building, decades earlier.
Saunders noticed the change and began to speak, but kept silent.

The disembarkation and shuttling led to a complex of offices within the economically suffering and largely abandoned covered marketplace.

"This used to be a great place; back when I was a kid." Officer Holmes, the first officer to interact with her. The good-hearted, troubled local officer. His marital problems, and drinking kept him in their barely mentioned and always euphemistically-phrased debt. This gleaned from casual conversations during the drive.

"When was that?" Kynkrea asked as she retraced her psychometric route. Her occasional sudden veer seemed to disturb them. The Marnharannan Vrun folk she had met thought the mad are either holy, or monsters, and more or less let them be without notice. These folk seemed intent on forming a ring around her in their escort. She was the cat in the bag.

Holmes looked gravely at her, then, slow to answer, said, "Thirty-five, forty years ago…"

"I’m thirty-seven. If we’d met then, we’d have been the twin terrors of this place. Look at all the great shadowy parts above the stores. I’d love to run around up there while everyone buying their sacred ritual items below would be – ‘clueless’. Getting up there would be something, though." Kynkrea said as she stopped and squat down to the four and three quarters ‘feet’ height of the kid with which she felt the connection.

Everyone just looked at her, most confusedly by Holmes who helped her up, and reassuringly placed his hands on her shoulders and speaking softly to her said, "Yeah. I – I was just thinking that."

Saunders looked at Baez with a wry smile.

Baez didn’t know what to make of Saunder’s smile, odd looking at that. He just nodded and tried to read the other. Nothing came of it.

*

After more sophisticated medical examination, including an imaging device, they finally fed her.

"You like French fries ?" Baez asked as they ate together.

Kynkrea eyed the lightly golden brown, floppy item; played with it a bit; and then, "More salt, please." She barely stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and proceeded to dust the fries with salt. "I’m not really sure I like this red sauce. What’s it called again?"

Baez snorted a smile, "Ketchup. It’s called ketchup. They don’t have this," he motioned one of the tiny pill-cups-worth of the red pasty-sauce that glistened unnaturally.

Kynkrea crinkled her nose a bit at that.

"No. Thicker, with chunks of peppers; tangier. We – I use it for steak."

"You like steak? How well-done?" Baez asked, then put the edge of his ‘hamburger’ sandwich into his smeared and greasy mouth. His stubbly shadow interested Kynkrea in some vaguely erotic fashion. Memories.

"Medium-rare." Kynkrea replied and shoved the ‘burger into her own mouth and felt the odd texture combination of lettuce, pickle, onion, mixed sauces, and the ground meat. She moved it around in her mouth until she felt as if she would be ill, then pushed the odd thoughts from her mind and gulped it down. She was haunted by the child’s finicky preferences that lay overshadowed upon her own mind.

Baez just watched her as she ate, and shoved a few red-painted fries into his mouth, already half-full with masticated burger; he then washed it down with the ‘cola’. "You know… The real thing…" Baez had said to her, seeming to hope to evoke some sort of reaction. She had just smiled incredulously.

"Are they goning to torture me, Baez?"

Baez began to choke at the question.

He cleared his throut and pounded his heart a few times before answering.

"Kynkrea, right? Why’d you think we’re gunna’ torture you?" Baez asked, his face still flushed a violet-red; his neck muscles still taut like cords.

"Because I saw something I shouldn’t have. Now the people who did this thing I saw are after me." Kynkrea said in a particularly child-like way as she stared-off at the floor.

Baez looked on; felt his heart of hearts wrench in response to his conscience. Yes. They would, eventually. She looked squarely at him then.

~"I intend to fight, you know…"~ Kynkrea whispered.

Baez had sat-in on a few interrogation sessions as part of his training.
His heart sank at the image of this soft woman thrashing in the chair.

He was silent for a long while, making a stand first in his heart, then mind.
"I won’t let it get to that." He said with all earnestness.

Kynkrea nodded. "We’ll need Holmes with us, too." Then went back to eating.

A moment later Saunders and Bradley (the blonde), came to the doorway.
"Ready for more questions and answers?" Saunders spoke in ‘nanny-speak’, that vaguely annoyed, yet self-restrained for propriety’s sake, saccharine tone. Her smile was strained at the barest upward curve of her lips.

Baez sighed heavily and put his burger down.

"I’m not finished eating, agent Saunders. I’ll come and find you when I’m ready. Okay, hon?" Kynkrea said in the perfect flow of the day and age.

Bradley and Baez both smirked.

Saunders lost her smile briefly, then the corners of her lips curled wickedly.

"Certainly, Kynkrea, dear. I’ll be waiting for you in the room." She replied with the trumping authority. Her mention of ‘waiting’ and ‘room’ both implied a responsibility upon Kynkrea’s part, and a feeling of humbling or punishment.

"Looking forward to it, Kelly." Kynkrea smiled back, wantonly, and licked her lips of sesame seeds.

Baez heart sank at that.

*