Nobody Left Behind 3 (Patreon)

Most of this is like before, but I've changed the last part so it can happen at the beginning. From here, we'll go into young Sarsuk. Nobody

Most of this is like before, but I've changed the last part so it can happen at the beginning. From here, we'll go into young Sarsuk.

Edit: Updated to plant seeds regarding Siki desire to transfer schools.

Nobody Left Behind 1
Nobody Left Behind 2

———

Siki fidgeted nervously in her seat, sitting uncomfortably in front of a large, imposing desk. Doctor Palani sat behind it with a wall of degrees and prestigious awards backing him up. Not meeting his eyes, she studied the plaques behind him.

“Lakeside,” she said, then covered her muzzle, not having intended to say it out loud.

“Yeah, it’s a great school,” said the lio. “I got my undergrad there and went back for my doctorate.”

Feeling on the spot, Siki quietly shared, “I’ve been … toying with the idea of transferring.” Then, her ears lowered in worry, Siki added, “Mom doesn’t know.”

The lio nodded and pinched his lips together between his index finger and thumb to show that he wouldn’t tell. Eventually, he said, “Well, like I said, it’s a great school. Hard as hell to get in, but worth it if you do. Though I should warn you, their chemistry department is…” He frowned and made a dismissive gesture with one paw.

“Chemistry is what my mom wants me to study, actually,” said Siki quietly.

The lio’s eyes lit with understanding and his lips formed a silent, “Oh…”

She waved both her palms at him with her best “not your problem” sort of gesture. “So, um … Sarsuk? I guess I’m not really following what you expect me to do with him,” she explained. “I was trying to write down what he was saying, but he just kept demanding an explanation of what was going on, what he’s doing here and all. My notes aren’t particularly—”

“I saw you were talking to him too,” said Palani. “Despite not speaking the languages, it sounded like the two of you were hitting it off.”

Siki shrugged. “I told him that I didn’t have any answers, that you were going to explain things to me this morning. What should I…?”

He steepled his index fingers and rested his upper lip against them for a moment. “Tell me, Siki,” he said in his lio baritone, “you ever watch any action movies?”

With ears raised, she hesitated. “Um, now and then?” She shrugged. “They’re not really my thing, but my boyfriend likes them.”

The lio’s ears grinned wide, sticking out from his thick mane. “Okay, imagine this: The good guys capture the bad guy, but the bad guy has planted a bomb, and the timer is ticking down.” His eyes opened wide, and he leaned closer over the huge desk. “If you don’t convince the bad guy to tell you where it’s hidden, people are going to die.”

The geroo gulped, and her heart beat quicker. “Sarsuk knows where a bomb is hidden?”

“No, he doesn’t know anything,” huffed Palani, waving the notion away like it was a fruit fly. “Don’t worry about him.”

Somewhat reassured, she studied the paws in her lap. “Um, okay,” she said quietly, “the bad guy knows where the bomb is.”

“Right, and it’s urgent that the good guys find out where quickly.” He grinned and rapped the table with his knuckles. “So, what do you do?”

With eyes opened wide, she pointed at her own chest until he nodded. “I… I don’t know. In the movies, they usually tie him to a chair and beat him up until he spills it.” After a pause, she shook her head. “No, wait, I guess that’s the good guy that gets tied up—”

Palani shook his head. “Torture may be fast, but it’s also a lousy interrogation technique,” he explained. “A guy will tell you anything to make you stop. He gives you a location, and then you realize it’s the wrong place and go rough him up some more, so he gives you another location, and so on.”

The geroo’s ears drooped. “That’s horrible!”

“It is,” he agreed. “Plus, krakun are incredibly tough. I don’t even want to know how you go about beating one up. Anyhow, the empire would love to have a faster, more reliable method to interro— to convince a krakun suspect to tell the truth. Preferably, something that doesn’t involve beating them up.”

Siki scowled. “Okay…?”

The doctor just smiled. “Sarsuk is an interesting test subject. He’s lost basically everything, and we believe that makes him particularly vulnerable,” he explained. “We’d like you to talk to him and see how much work it takes for you to make him give up his secret.”

Her eyes popped wide. “...Where the bomb is planted?”

Palani laughed and waved his paws with fingers spread. “There’s no bomb.”

She crossed her arms in frustration, not understanding. “So, what’s his secret?”

“We don’t know,” he admitted. “You’ll have to talk him into telling you.”

All this talk about secrets, torture, and bombs was making Siki nervous. She slipped from her seat and wandered the doctor’s office, peering at the items on his walls and shelves—leather-bound books, framed photos, trinkets from places she’d never heard of. Over her shoulder, she asked, “How do you even know he has a secret, Doctor Palani?”

But she could hear the smile in his voice, “Everyone has a secret they don’t want to share, Siki.”

On a shelf, she spied a small photo in a free-standing frame. She picked it up and studied it a moment. In the picture, a younger version of Doctor Palani was receiving a gigantic golden key from another lio.

Siki wasn’t sure what that indicated, but it looked like a ceremony of some sort. She turned the picture his way for a moment, and his ears grinned wider. He nodded happily.

Siki turned it back and studied the photo a moment longer before noticing the building behind the figures. Above the doors in big black letters of Lio script read “The Palani Center”. She blinked in surprise and then carefully set the photo back down where she’d found it. She’d need to look that up later.

Siki held her breath a moment before turning back to her new boss. “I understand that, sir. It’s just … I’m not sure I’m the right intern for this job,” she said as innocently as she could manage. “I’m not manipulative. I don’t know anything about talking people into doing what they don’t want to do. I only applied because Mom says that washing test tubes would look better on a resume than sitting the neighbor’s cubs.”

# # #

When she returned to the lab, Sarsuk felt overjoyed. “Siki! Oh, thank goodness, you’re back,” boomed the head on the wall. “When you weren’t here this morning, I thought maybe I’d be stuck with only Doctor Hairball here for company.”

He let his head droop. “None of these guys speak any language I know. None of them understand a word I’m saying.”

The geroo grabbed her stool and slid it back in front of his face. “I told you; I had a briefing this morning on why you’re here and what my job was going to be.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s been hours!” he groaned. “How much stuff did they need to tell you?”

Siki smiled. “Not much, really, but negotiation took a lot longer than I expected.”

The yellow lizard blinked, and he cocked his head. “Negotiation…?” he asked. “I thought they were paying you four and a half sovereigns to talk to me.”

“No, they were paying me four and a half to listen and take notes.” Siki interlaced her fingers and made a show of cracking her knuckles toward him. “Talking to you is going to cost them seven and a half per hour.”

Sarsuk stared down at the dark-brown geroo, finding it hard to form words. Here he was, this gigantic, nigh-impervious creature, and she was just a tiny, fragile thing he could have crushed by accident. But yet, she showed more spunk and confidence than he ever had.

“Why, you manipulative little… Seven and a half up from the three you were making yesterday morning?” he whispered. He still had no idea how much money that represented—if someone could even calculate that, without any formal trade between their worlds—but that didn’t matter. With awe, he asked, “Where were you when I was negotiating my salary?”

Siki smiled, clearly pleased with herself. “Not born yet, I’m sure,” she reminded him.

“No, you wouldn’t be, would you?” he admitted. Though she couldn’t see it and he wasn’t quite certain if it were even real, he gestured at her with an open palm. “So, you had your briefing. Did he explain what the heck is going on here?”

The joy on her ears vanished without a trace, and they fell to her shoulders. Now, she couldn’t meet his eyes. That had to be a terrible sign. Sarsuk failed to see what good news she could possibly have had, but clearly there’d be none today. Eventually, she managed, “Do you remember being beheaded?”

Sarsuk opened his mouth to reply, but no words came. He froze in place for a long moment before gravity slowly pulled him down. When he had drooped so far that his chin nearly touched the ground, he whispered, “I have a lot of memories that I know can’t be right. Even now I’m feeling things that make no sense. And yeah, I remember that, but I guess—all things considered—that I was hoping I was mistaken, that maybe that particular event had been part of a nightmare.”

Siki frowned and sat in silence, waiting for the giant reptile to continue.

“And so, the lio have…”—his throat tightened, and he wasn’t certain he’d even be able to get the words out—“stolen my head so they could experiment on it?”

The geroo said nothing for a long while. Eventually, she sighed. “I’m sorry.”

He turned away as far as he was able. Without looking at her, he asked, “And so you’re supposed to … what? Keep me company?”

“I’m not completely sure,” she said. He turned back just enough that he could see her at the edge of his vision, and she explained, “I think ideally, you should be talking to a shrink, or a grief counselor, or maybe even a social worker, I’m unsure. A college intern isn’t ideal, obviously, but we speak your language, and my mom is busy with her own work. So, I guess you’re stuck with me?”

The krakun closed his eyes, feeling as low as he could ever remember feeling before. “I don’t think I want to talk to you.”

“No, you probably don’t,” she agreed, “but I think you should talk to someone, and of all your bad options, I’m… Well, let’s face it, I’m probably your only option. And if you send me away, then you’ll be in no position to change your mind back. It’s not like you can knock on my door and ask me to try again.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, I get it,” said Siki.

Sarsuk felt worthless and hopeless. He tried to wipe his eyes once more. “I can feel my claws wiping away these tears, but it’s not real. It doesn’t work.”

The geroo hesitated. “I could … maybe buy a squeegee with a long handle? If you’re the sort who cries a lot.” She gave him a hesitant smile. “Not judging, really. I am too.”

“I haven’t been. Not in a very, very long time,” said Sarsuk, “but lately… I’ve been going through a lot.”

“Clearly.”

Now, he didn’t want her to leave. In fact, he felt almost desperate for her to stay. He hated that his only option was a geroo of all creatures, but even a geroo was better than no one. “So, what are we supposed to talk about?” he asked.

“Well, tell me about you.”

“You mean, like my job?”

“If that’s your passion, I guess,” said Siki. “I’d like to hear the stuff that’s really important to you—what you love.”

He turned back to face her. “Love?”

“Sure.” She smiled. “Tell me about your mate.”

Feeling very on the spot, he coughed softly and said, “I’m not… I don’t…”

“Cubs?”

He shook his head.

“Girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

Another shake.

“Family?”

“Mom and I don’t talk anymore.” It felt bad to say that aloud, but it was true. Their conversations had grown increasingly awkward, and he knew they both hated trying.

“Friends?”

Her expression seemed pained, and he felt like he had to offer her something, just to get past this horrible moment. But when he tried to think of who he might consider a friend, no one came up.

“Okay, fine, do this:” she said. “Tell me about the first time you fell in love.”

His hearts beat harder. “What?”

She grinned. “You know! The first time you felt that … feeling, that electricity! You meet someone, and for whatever reason, your brain says, ‘This isn’t just anybody! This is someone special!’ You know?”

He nodded slowly.

“Doesn’t matter if it worked out or not,” she said. “Tell me about that first moment.”

Sarsuk tried to swallow, but his mouth was strangely dry. He wished he had a tall drink and claws to grasp it by.

He wished that tall drink was dangerously strong.

He whispered, “Okay…”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1krtZZVxcYCPjORBYO1Hnj6aMoJQXs7eoRDR0yGwPBnc/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?