20

The smell reached her senses first. Followed by more of that smell. Other smells fought with the first smell to assail her nostrils while far more disgusting smells waited in the wings while the first smells exhausted themselves and then things would really begin to stink. The second thing to reach her senses, trying its very best to elbow the smells aside and gain some well-deserved attention from Demi, was the curious itching that made Demi want to tear the skin off her own face. Every other sense didn't get a look in, but they could bide their time.

"Ah, your awake? Great?" The high-pitched, squeaky voice barged its way through all the other senses and made a name for itself, but the smells prepared a counterattack. "Best get some of these anti-inflammatories in you before you turn into a firecracker?"

Something furry pressed something small into something that Demi felt sure was her mouth. The furry thing rubbed her throat until the small something slipped down into her gullet and she felt largely thankful for that as, one of the other senses, that had waited patiently to make itself known, felt something that threatened to burn her up from the inside. As she returned to wakefulness, every sense started to think it had a crack at taking precedence and the headache she now felt made her want to vomit.

She did and the vomit splashed into water that slopped upwards, hitting her face, exacerbating the horrible smells but easing the itchy feeling on her face. If only for a short while. The itching moved, in order to continue annoying her. She tried opening her eyes, but, when that revealed only blackness, she decided to close them again. No point wasting the energy. Energy. She needed that. Food. Lots of it. Yet she knew if she ate something, the foul smells would only cause her to vomit once more.

"What, in the name of everything holy, happened?" She sat up. Regretted it and fell back into the water that felt a little too thick and miasmic for her liking. "I was on the ship. I was going to read and then ..."

Visions of Friss looking at her with big, sad eyes and offering her a shot glass flashed before her closed eyes. She had agreed to one. Only one drink. From the second the drink touched her lips, everything became hazy. Or black. Or psychedelic. Possibly all of those options and probably a few more for good measure.

"Yeah? Hell of a rager, so I heard?" Furry hands helped her to sit up and Demi chanced opening her eyes again. It was still a waste of time. "The names Briyun, by the way?"

"'Brian'?"

"Nah, mate? Briyun? Bri-yun? There's a difference? Listen? Brian? Briyun? Brian? Bri-yun?" The furry person, Briyun, splashed as they sat beside her, elbow and shoulder snuggled against her. "You can call me 'Bri'? All my mates call me Bri? Apart from Jackeee, but he's a sarky bugger?"

"Are you asking me, or telling me?" Demi wished she could say she was starting to get used to the smells. She was not.

"Telling you?" That statement from Bri only confused matters for Demi as they made a scratching sound. Through her eyelids, she saw a flare of light. "You're in a sewer, by the way? I thought you should know?"

Demi opened her eyes and waited for them to adjust. When they did, it only confirmed Bri's words and her own suspicions. She needed a shower. Preferably right now but, failing that, right now would be fine. The sewer looked pretty much like she expected a sewer to look. Dank, stagnant, filthy water, filled with ... things. Slimy, nondescript walls. Rat-like things. Like the figure sat next to her. Bri. They looked vaguely rat-like in the light from their flip-lighter. Rat-like, human sized, with a cute button nose, whiskers, little beady eyes and fluffy ears. No. Not a rat. A stoat, more like. A human sized stoat person that talked in questions.

"In a minute, I'll ask exactly how I got here, where here is and how, exactly, you came to be sitting with me in a sewer. That will be important and you'll have to tell me, not ask me." She tore her eyes away from Bri for a second as she reached up a filthy hand to press upon the skin of her face. "First, why does my face feel like its got creepy, crawly things in it?"

"Ah, that'll be the creepy crawly things?" Bri ignored her request to make a statement, not a question. Clearly that was the way they talked. "They're a disguise? On account of you being a mass-murdering revolutionary intent on destroying the galaxy? It's probably for the best? They're not harmful? Apparently?"

Lodka. Or Friss. Or both. Demi couldn't decide whether it was some kind of joke between the child-like captain and his ship, or whether it was a genuine attempt to keep her features hidden. A mask would have worked just as well, but, no, they had to do their best to make it painful, irritating and, she assumed, ridiculous looking. They wanted her to become a laughing stock. Which, she had to admit, was slightly better than becoming a captured fugitive charged with crimes she had most definitely not committed. Apart from the Lunacide. But that was an accident.

Without asking, she took the flip-lighter from Bri's hand, noting the long claws, but tiny, actual fingers. They didn't seem to mind. Using the lighter, Demi swept it around her, trying to get a sense of how bad things were. She tried standing, slipped, fell back into the muck of the sewer floor and heard a distressed 'meep' emerge from the pouch at her belt.

Reaching into the pouch, she pulled out the Meep, trying not to look into its wet, pleading eyes. It wasn't the same Meep, but slightly smaller and, in the light of the small, flickering flame, she could see it was a different colour. She didn't have time for stressing about another one of those creatures, stuffing it back into the pouch and standing once again.

"So, let's start, Bri. What are we doing down here?" The burning sensation in Demi's stomach had dissipated, but the headache laughed at the idea of going away any time soon. She squinted in the light and chose a direction to move. "And, forgive me for asking, but are you male? Female? Other gendered?"

"Female? Look, I got boobs to prove it?" Bri began to lift the filthy shirt they wore and Demi only just managed to stop her from revealing everything she had. Now that she looked, Demi could see eight tell-tale bumps beneath the shirt. "Well, some aggro started up there and Frissa and Lapo told me to keep you secret, keep you safe? I don't know anywhere more secret or safe than down here? Everybody comes here to be secret and safe?"

A secret place that everyone knew about was, perhaps, not the most secret, or safe, place to be. Demi needed to get out of here, if only to find something a little less filthy to wipe the intense filth and stink from her that she had gained down here in the sewers. As she and Bri waded through the rank waters, she came upon a series of ladder steps bolted into the wall and, up above, a grating that, no doubt, led to the streets above. Wherever they were.

Passing the lighter back to Bri, Demi began to clamber up the ladder, adjusting her climb as something dripped on her from above. Luckily, whatever it was didn't stink. Or, at least, didn't stink as bad as the sewers below. As she neared the grating, Demi started to hear sounds. Blaster fire. Screams. The sound of tearing and ripping paper that Demi had the odd sense that the sound resembled manic laughter.

Using all the strength she could muster, Demi heaved the grating upwards and light flooded down into the sewer tunnel. She blinked as she placed her hand on the edge of the hole, pressing her fingers into something warm and liquid. With a jerk, she hauled herself out of the sewer, crouched and tried to make sense of everything she could see.

Blood. She noticed that. Covering the hand that had pressed into something warm. In fact, there seemed to be an awful lot of blood. And body parts. Some of the bodies had smoking blaster holes in them, others looked as though something very thin and very sharp had cut dozens of slices into their bodies. Still other bodies were no longer what anyone could easily recognise as bodies. Steaming piles of goo, or torn into little pieces. Friss and Lap had certainly passed this way and maybe Bognrd, too. She imagined Bognrd had done the 'ripping people apart' thing.

A blaster bolt pinged from a nearby wall, leaving the Repli-concrete blackened, smoking and with a last vestige of heat dissipating from embers. Demi had fallen to her knees and found herself face-to-face with herself. Or, at least, a highly stylised interpretation of herself. She looked quite good. The placard, held by part of a hand not attached to any recognisable body, showed Demi raising a fist and gazing into the distance. The words 'Via le revulsion' in big, red letters below her face. She collapsed back onto her backside.

"Why is there death everywhere we go?" She looked toward Bri as she leaped from the sewer. She really did look more like a stoat than anything else. Quite cute, in a sewer filthy, stoat-like fashion while standing within the confines of a bloodbath. "I just wanted to help my brother and sister. And now ... now I'm an accidental revolutionary running around with a bunch of murderous idiots."

"Great? I've never been part of a revolution?" Bri stood to her full height, not as tall as Bognrd, but, perhaps, a little taller than Lap, her tailing twisting around her legs. "Come on, Demo, I reckon the fighting's died down enough to get you back to your ship?"

Without protest, Demi allowed Bri to lift her to her feet, guiding her around the bodies and broken, burning hover-cars, hover-bikes and hover-scooters. It looked as though this area had had quite a lot of people in it, swelled by the people that had carried placards with her face plastered upon them. As Bri led her away, she could see more placards, streamers, scarves, blood-soaked t-shirts bearing her features. And dead. So many people dead and it made her howl.

They were going to blame this on her now, too.