Chronicles of Chiron: Dome Is Where the Heart Is | Scene 20

///
Although his hands are cuffed, so far the interrogation experience hasn’t been too bad, Snacker reflects. The captain asking him questions has humored his demands, sending subordinates to bring colorful cupcakes and freshly cooked wings. “I just can’t think clearly on an empty stomach,” Snacker insists. But there’s a limit to how long he can stall and how oblique he can make his responses. Without really meaning to, he reveals that there is someone else high up who is, for lack of a better term, fancy.

“There’s some rich person in town, slumming it with your resistance,” the interrogator concludes.

“Yeah,” Snacker replies half-heartedly, realizing there’s no way to back away from that. He picks up another greasy wing and chews on it. He grew up on the streets, where you never know where your next meal is coming from. When there’s an opportunity to eat, you do. And if he can just get his hands a bit more greasy, maybe he can slip out of these cuffs…

“Snacker, you need to do your duty to protect this dome. If you don’t, you will never truly be in Sanctuary. This is the closest you will be. There are many Paths, Snacker, but this isn’t one of them,” the captain says.

“No, I mean, but it is one, right? He’s just trying to get people out to Data Haven, to safety.”

Although this is new information, that people are being smuggled out of this inane debt system, it is not actionable. Rich male, that narrows things down a little, but not much. Damian presses his lips together and cracks his knuckles. He will need to escalate matters to get the specific information that he has repeatedly requested.

He glares at Snacker for a moment, and into that silence intrudes escalating noise from the casino floor, muted though it is by the thick walls. Damian issues orders to his subordinate to check it out. He glances out the doorway himself, but since it just seems to be an unruly card game, he turns back to his prisoner. As the door swings closed again, he smoothly draws his baton and steps toward Snacker. Behind him, he hears the sound of several people entering the room. “This is a restricted area. Get out of here!” he calls over his shoulder at the lost gamblers.

“This is our dome,” Louisa shouts back. “You get out of here, University scum.”

Cleve pulls the door shut and locks it, then throws himself into the fray, counting on the element of surprise, rather than any particular aptitude for hand-to-hand combat. Unfortunately, Damian is a true soldier, one still currently at war, not a veteran who did his time and then resigned to hike the wilderness. And also, one wearing some pretty good body armor. While Damian’s baton is repelling Louisa from dashing past him to reach Snacker, Cleve’s blows connect with the soldier’s torso. However, their force is totally absorbed, and in dodging away from Damian’s riposte, Cleve loses his footing.

“Snacker, I hope for once you’ve kept your mouth shut!” Louisa admonishes her teammate. At the sight of his rescuers, he tries to get up, but the table has him pinned in place. It is slammed all the way back against him in his chair, and the struggle currently in front of it gives Snacker nowhere to push it, not that he’s got good leverage, anyway.

Down on the floor, Cleve shakes out his stinging hand and dodges away from getting stomped by Damian. It would be really convenient if he had something to tangle up the soldier’s legs, but that net Mariah found is far from here. Bella presents an alternative: repo squad zip tie.

Louisa has a pistol of her own, but she doubts this University soldier is the sort of person who would just surrender if she drew on him. Instead, while his attention is on Cleve, she goes for the gun strapped to his back. Those laser rifles are nasty, and she doesn’t want him to use it on her or her allies. It’s a struggle to get it free from its clips, but soon she’s backing away, the weapon clutched in both hands. The soldier spins around and swings at her with his baton, but she jumps back out of the way. Louisa spares a glance down at Cleve, who never did get around to teaching her to shoot a rifle, but he’s in no position to take charge of the weapon. She has no idea how it happened, but somehow his wrists are zip tied together, so no help will be coming from that quarter. 

Well, attempting to zip tie Damian’s legs together ended rather disastrously, Cleve reflects, but there are ways he can still be useful, even with his hands stupidly bound together. He lurches to his feet, throwing his shoulder against the table as he does so. It flips over, giving Snacker the space he needs to get up.

Violence is not really the Stepdaughters of Chiron way, that’s what both Mariah and Dr. Citali told Louisa, but this is war now, and she’s not the one who started it. This foreign mercenary had a club raised against Snacker when she and Cleve burst into the room. And he’s coming at Louisa with it now. At this range, it’s practically impossible to miss him, even though she doesn’t really know how to use this weapon, other than pointing it and squeezing it until either it or her target stops. A guide light glows against the chest plate of the armor, cueing Louisa to slide her aim down a bit in order to catch a thinner spot. The smell of burning flesh fills the air, and thick weave catches fire from the intensity of the laser. Suddenly, the weapon stutters out with flashing lights on a side panel Louisa knows nothing about; she has overtaxed the laser rifle with her death-grip on the trigger. “Go back across the sea, foreign interloper!” Louisa shouts. “Leave us to free our own dome. You don’t know what it’s like to live under this debt!”

No, Damian does not. His own home has a much better system. And his priorities are not the same as Morgan’s, particularly not right now while he is on fire. Damian is a trained soldier; he knows exactly how harmful burns can be. He does not scream in pain at the laser hit, but he responds immediately, dropping to the ground and rolling about to smother the flames. This protective action gives the resistance leaders—surely that wealthy man accompanying Louisa is who Snacker was talking about—a chance to flee with his prisoner, but his own life is more important than this petty war Morgan is waging. 
///

Fin