~ two

A cutting ship launches from an asteroid devoted as a mining depot (F M K) in the belt, mining drones turning to observe, then drop their labors to follow. 

The interrogation's subject, Arsinoe/Mishil begins stripping from her business suit to the bandages beneath, aced all the way up and down and looking like a mummy, she opens the wheeled suitcase. 

The heavy skulls like those under Apollo's own skin.  She puts on her goggles falling into the skull helm's sockets when she puts it on.  Another skull over the left shoulder, the right left bare but for the wraps.

She assembles the gunblade, broad sword and barrel as one heavy piece of steel, perhaps the only thing left of a far older world she may or may not remember.  The scope slides over with a ratcheting sound.  

She loads, while Apollo devours a meal who's eyes appear to hopelessly watch the careless revelry of her kind.
________

The Boy stares into the eyes of a lion in the zoo, the caged beast staring back.

nameless - Suddenly standing next to him, "What's he saying ?"

The Boy - Looks up at him a second, analyzing.  Then back to the lion.  "Freedom."

nameless - "Are you going to free him ?"

The Boy - Looks around at the people, the rest of the animals along the walkway for show.  "I think so."

nameless - Considers this a moment, looks to the lion.  The lion looking back then to the boy again, near thirsty.  "Well ... I suppose they ... mostly look like fair runners."

The Boy - As the locks drop all around and the screaming begins.  "They do."  He looks around, "Mostly."
________

As Apollo feasts on the living in his lap with dulled eyes, the red of the throne and merriment around making the horror near invisible.  He looks up in focus.

Apollo - In his thoughts, "Do you hear me my son ?"

Aesculapius - Heard in his mind, "Clearly.  As always."

Apollo - "This is good.  One day you will deal with the cattle too, these slaves slaving slaves, slaving themselves until meat.  This system will be yours."

Aesculapius - "I do not care to indulge their sickness but only to feed, and to feed our people.  To keep the furnaces burning with their bones"

Apollo - "And burn well they do."  He finishes his meal.  "You will rule as you choose my son, I truly care not.  Only that you've made me proud.  I leave you to your thoughts, my prince."  He looks down and tears a bite.

Aesculapius - ... "My king."

The young prince walks out over the ruling parapet, bones of the dead god spread as towers upon which eons have passed, civilizations risen and fallen.  Risen again or rising it appears, the temples spread and soldiers march.

Vessels to and fro from the high docks set at the tips of the ribs, a world spreading beyond sight on the inside of the carcass' ring turning for gravitation.

Before the tower a series of cannons lining a docking port from the center of the ring, ships porting in and out of varied kinds, varied species, most notably some appearing as ghosts.

~ voiced over from the interrogation ~

 

Subject - "It's the same for everyone else really.  Everyone has a story about who they are, and they tell it over and over until it has no meaning.  Memorized.  In time their memory turns to match the story, I can tell when they tell it.  The blankness in their eyes like reciting their social security numbers. 

"You can see it in their eyes."  Over the dull eyes of Apollo's meal, spinning dancers  reflected within, "No one believes their own story."

 

Arsinoe circles through from the swarm of drones descending on Apollo's ship like they were mining ores.  Her ship spins pounding hard with the guns on a single cannon port.  

 

Pods launch across the alien craft's length, immediately taken by drones and cut open leaving the departing to space.

 

When the targeted cannon port is burned through her ship slams it hard, wedging a hole clamped by the rocket heads and injecting her within while foam extrudes from her ship's surface, sealing the gap.

Along the overlooking walkways leading to the bridge the path is thin, their panic for their escape pods cumbersome to the path so she starts cutting through, the drones outside tear at the engines and guns as it rounds Mars. 

First grabbing one alien from behind and slitting the throat, letting his gurgle fall off the rail, building to merciless a dance between them until they flee her more than the ship's destruction.

 

Apollo raises himself from the chair quietly, seeing the situation beyond repair while the rest of the bridge continues their work. 

Through the shaking ship she cuts until the bridge as the door slides for Apollo to flee and there she is.  In a moment of his wide eyes she executes the crew around him, then drops the pistols as he pulls his gunblade.

Met by her own, they each try their shots across the bridge, stations blowing, the view screen showing the fast approaching surface still far through the sparks and fire.  With a lock of their blades face to face, his father's skull to his face ~

 

Apollo - "I did not destroy your world, but I did come to pick its bones."

Arsinoe - Pulls off the helm and tears off her goggles, looks him in the eyes with a glimmer in hers and a smile, "I know you didn't destroy ... my world."

Outside the hull cracks in half under mining lasers with a thump throughout the ship, a veering gravitation felt inside as Mars too fast approaches on the screen.

~ on Nibiru Apollo's son's eyes go wide in realization.

 

A moment until realized, her smile grows wider with the horror in his eyes as he stumbles back in terror.  She giggles with a blade across the back of his knee and pushes him away before shooting out the other.

~ his son screams the pain.

 

In painful rage he tries to get up from fours until her knee on his spine.  The butt of her gun hard three times on the back of his head, she tosses it aside.  She pulls a combat knife and stabs into a shoulder, prying it out of socket left dangling then to the other, she reaches her forearm across his pronounced throat.

~ the eyes go wide on Nibiru as the psychic connection freezes him.

 

Her - To his ear, the rest of him twitching into shock, "On Gaia ... they called it an esophagus."  She pulls his head back to face the view-screen and compresses her forearm to choke him out.

~ the credits ~

View close on his face as she chokes him out as he struggles twitching hard into convulsions, the entry sparks in his broad eyes as land approaches too fast.  And after the struggling and kicks end the screen goes black with the dullness of his eyes at the end of the song.

~ just their voices ~

Subject - "So what about you Agent Geneva ?  What was your childhood like ?  I really can't imagine."

Not the current Agent Geneva - "Oh.  You know.  'Boring'."

Subject - "Please."

...

Geneva - "I grew up in a soda pop town."  A laugh.  "The town was built around the factory mainly for the workers very small.  And everyone who lived there, either worked in the soda factory, or somehow served ... or supported ... those who did."

Subject - "And you didn't want to."

Geneva - "No.  I did not.  

Subject - "So you ran away."

Geneva - "No.  I burned down the soda factory."

~ the sound of hard entry burn, cuts out sharp ~