Konsk: The Great Takeover of the Place

37. Martial Arts and Smell of Coffee.

The morning began grey and cold, the sun rising through black clouds of smoke and dust on the eastern horizon as Trueman awoke and sat up. He looked about, feeling slightly light headed, taking in the surrounding sweep of low hills, the sharp silhouette of Annest on the ridge, the bundled forms of the other two round the dead fire. Then he smiled, remembering the firm warmth of Nonna’s skin under his hands and sighed appreciatively.

He looked at his hands, as though for the first time and they felt like his hands, they were his hands. With a growing excitement he stood up, examining his arms, turning them in the warming air, then his body.

My body, he thought, my body! Turning and moving, slowly, feeling the patter of wind blown dust against his naked skin, watching the hairs spring erect. His body knew how to move, he knew how to move!

Without thought or comment he slowly drew in his limbs to stand perched precisely upon one foot, his supporting knee slightly bent, then, with his exhaled breath, expanding outward, arms rising to shoulder height, raised leg unfolding, heel pointing towards the horizon. He breathed in again, drawing himself into another coiled shape, then exhaled, pushing outward and the movements came unbidden, faster and faster, his breath punching and kicking his postures into action until he whirled and spun as though defending himself against a score of attackers.

The movements came to an end of themselves, as if a sequence had been completed, leaving him standing, feet together, arms relaxed at his sides, breathing deeply but not hard. Trueman reappeared, smiled in wonder, for he had never felt like this before.

He became aware that the others were watching him. Jodi had risen and stood with her left foot forward, the right drawn back, arms half raised, hands making loose fists. The rising sun cast her in a strong side-light, throwing one half of her face and body into deep shadow, her shaved scalp giving her the look of a thoughtful monk. Nonna had stepped back, her face displaying conflicting emotions of anxious concern and a fierce delight.

Trueman remembered he was wearing only undershorts. Much to his surprise he found that this did not bother him, rather, as he continued to examine his body, he took pride from the fact that the women were watching him.

What have I to be ashamed of, he thought, smugly, considering the muscled arms? However, he soon began to find reasons; he was disturbed to note the numerous small scabs and grazes from the wounds he had picked up in the wilderness. There was also, he realised, a general slackness of the muscle tone and worse, a flabby bulge to his stomach that he abruptly sucked in, suddenly conscious of the possibly critical attention of the others.

Not that these minor deficiencies would have mattered to him in his old body but now though, something was different. This new body of his now felt not like a mere vehicle for his rational mind but more an intrinsic part of him, an almost sacred aspect of his self; to have so neglected it felt close to sacrilege.

Of course, he reasoned, before his arrival this body would have exercised daily, possibly practising some martial discipline. Since the wilderness, a mere few weeks ago, he had neglected the body severely, not feeling it to be truly his. That had been enough time to begin the decline. He became stern with himself, running his hands over the bulging muscles of his thighs, he would not let things slip any further.

He bent to massage the ache in his legs and froze. His left one was sore to his touch and comparing it to his right, distinctly swollen. Oh no, he thought in horror, for on closer examination he found three large, angry, red circles on the skin, each marking a darker centre. Thorns, he thought, embedded thorns from the wilderness. He could not believe that he had not attended to them previously. Now what? They looked infected and that would explain the slight feeling of fever.

Trueman felt suddenly despairing, as though he had recovered his body only to be plunged into illness and, who knows, out here without medical attention, even death? he shuddered. The leg now throbbed alarmingly and he could make out discoloured lines running up the inside of his left thigh, probably infected lymph glands. Blood poisoning!

“Quick!” he barked at the frozen Jodi, “I’m ill, I need help!”

Nonna laughed and began to move towards him but Jodi raised a hand, remaining otherwise motionless, as though listening intently.

“Something's happening,” she stated quietly. “Best to pack up, Now.”

Nonna immediately gathered up her pack and kicked dust over the blackened charcoal of the fire. Trueman found himself obeying also, without thinking, dressing quickly and replacing the helmet as Annest trotted down from the ridge with the watching device.

“Surface activity coming in from the south east,” she said, stowing the device in her pack and pulling her eye patch down. “Probably Manson's lot. I'll Lead out, Nonna next, then the INCO. Jodi, watch the rear.” She drew her hood up over her head and moved over the rise. Jodi momentarily held each of the others back with a raised arm, thus once more spacing them out.

“Tread in my footsteps,” Nonna whispered to him before she left.

Trueman waited, watching her receding form as it appeared to merge with the swirl of blackness and glow of flames on the horizon that rose up towards the fiercely orange sun as though to grasp it and draw it back down into darkness. Jodi touched his shoulder.

“Be very careful,” she commanded, then sent him on.

As they progressed they moved into once built up areas but a fierce fire had passed this way before them and left little but ash and ruins. Cracked bricks and concrete, roofs collapsed, sheet metal melted to shapeless blobs, rusting reinforcing bars exposed, bent and tangled, reminding Trueman of the bones and nerve ganglia of the flayed Eulalians.

Placed his feet carefully in the imprint of Nonna’s, Trueman saw surface finishes chipped and pitted by what looked to him like the consequences of an intense fire fight. His boots raised flurries of dust and the smell of burnt wood and plastic. Occasionally the footprints he followed deviated in their regular course and small, variously coloured pennants on thin wires had been inserted beside partially buried shapes. One was more clearly visible, looking very much like a familiar bottle of soft drink, unopened. Trueman shivered, making no attempt to touch it, moving on towards the nearing pall of smoke.

The shattered and toppled structures and piles of rubble could not completely conceal the grid work of streets and in amongst the wreckage he could see the remnants of a civilised veneer, the battered body of a freezer, a rusted, vehicle chassis, twisted and warped where the intense fire had swept over it. Still no people, or even bodies, yet he was aware of clusters of birds, perched on tumbled block-work or circling above.

Following the others through the wreckage became increasingly difficult and looking ahead he could make out towering flames at the base of the billowing blackness, leaping between the leaning hulks of tall blocks that rippled in the heat. There came the sound of a distant roaring and the occasional thud and boom of explosions. Annest ordered them to close up a little.

“This was one of the accommodation areas for the Enhanced Games Stadium,” she said, “For the service staff.”

It might have been, Trueman thought as they paused, resting in the partial shade provided by the remnant of a building. He felt tired; no, more than tired and not just hot. He shook a little and suddenly felt cold, despite the heat. Dammit, he rebuked himself, he kept on forgetting about those thorns and he wasn't getting any better. He was feverish.

At the sound of distant gun shots he turned to stare at the powdering plaster of the wall, barely held together by a smear of fading paint. Projectile weapons had crudely removed sections, carving gouges and holes down to the block-work beneath, in some places punching completely through, leaving blackened edges to the holes. Watching through one of these Trueman noticed a movement in the ruins ahead.

“There’s someone out there!” he whispered harshly, hunching himself in against the wall. “Hello? This is Trueman speaking. Over. Can you hear me? I said there’s some...”

Then the crack of a single gun shot and a pother of dust on a wall to his left.

“We know,” came a reply, from Jodi, coldly sounding in the helmet. “Be quiet!”

“Can you deal with this, please, Jodi?” this from Annest.

Glancing behind Trueman saw in his new body's internal Heads Up Display an orange triangle floating over the grey blur of Jodi as she moved carefully forward, almost gliding over the rubble. She passed him and continued, hardly visible and slipped out of sight through a ragged hole in the wall.

There was a pause, a long pause. Neither of the others seemed overly concerned but Trueman struggled to slow his heart beat. What was she doing? He was expecting to hear gun fire, screams. Was that voices? Then, after what felt like a long while, there came the waft of a familiar aroma, coffee! And very good coffee, too. What on earth?

At last Jodi reappeared, out of nowhere.

“Local freedom fighters,” her voice sounded from the helmet speakers. “I told them they'd won and where the resettlement areas were. They're collecting up their stuff now. We can go on.”

Trueman was baffled.

“Remarkable what the promise of peace can achieve,” Annest said. “That and good coffee.”

Thanks for reading. All pics thanks to the the Public Domain. More to come, soon, plus art and culture- what’s the difference? Hwyl! Chris.