Fic: Blake's 7, Security, part 1/2
I have writer's block again...haven't worked on my novel for ages, still not written an xmas exchange fic I signed up to do (deadline's not for a couple of weeks, fortunately!). In an effort to break the deadlock I spent a couple of hours this afternoon splurging out a fic that's been in my head for something over a year.
Fandom: Blake's 7
Type: Gen
Rating: PG-13 for a bit of gore
Spoilers: it's - er - sort of PGP, so spoilers for the whole series
Summary: Something is wrong with Avon.
The first shot caught him in the shoulder. He staggered, but carried on firing.
The second shot blasted through his left hip. He fell, landing hard, gun skittering out of his hand. Grunting with frustration, he began to pull himself towards it, leaving a trail of gore behind him.
The third and fourth shots hit somewhere around his torso. He felt the impact, but no real pain; as it became increasingly difficult to breathe, he assumed at least one of the hits had penetrated a lung. Still he crawled; looking up, meeting the eyes of the one he somehow knew would deliver the final shot, the one that would kill him, Avon changed direction, dragging himself forward with his good arm and kicking with his good leg, swimming through a sea of blood.
The fifth shot was, of course, to the head. A badly-aimed execution. Avon once more felt a painless, jolting impact. Almost exhilarating. His vision was beginning to grey out at the periphery, due to blood loss, not the headshot. He felt a curious sense of satisfaction that the final blow would not, after all, be the killing one. With difficulty he turned his head to observe his attackers through a haze of blood. What he saw pleased him. They were still, silent, staring at him - not in disgust or pity, but in fear. Fear of this impossible man, crawling across a floor with five different injuries, dead but refusing to lie down.
There were no further shots. Avon refocussed his attention on his goal. The slime of blood beneath him was helpful, reducing friction, making forward motion easier. He reached Blake's silent body, seized a handful of gore-sodden clothing to pull himself along, scaling Blake like a horizontal ladder. Eventually he arrived at the top and was able to stare into the dead, mangled face. What he saw there satisfied him. Ignoring the amazed - impressed? he hoped so - murmur from his soon-to-be killers, Avon shuffled back slightly, allowing his own body, which was almost entirely numb by now, to slide sideways until he was lying beside Blake's corpse.
If Blake had been lying on his side, as well, Avon would have been spooning with him. That made Avon chuckle, a peculiar, rasping sound - yes, that was definitely damage to his his left lung. Instead of spooning, he pressed his belly to Blake's hip and placed his hand over Blake's heart. For a moment, he watched their blood - Blake's drying to a crusty mauve, his own fresh and brightly red - mingle on the dead man's chest. Then he rested his head beside his own hand, painting his cheek with the crimson mess.
In that way, he died.
---
And then, he woke up again. His cheek was still damp, but now, he could hear and feel the strong and steady beat of a living heart.
Hm.
That was not something Avon had expected.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. His vision was a little blurred. His head ached slightly. His body still felt numb, but there was a distant, uncomfortable tingling in his limbs that suggested a return of normal bloodflow.
Hm.
"Avon." The corpse that was not a corpse was speaking to him; he could hear the words, and feel them, as well, rumbling against his cheek. There was another change: he was no longer horizontal. Neither he nor Blake were lying on the floor. With his vision beginning to clear, Avon could see not Blake's chin, but a grey wall. When he moved his head slightly, tilting backwards, he found himself looking up into Blake's face. His very definitely alive face, two eyes looking back down at him, narrowed beneath a furrowed brow. And he could see right up Blake's nose. That was amusing. He contemplated telling Blake this, but couldn't make his voice work; it rattled in his chest and emerged as a sort of crackling wheeze.
"Gently," Blake murmured, and the world shifted; Avon found that his head was no longer cradled against Blake's chest, he could no longer hear the strong, steady heartbeat. Immediately he placed his palm where his cheek had previously been. He had to extend his arm outwards to do this, because Blake was now in front of him, gripping his upper arms tightly, which was helpful in keeping Avon upright, so he said,
"Thank you," in a rusty voice he scarcely recognised as his own.
"Are you all right?" Blake had a certain manner he used in times of crises that was simultaneously soft and authoratitive; it was the voice one might use to speak to a child soldier, and its tone forbade any answer in the negative. Necessarily, therefore, Avon replied,
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"We are alive," said Avon, talking to himself rather than Blake, because Blake apparently saw nothing wrong with this picture. It was a ridiculous thing, an irrational thing, for a corpse to be asking a man who was bleeding to death whether he was all right. Someone who could behave like that could not be expected to provide a satisfactory answer to a reasonable question.
"Yes, we are." Was there a touch of amusement in that treacle-toffee voice?
"Don't patronise me," Avon snapped. "I have killed you, watched the others die, died myself, and we've both come back to life; I think you ought to treat with me some respect."
"What on Earth are you talking about?" Blake let go of Avon's arms. Avon managed not to fall backwards, not an easy feat.
Disgruntled, Avon looked away from Blake, studying the room in which he found himself. It was curiously familiar. A laboratory or engine room. Very familiar. And there was a sound, a sound that until now he had mistaken for blood pounding in his head - it was, in fact, feet pounding along the floor.
"Is he all right?" Another voice, highter pitched, a little frantic. "What's he done? Zen's gone dead, he's stopped working. You've broken it, haven't you? You've broken the computer." Speaking to Avon now. Avon focussed on the newcomer with difficulty.
"Oh," he said. "Vila. You're alive as well." Somehow, he was unsurprised.
"Not for long. You've broken the computer!" Vila repeated. "I knew you would. I told you. Messing about with the security system...you've gone and done it now, Avon."
When Avon failed to reply - his throat was oddly constricted - Vila turned back to Blake. "Is he all right? What happened?"
"I don't know." Blake, for his part, kept his gaze locked with Avon's. Avon stared back into the calculating eyes, watching the wheels turn behind them. "I found him lying on the floor, unconscious. He woke up almost immediately, but he seems...disoriented."
"He should not have been here alone," another new voice said. Avon turned his head slowly towards it; nothing could surprise him anymore. All his dead friends had come back to haunt him. Perhaps this was the final moment between life and death. Or an afterlife of some kind. If so it was not a very exciting one. The walls and floor were grey. Something twinkled on a table, however. A box in which lights flashed in a sequence that somehow managed to look insulting. Yet another old friend.
"He was not alone," said Orac, pompously.
"You were monitoring Zen, not Avon," Cally retorted. Avon watched her expression shift between concern and anger, to settle on frustration when her gaze returned to him. She repeated, softly, "you should not have been alone. You could have died. It was dangerous to use yourself as a test subject, Avon."
Although he had no idea what she was talking about, Avon found himself replying, "you're right. I should have used Vila - except he doesn't have a brain to test."
"Oi!" Vila objected - but he looked relieved, all the same. Relieved that Avon had not experimented on him? Or relieved that Avon's behaviour appeared to be returning to normal? Except that Avon had no idea where his own barbed response had come from.
"Something is wrong." Cally knelt in front of him, gently shooing Blake aside. Blake moved, but continued to watch, his eyes never leaving Avon's face.
"Yeah, Zen's broken!" Vila cut in, voice laced with panic. "How long before we lose life support? Avon, I'm sorry you're not feeling well, but you've got to get up and fix him!"
"I meant that something is wrong with Avon," Cally said. Avon smiled at her. He could always count on her to be pragmatic when required, despite her occasional mystical outpourings.
"Nothing is wrong with me," he said, evenly. "Something is very wrong with the rest of you."
"And what is that, Avon?" Her voice was soft and kind, soothing. She put a hand on his knee.
"You are all alive," Avon replied.
"What's he on about?" Vila blurted.
"Perhaps Vila survived," Avon mused. "I would not put it past him. "But you -" he pointed at Cally, "got yourself blown up, and you -" he looked at Blake - "were definitely stone cold dead. I can most certainly attest to that, given that it was I who blew several large holes in you. Vila keeps talking about Zen. He is dead, as well, if a computer can even be considered alive in the first place. And we are aboard the Liberator, which is also gone. Therefore, something is very wrong with all of you."
There was a long, deep silence. Blake broke it by speaking in an impressively calm and reasonable voice, for a zombie. "Avon - is it not more likely, statistically speaking, that all three of us," he pointed at Vila, Cally, and himself, "plus Jenna, Zen and the Liberator, are operating normally, while you yourself are impaired?"
"Very rational, for a dead man."
"I am very obviously not dead. I think what happened is -"
"That thing's scrambled his brains!" Vila pointed dramatically at Orac. "Now unscramble them so he can fix Zen, or we really will all be dead!"
"If I may be permitted to comment..." Orac began, irritably.
"You were testing your upgrade to the security system..." Blake went on, speaking across the machine.
"A very unsafe thing to do," Cally interjected, shaking her head.
"We're all going to suffocate!" Vila again.
"If you would all allow me..."
"Something obviously went wrong, the simulation was out of your control..."
"You should have let one of us remain with you..."
"Is anybody listening to me!? This is urgent! Life or death!"
"Please," murmured Avon, becoming desperate, and thinking that perhaps they might be inclined to listen to him if he asked nicely, "please, stop shouting."
"Whatever you've been experiencing, Avon, it wasn't real. For the last half an hour..."
"All by yourself in the laboratory..."
"If you would be silent for a moment, I could explain to you..."
"Jenna! Jenna, this is Vila. Avon's gone mental or something, he's not up to fixing anything. Any sign from Zen?"
"Shut up," murmured Avon. They ignored him, so he tried again, louder. Then louder still. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!."
They were all staring at him, now, and that was when Avon realised he had been screaming.
Silence followed. Blessed, merciful silence. For a moment. Then Jenna's voice came filtering in, presumably from the flight deck.
"Vila? Jenna. Nothing from Zen. What's wrong with Avon?"
"That is what I have been trying to tell you," Orac's testy voice cut in once more.
Cally, still kneeling in front of Avon, took his hand between hers.
"My head hurts," he told her. "I wish everyone would be quiet. I watched you die," he said, raising his voice to address the entire room, and Jenna if she was listening. "I watched you all die. Except you, Jenna. I don't know what happened to you. Tarrant, Dayna, Soolin - they are dead too, I suppose. But they are not here, and you are. I suppose you are going to tell me I invented them. Imagined your deaths - and my own."
"Nobody is dead, Avon. The evidence of your own eyes tells you that. You had some sort of vision -"
"Hardly a vision," Orac snorted. "A highly complex, fully immersive, multi-sensory hallucination, projected directly into the brain. The content evolves from the individual subject's own memories and imagination. You did not witness your own death, and the deaths of your friends, Avon. The events you experienced were of your own making. I merely projected them. You orchestrated them."
Avon regarded the flashing box of lights for a moment, then turned to look silently up at Blake, who was eyeing him in return, his face concerned.
"Avon?" he said, his voice gently firm again, in that way of his that brooked no arguments, "how do you feel?"
"Don't you know?" Avon hissed back, and when Blake merely stared at him, uncomprehending,
"I didn't like the responsibility, either."
Posting in a hurry so I'm sure I've made some mistakes, so apologies in advance. I wanted an online copy of this before I accidentally deleted it, or something. I might take it down and edit it (and write the second half) before posting it to any comms :)
Fandom: Blake's 7
Type: Gen
Rating: PG-13 for a bit of gore
Spoilers: it's - er - sort of PGP, so spoilers for the whole series
Summary: Something is wrong with Avon.
The first shot caught him in the shoulder. He staggered, but carried on firing.
The second shot blasted through his left hip. He fell, landing hard, gun skittering out of his hand. Grunting with frustration, he began to pull himself towards it, leaving a trail of gore behind him.
The third and fourth shots hit somewhere around his torso. He felt the impact, but no real pain; as it became increasingly difficult to breathe, he assumed at least one of the hits had penetrated a lung. Still he crawled; looking up, meeting the eyes of the one he somehow knew would deliver the final shot, the one that would kill him, Avon changed direction, dragging himself forward with his good arm and kicking with his good leg, swimming through a sea of blood.
The fifth shot was, of course, to the head. A badly-aimed execution. Avon once more felt a painless, jolting impact. Almost exhilarating. His vision was beginning to grey out at the periphery, due to blood loss, not the headshot. He felt a curious sense of satisfaction that the final blow would not, after all, be the killing one. With difficulty he turned his head to observe his attackers through a haze of blood. What he saw pleased him. They were still, silent, staring at him - not in disgust or pity, but in fear. Fear of this impossible man, crawling across a floor with five different injuries, dead but refusing to lie down.
There were no further shots. Avon refocussed his attention on his goal. The slime of blood beneath him was helpful, reducing friction, making forward motion easier. He reached Blake's silent body, seized a handful of gore-sodden clothing to pull himself along, scaling Blake like a horizontal ladder. Eventually he arrived at the top and was able to stare into the dead, mangled face. What he saw there satisfied him. Ignoring the amazed - impressed? he hoped so - murmur from his soon-to-be killers, Avon shuffled back slightly, allowing his own body, which was almost entirely numb by now, to slide sideways until he was lying beside Blake's corpse.
If Blake had been lying on his side, as well, Avon would have been spooning with him. That made Avon chuckle, a peculiar, rasping sound - yes, that was definitely damage to his his left lung. Instead of spooning, he pressed his belly to Blake's hip and placed his hand over Blake's heart. For a moment, he watched their blood - Blake's drying to a crusty mauve, his own fresh and brightly red - mingle on the dead man's chest. Then he rested his head beside his own hand, painting his cheek with the crimson mess.
In that way, he died.
---
And then, he woke up again. His cheek was still damp, but now, he could hear and feel the strong and steady beat of a living heart.
Hm.
That was not something Avon had expected.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. His vision was a little blurred. His head ached slightly. His body still felt numb, but there was a distant, uncomfortable tingling in his limbs that suggested a return of normal bloodflow.
Hm.
"Avon." The corpse that was not a corpse was speaking to him; he could hear the words, and feel them, as well, rumbling against his cheek. There was another change: he was no longer horizontal. Neither he nor Blake were lying on the floor. With his vision beginning to clear, Avon could see not Blake's chin, but a grey wall. When he moved his head slightly, tilting backwards, he found himself looking up into Blake's face. His very definitely alive face, two eyes looking back down at him, narrowed beneath a furrowed brow. And he could see right up Blake's nose. That was amusing. He contemplated telling Blake this, but couldn't make his voice work; it rattled in his chest and emerged as a sort of crackling wheeze.
"Gently," Blake murmured, and the world shifted; Avon found that his head was no longer cradled against Blake's chest, he could no longer hear the strong, steady heartbeat. Immediately he placed his palm where his cheek had previously been. He had to extend his arm outwards to do this, because Blake was now in front of him, gripping his upper arms tightly, which was helpful in keeping Avon upright, so he said,
"Thank you," in a rusty voice he scarcely recognised as his own.
"Are you all right?" Blake had a certain manner he used in times of crises that was simultaneously soft and authoratitive; it was the voice one might use to speak to a child soldier, and its tone forbade any answer in the negative. Necessarily, therefore, Avon replied,
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"We are alive," said Avon, talking to himself rather than Blake, because Blake apparently saw nothing wrong with this picture. It was a ridiculous thing, an irrational thing, for a corpse to be asking a man who was bleeding to death whether he was all right. Someone who could behave like that could not be expected to provide a satisfactory answer to a reasonable question.
"Yes, we are." Was there a touch of amusement in that treacle-toffee voice?
"Don't patronise me," Avon snapped. "I have killed you, watched the others die, died myself, and we've both come back to life; I think you ought to treat with me some respect."
"What on Earth are you talking about?" Blake let go of Avon's arms. Avon managed not to fall backwards, not an easy feat.
Disgruntled, Avon looked away from Blake, studying the room in which he found himself. It was curiously familiar. A laboratory or engine room. Very familiar. And there was a sound, a sound that until now he had mistaken for blood pounding in his head - it was, in fact, feet pounding along the floor.
"Is he all right?" Another voice, highter pitched, a little frantic. "What's he done? Zen's gone dead, he's stopped working. You've broken it, haven't you? You've broken the computer." Speaking to Avon now. Avon focussed on the newcomer with difficulty.
"Oh," he said. "Vila. You're alive as well." Somehow, he was unsurprised.
"Not for long. You've broken the computer!" Vila repeated. "I knew you would. I told you. Messing about with the security system...you've gone and done it now, Avon."
When Avon failed to reply - his throat was oddly constricted - Vila turned back to Blake. "Is he all right? What happened?"
"I don't know." Blake, for his part, kept his gaze locked with Avon's. Avon stared back into the calculating eyes, watching the wheels turn behind them. "I found him lying on the floor, unconscious. He woke up almost immediately, but he seems...disoriented."
"He should not have been here alone," another new voice said. Avon turned his head slowly towards it; nothing could surprise him anymore. All his dead friends had come back to haunt him. Perhaps this was the final moment between life and death. Or an afterlife of some kind. If so it was not a very exciting one. The walls and floor were grey. Something twinkled on a table, however. A box in which lights flashed in a sequence that somehow managed to look insulting. Yet another old friend.
"He was not alone," said Orac, pompously.
"You were monitoring Zen, not Avon," Cally retorted. Avon watched her expression shift between concern and anger, to settle on frustration when her gaze returned to him. She repeated, softly, "you should not have been alone. You could have died. It was dangerous to use yourself as a test subject, Avon."
Although he had no idea what she was talking about, Avon found himself replying, "you're right. I should have used Vila - except he doesn't have a brain to test."
"Oi!" Vila objected - but he looked relieved, all the same. Relieved that Avon had not experimented on him? Or relieved that Avon's behaviour appeared to be returning to normal? Except that Avon had no idea where his own barbed response had come from.
"Something is wrong." Cally knelt in front of him, gently shooing Blake aside. Blake moved, but continued to watch, his eyes never leaving Avon's face.
"Yeah, Zen's broken!" Vila cut in, voice laced with panic. "How long before we lose life support? Avon, I'm sorry you're not feeling well, but you've got to get up and fix him!"
"I meant that something is wrong with Avon," Cally said. Avon smiled at her. He could always count on her to be pragmatic when required, despite her occasional mystical outpourings.
"Nothing is wrong with me," he said, evenly. "Something is very wrong with the rest of you."
"And what is that, Avon?" Her voice was soft and kind, soothing. She put a hand on his knee.
"You are all alive," Avon replied.
"What's he on about?" Vila blurted.
"Perhaps Vila survived," Avon mused. "I would not put it past him. "But you -" he pointed at Cally, "got yourself blown up, and you -" he looked at Blake - "were definitely stone cold dead. I can most certainly attest to that, given that it was I who blew several large holes in you. Vila keeps talking about Zen. He is dead, as well, if a computer can even be considered alive in the first place. And we are aboard the Liberator, which is also gone. Therefore, something is very wrong with all of you."
There was a long, deep silence. Blake broke it by speaking in an impressively calm and reasonable voice, for a zombie. "Avon - is it not more likely, statistically speaking, that all three of us," he pointed at Vila, Cally, and himself, "plus Jenna, Zen and the Liberator, are operating normally, while you yourself are impaired?"
"Very rational, for a dead man."
"I am very obviously not dead. I think what happened is -"
"That thing's scrambled his brains!" Vila pointed dramatically at Orac. "Now unscramble them so he can fix Zen, or we really will all be dead!"
"If I may be permitted to comment..." Orac began, irritably.
"You were testing your upgrade to the security system..." Blake went on, speaking across the machine.
"A very unsafe thing to do," Cally interjected, shaking her head.
"We're all going to suffocate!" Vila again.
"If you would all allow me..."
"Something obviously went wrong, the simulation was out of your control..."
"You should have let one of us remain with you..."
"Is anybody listening to me!? This is urgent! Life or death!"
"Please," murmured Avon, becoming desperate, and thinking that perhaps they might be inclined to listen to him if he asked nicely, "please, stop shouting."
"Whatever you've been experiencing, Avon, it wasn't real. For the last half an hour..."
"All by yourself in the laboratory..."
"If you would be silent for a moment, I could explain to you..."
"Jenna! Jenna, this is Vila. Avon's gone mental or something, he's not up to fixing anything. Any sign from Zen?"
"Shut up," murmured Avon. They ignored him, so he tried again, louder. Then louder still. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!."
They were all staring at him, now, and that was when Avon realised he had been screaming.
Silence followed. Blessed, merciful silence. For a moment. Then Jenna's voice came filtering in, presumably from the flight deck.
"Vila? Jenna. Nothing from Zen. What's wrong with Avon?"
"That is what I have been trying to tell you," Orac's testy voice cut in once more.
Cally, still kneeling in front of Avon, took his hand between hers.
"My head hurts," he told her. "I wish everyone would be quiet. I watched you die," he said, raising his voice to address the entire room, and Jenna if she was listening. "I watched you all die. Except you, Jenna. I don't know what happened to you. Tarrant, Dayna, Soolin - they are dead too, I suppose. But they are not here, and you are. I suppose you are going to tell me I invented them. Imagined your deaths - and my own."
"Nobody is dead, Avon. The evidence of your own eyes tells you that. You had some sort of vision -"
"Hardly a vision," Orac snorted. "A highly complex, fully immersive, multi-sensory hallucination, projected directly into the brain. The content evolves from the individual subject's own memories and imagination. You did not witness your own death, and the deaths of your friends, Avon. The events you experienced were of your own making. I merely projected them. You orchestrated them."
Avon regarded the flashing box of lights for a moment, then turned to look silently up at Blake, who was eyeing him in return, his face concerned.
"Avon?" he said, his voice gently firm again, in that way of his that brooked no arguments, "how do you feel?"
"Don't you know?" Avon hissed back, and when Blake merely stared at him, uncomprehending,
"I didn't like the responsibility, either."
Posting in a hurry so I'm sure I've made some mistakes, so apologies in advance. I wanted an online copy of this before I accidentally deleted it, or something. I might take it down and edit it (and write the second half) before posting it to any comms :)