Chapter 80: Chapter 80

Ka and Ke Brian’s neck felt solid beneath their tightening hands. They thought about the morals of killing your enemy before he killed you, but there was a part of them that revered life enough to not wish to take it away. Not a large part though.

Maya was asking Brian about Ellie, but they all knew she was gone. Brian raised his right hand to indicate he wanted to speak, and therefore not choke, so the Ka’s released their grip somewhat.

“I...know...where...she...is...” he gasped, his eyes bulging out of his head.

“Where?” she demanded, knowing she was totally unsure of what to do next, or how to progress. Somehow, she didn’t think that hostage retrieval had been on the syllabus at the Royal School of Music. A touch of uncertainty was showing in her voice.

“On a planet, I can take you there,” he continued to gasp, and struggle against the Ka’s continued hold of his neck. The Ka’s were still getting used to moving their hands as one, any slip would result in their popping out of their unity.

“So what exactly did you see happen at the cells?” she asked, a very dangerous lilt trickling into her tone of voice.

“William took her, made it look like she’d just vanished,” Brian spluttered as more pressure appeared on his throat.

“Nothing else?” she asked. “Was the portaloo smashed when she was taken, or was it already like that?”

“Oh yes, she put up quite a struggle...” his words imploded along with his trachea as he spoke the lie that Maya had lured him into.

“They’re waking up, if he hurt Ellie and Viskra, they will wake up!” Syrhahn’s voice made all of them jump, causing Maya to lose her hold on Brian for a brief moment. Brian would have got away had it not been for the Ka’s hands around his throat.

Unfortunately for Brian, his attempt to drop through a portal had a somewhat negative effect on his well-being, as he hung himself on the Ka’s hands. They felt his neck break beneath their skin on the palms of their hands as they dropped slightly with his weight.

With two bodies as one, their atoms were twice as dense as a normal person, giving them superhuman strength. They continued to hold him there for Maya to maintain the lock, lest he engulf to hospital world.

The pulse in his carotid artery slowed and weakened before stopping entirely, at which point the Ka’s let go and stepped to the side. All they thought as they stared at his lifeless body was that they were glad they didn’t have to wear his blood. Then they wondered if they had become monsters in the process of trying to save the multiverse, ultimately settling on it just being shock.

They then realised there was noise all around them. They looked up from the corpse to see a hysterical Maya, Syrhahn holding April, comforting her, and Xhisara looking down at the corpse and sighing audibly.

“He hung himself on our hands,” the Ka’s murmured in disbelief, defending their actions, or lack thereof.

“How are we going to find Ellie now?” Maya’s eyes were streaming again, and for some unknown reason, that irritated the Ka’s.

“We’ve still got Steve in the cargo bay,” Xhisara attempted to pacify her.

“You said the Ka’s tracked her to a destroyed cell. Please describe it to me,” Syrhahn asked Maya.

A split second later they were all at the ruined cell block. Xhisara disappeared, reappearing with Brian’s body next to her. The Ka’s guessed she had some use for it.

“Look at this, this is the work of the anti-matter ray, that is not what William had. Those people in the battlefield were coming back from the dead, despite having been hit by Steve’s weapon, they still had bodies,” Syrhahn explained to Maya, to them all. “This, someone has blasted out, neutralised, anti-matter. The stone is gone, annihilated.”

“I don’t understand!” cried Maya, shaking her head. The Ka’s felt a pang of guilt for being irritated with her crying.

“The anti-matter ray removes what it touches from existence,” clarified Syrhahn. “If it touched a body, it would disappear, or at least the part of it the ray touched would, like this wall. The people Steve was shooting were not disappearing, thus they were not being hit with the anti-matter ray. They have now come back to life, so chances are, so has your friend and my son. Take me to Steve, and let me do the talking. I want that too,” Syrhahn kicked the dead body that the Ka’s hands had taken the life from.