icarus abides - episode 1, part 1
[ read episode 0 here ]
as promised, here's the first part of episode 1, aka chapter 2. this was written way back in december before i got the idea to draw parts of it, so that's why there's not much art to go with the words.
anyway! brief recap before we begin: this is how we left porsche last time
(wet and screaming)
--
Porsche clamps his mouth shut and slaps a hand over, just to be safe. His scream echoes.
The beam of light moves slowly towards him, searching. Porsche makes a tiny, scared sound in the back of his throat and kicks his feet on reflex, floating back a few inches before the goop stops his momentum. The light moves right past him, tortuously slow – then circles back, just as slow, missing him again by a scant few inches.
And again.
And again.
It’s like it’s toying with him.
The voice from above laughs. “I can see you, you know.”
Porsche finally looks up. Has half a mind to give this guy the finger, but he’s a sitting duck down there and the guy could just as easily shoot him dead as shine the light in his face – which is exactly what he does, the asshole.
“Hey, what the hell!” Porsche yells, turning his head away from the flashlight’s glare. The threat of bodily harm is one thing, but this is just plain mean.
“Sorry,” the guy says, not sounding in the least bit sorry. “Are you done waddling around in there? Do you want to come up?”
“Dick,” Porsche mutters, blinking the spots from his vision. Then, louder: “Sure. If you could point me to the exit, that’d be swell.”
No answer for a few moments. The guy seems to be contemplating his next move. The beam of light shifts abruptly away, growing dim with the distance until it’s indistinguishable from the diffuse light in the chamber.
I swear, Porsche thinks, if he’s gonna try to make me beg for it, I’m gonna–
Who’s he kidding? He’s going to beg. As he stands right now, there’s not much else he can do. He’s done stewing in this vat of freezing-cold slime; he’d rather take his chances with whatever awaits him up there, on solid ground. And judging from the sound of it – or the lack thereof – there’s just the one guy. Porsche is pretty confident he can take on one guy in a fight if it comes to that.
Unless he’s a very soft-spoken Luxan. With Porsche’s luck, that’s probably exactly who’s observing him from up there.
But that’s a problem for future-Porsche. Present-Porsche has enough to deal with already.
“The closest wall is to your left,” the guy says at length, and shines the light in that direction. “It’s a steep climb but not impossible.”
Porsche squints in the distance. It’s difficult to tell with the stupid fog swirling in the air, but it looks like there is something there. Something massive and possibly wall-like. It’s worth a shot.
“Better get to it,” the guy quips. “Before your clothes melt off.”
Porsche scoffs, but the guy’s got a point. His jumpsuit is already starting to come apart at the seams. By the time he gets to the wall, Porsche will be lucky to still have his underwear in one piece.
So he grits his teeth and gets to it. Starts swimming. With the promise of freedom at his fingertips – and an audience watching from above and probably judging his freestyle by the sound of quiet laughter coming from up there – Porsche puts his back into it.
It doesn’t go any better than his first attempt did. Barely twenty strokes later, Porsche is out of breath and has advanced maybe half a foot.
This is going to take forever. Just end him now.
“You know you can float, genius,” Asshole-with-the-flashlight says. “There’s less resistance on the surface.”
Porsche lets out an inarticulate sound of rage. “You could’ve said that sooner, you jackass!”
Jackass just hums.
Oh, that’s it. That is it! He’s going to deck this asshole in the face, Luxan or not, as soon as gets up there. And then he’s going to knee him in the groin too, just for good measure.
Cursing viciously under his breath, Porsche maneuvers himself onto his back and starts paddling.
Infuriatingly, it works. In just two kicks he’s covered more distance than in both his previous attempts combined. Before he knows it, he’s reached one of the walls of his enclosure. He slows his approach to avoid giving himself a concussion on top of everything else and grabs hold of one of the bits that are sticking out of the wall, steadying himself.
He looks up.
There are a bunch of protrusions in the wall, unevenly sized and even more unevenly spaced, but they’re not so far apart that he can’t use them as hand- or footholds. He grabs the closest one and hoists himself up and out of the pool.
It’s a difficult climb. Even at his best, Porsche would have a hard time getting to the top, and he’s definitely not at his best at the moment. He’s cold, he’s exhausted, he’s got cloth-eating slime in unmentionable places and he’s pretty sure his whole ass is hanging out, tighty-whities and all. But he’s also spitting fucking mad and he’s got someone to punch the living daylights out of, and that’s enough to make him push through the exhaustion and redouble his efforts.
He reaches the top.
He pulls himself up on the ledge with arms that feel like wet noodles and just kneels there for a moment, gasping like a dying fish.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Porsche snaps his head up, glaring at Flashlight Guy. “I’m going to punch you. So. Hard.”
The guy – and he is just a guy, shorter and slimmer than Porsche – gives him an indulgent smile. “As soon as you get feeling back in your arms, I’m sure. I’ll wait.”
Forget punching his lights out – Porsche wants to roundhouse kick him straight into the goop. See how well he does trying to climb a steep wall with freezing-cold slime up his asscrack. The guy doesn’t look like much of a fighter – he’s half a head shorter than Porsche, and skinnier to boot, practically drowning in his stupid orange jumpsuit. His pants are cuffed, for crying out loud! Porsche isn’t going to sit there and take shit from a guy with cuffed pants.
He gets his legs under him and pushes himself up. His knees wobble and his whole body aches, but he’s up on his feet on steady ground. Whatever happens next, he’s as prepared as he’ll ever be.
The guy gives him a long look – the kind of head-to-toe assessment Porsche has been on the receiving end of most of his life and always made him feel like he’s lower than dirt – and that smug smile stretches wider. Before the guy can open his mouth and no doubt say something disparaging about Porsche’s sorry state, there’s the distinct crackle of a comm link activating and a woman’s voice, calling out.
“Hey, boss? We have a situation.”
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