Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 08:05:17 +0000 (GMT)
From: Writer Milos <writer_milos@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Thor - Chapter 4

thor.
An epic by Milos
Part 1: Resonant Disc
===========

This is my attempt at crafting a post-apocyliptic world and incorporating
homoerotic elements. I can't say much that hasn't already been said in the
way of warnings, but if you are offended by gay themes, or love between
boys and men, please don't read further. If these themes are illegal in
your area, please don't read further. If you would like to drop me a
critique, please feel free to send an email to writer_milos@yahoo.co.uk.
This work is completely, and very obviously, fiction. Take the rest with a
grain of salt.

--Milos

** Note - Sorry for the Icelandic not showing right in part 3. I will make
sure to use standard English characters from now on. :\

(Written exclusively for the Nifty Archives)
===========

Chapter 4

There is an unsettling beeping as the AirSkiff drops altitude. Flying the
craft is a gent named Benjamin - a fifteen year veteran of this war. His
circumstances are similar to mine, at least what I can tell from the ten
minutes I've been talking to him. He drops down and levels out somewhere
around 2700 meters.

I am sitting copilot, but I don't even know how to fly. All a skiff needs
is a pilot to make sure nothing happens or to maneuver when someone attacks
- the rest is computer aided. There are dials and buttons projected to the
back of a glass panel - the altimeter is a series of lines sorted in a
circle, with an inner set of lines in the same fashion that rotate with
thrust.

"M-326-B to Berlin Tower, permission to drop to 500 meters at a heading of
zero two niner." He looks over at me, "Want to see what's left of
Versailles after the second campaign?"

I nod sheepishly, "Okaaay."

"Calm down, mate. There's some drink in the boot if ya wan' et."

The radio crackles, "Berlin Tower to AirSkiff M-326, message acknowledged,
please stand by for confirmation."

"M-326 to Berlin Tower, standing by for confirmation." He winks at me,
"Grab the pear shine."

One thing about being close to Belgium, it's easy to get ahold of pears for
some reason. I don't know if I want this guy drinking.

"Berlin Tower to Airskiff M-326, heading is free of air trafic. Drop to
five zero zero at a heading of zero two niner."

"Airskiff M-326 to Berlin Tower, dropping to five zero zero and turning
right at zero two niner. Checking out the scenery, over."

We come up over some bare hills - in the distance I can see the ruins of
Versailles - cold stone in piles. Twisted metal, mechanical parts from cars
that look more like an aircraft crash. A shell of a building in the
distance still has a few towels hanging from a balcony rail - tattered like
the rest of the city.

"Nice, eh?"

I take a shot from the bottle and choke. "I guess."

I hand it over, and he takes a swig. "I remember seeing the city in
flames. Whole thing went tits up tut-suite. M-326-B to Berlin Tower,
returning to 5000 meters for final approach to Berlin Sect."

"Berlin Tower to Airskiff M-326, return to five zero zero zero for approach
to Berlin Spire. Transfer to Berlin Land Pad on four one eight."

He throws back another shot, "Airskiff M-326 to Berlin Tower, switching
over to four one eight. Cheers!" He grabs a dial and starts taking vectors
for the landing pad. Off in the distance I can see the familiar shape of
yet another stratospheric city. There is a large, cable-like tether with
seven stacked and spinning disks on it. The top-most disk is plagued with
antennae and lights. There are five landing pads in a circle - two of them
have AirSkiffs on them, and on the one farthest away from us as a large
silver zeppelin which is refueling the counter intelligence deck.

"Your new home for a bit?"

I shake my head sullenly. Madger assigned me to a decoding and surveillance
mission over part of the asian colonies. This will be one of the first
times I get full access to all information coming in. It's exhausting
work. The zeppelins keep their portal windows closed during the night. Four
hours of sleep a night - the rest of the time is compute compute
compute. "Two bloody fuckin' weeks."

===========

The worst part about being on an atmospheric observation vessel is the
constant headaches from the poor seals around the hatches. Its hard enough
to get anything done on half a night of sleep. Over the two weeks the team
found out that a small outcropping of the asian colonies aligned with North
Packistan, while the rest of them remained with Kashmir, the north-western
chunk of India that broke off. Three separate enemies and one questionable
ally among a whole slew of clout. Everyone hates everyone. It's hard for
any factional war country to get any sort of foot-hold, as alliances are
solely for resources.

We got names of field agents, locations of camps and caches, the usual...

I get to back to home base and take the long elevator ride to the bottom
disk. Madger will probably want to debrief me - in more ways than one. I
think about my bed and sigh contentedly. I just want to wrap up and sleep
for three days, but the four hours before the common nine-to-five arena
will suffice.

I walk the hallway to the outer loop, and foot it for the half kilometer it
takes to get from the central hub to my domicile. I could probably wait and
hitch a ride with the early morning kitchen staff, but it's hard to say
when the next one will be making a run to the commissary. After a slow ten
minute stroll, I run my thumb over the sensor on my door, and the latch
clacks open with a loud reverberant clang. I push the handle in and walk
through the door into a room that is almost unfamiliar.

Clothing is scattered all over the floor, candy wrappers on my workstation,
and a lump in my bed. There is a cot on the floor that is in several
sections and has yet to be assembled. "What in the name of holy fucking
God-" I wonder out loud. The unsightly lump on the bed stirs.

Knowing full well what I am about to find, I rip the duvet off the
bed. Thor doesn't even wake up. He is in nothing but his skids, one sock on
his foot hanging half way off. He is laying on the bed, as kids do, with
his face mashed into the pillow, his arms down as they would be at his
sides, and his arse in the air propped up on his knees.

I flick the side of his ass cheek, which causes him to flinch and fall
over. The hammock over-turns, knocking him off the bed, and landing him on
the metal floor with a hard thud. He starts whining.

"What's this, then? How long ye been hiding out in here?"

He gets to his feet, rubbing his head with confusion. He stares at me with
a brooding fix.

"You've trashed the place - congratulations." I am pissed. I grab him by
his ear, "What the bloody fuck you doin' in here?" When I was little, my
mum used to tell me that my anger brought out the Scottish in me.

"They move me to here," he cried.

"Who?"

"The Madger did."

"God damn it!" I let go of his ear.

===========

"You did what?" I blink at sea.

"You said I should do something about it," Madger clasps his hands behind
his back, "and I did. He's your ward, now."

"Permission to speak freely, sir, but what the holy fuck? I'm no father or
guardian or any of that shite. I read maps and debunk codes. I can hardly
keep after meself."

There is a long sigh, and a quiet pause. "The kid can hardly keep out of
trouble - circumstantial or not, he always seems to find his way to
you. Why not take him under your wing, as they used to say. The kid watched
his dad die, why not show him some of your world-class compassion."

"FUCK my compassion!"

"Then look at it like this; I need the space for new transients, and you
have the room to host a low class spectre."

"A spectre? A bloody fucking spectre? He's a bit young, don't you fink?"

"Transients need to maintain their keep eventually. He seems suited."

"What level?"

"Some things are privy, even to you." He sits down at his desk, "I have
some things to attend to."

I grit my teeth, "What will be his classification level?"

"This conversation is over."

I walk the long pathway to my domicile, I enter and punch the iron wall. A
plethora of shock liquifies my nerve endings as I cry out in pain. Stupid
decision. The plosive nature of the sound startles Thor, who is either
writing or doodling in a sketch pad. A tear runs down my eye as I look into
his from across the room. I wonder if he could even begin to understand
what's going on. I'd rather have none of it, but now I'm stuck.

===========

Somewhere in the night, he moves from his cot to mine. He gets under my
covers, shivering, and sinks into me with warmth. He wraps his legs around
me and buries his face into the space between my arm and my side.

I wish I could understand him.

===========

I am running a few queries on my workstation as things start to wind down
on a translational decoder that was picked up under the Atlantic Digital
Pipeline. Things are not going to my favour on this particular set, but I
am hoping that someone has the rest of it under control.

My screen flashes orange. Someone is trying to reach me.

"Irryn, please report to Medical," commands a womanly voice.

I furrow my eyebrows at the inconvenience.

I head out the door and up the hall, and report to the medical
desk. Someone directs me to room six. As I walk toward it, I can see Thor
sitting outside the hatch, and a field doctor scrying something into a pane
of glass. Thor sees me coming and looks at his feet. Madger is standing
next to the doctor with his arms crossed.

Madger looks over at me, "Irryn, We have a small issue."

I look down at Thor, "What would that be?"

"Our young friend here won't let us examine him for his health panel," the
Doctor chimes in, "If we go anywhere near him he screams and calls out for
you. I figured it would be less traumatic and a bit easier if you helped us
out."

Thor looks up at me and turns red, a look of desperation in his eyes.

"Kiddo, you don't need me. It's just a routine physical."

He shakes his head.

I sigh, "Come, then. Let's get this done with." I grab him by the wrist and
follow the doctor into the exam room, Madger on my heels. There is a
counter with all sorts of medical instruments, and a table with
stirrups. Paper roll covers the faux leather.

"Can you get him to disrobe?"

I lift Thor onto the table. "Alright. Off with it."

Again, he stares blankly and blinks at me. I reach for the sides of his
shirt and start to lift, but he blocks with his arms and growls
angrily. "Nei!"

I lean near him and talk softly into his ear, "Ja. Take them off," I say
abrasively. I try to soften up and level with him, "I'll be right
here. They need to make sure you aren't sick."

He hesitates and removes his shirt, then stops. I tug at his pants,
indicating he needs to take them off. He sighs and struggles with the
snap. I unbutton it for him, and I help him take his pants and socks off at
the same time. He brings his shoulders up to his ears and collapses in on
himself, looking around in his self-sordid humility. He almost looks as if
he is going to cry.

"That's fine," the doctor says. He moves across the room and places a small
metallic ring on his chest. "Breathe in and out," he demonstrates the deep
breath. A series of small lights on the biscuit sized chunk of silver blink
on and off. He moves the stethopram over, "and again."

Thor breathes in and out heavily.

The doctor moves it to the left. "And again." He runs a small battery of
standard external tests, the whole time Thor is squeezing my hand. He does
not like this foreign contact. "Can you get him to lay back and take off
his skids?"

Thor's head snaps up at me, his eyes squinting.

"Lay back, mate. It sucks a bit, but it's quick." I put a hand on his chest
and push him back lightly to get him to lay down. He gets the idea. I walk
around to the end of the table where his feet are, and put my fingers in
the straps to his skids, and nod at him. He grabs at the side in a panic,
trying to keep me from pulling them off. I return him a chiding glance, and
whisk them off. Hastily, he covers his bits with his hands. I grab him by
the ankles, pull him down on the bed a bit, and prop his legs in the
stirrups. He looks more confused than anything, and tries to keep his knees
together.

The doctor adjusts the stirrups so they are a bit wider apart, and straps
his knees to the leg rests. Still covering himself, he looks at me like he
is asking for help.

I put my hands over his, and take hold of them. "Shhh, shhh - it's OK." I
can understand his anxiety. Madger has been fixed on Thor for the entire
exam. I can't even imagine why he needs to be here for this, but alas, I am
not completely naive. I know exactly where this will all be going. I cage
my contempt for Madger, even though his generosity has benefitted my very
nature.

Thor is spread eagle on the table. I stand at the head of the bed, holding
his hands while he rests his head on the back of mine. His eyes dart
around.

The doctor rolls his chair at the other end of the table, and Madger moves
himself against the wall behind him. As gently as he can, the doctor takes
Thor's testicles in his hands and feels them. Thor pulls against my hands
and cringes at the sudden contact. "Cough."

Thor looks up at me. I do a fake cough, and nod at him. He looks down at
the doctor and tries to cough several times, with much nervous effort.

The doctor takes his penis between his fingers and examines it. He tries to
retract the foreskin. "Minor Phimosis." He tries to pull the bottom of the
foreskin down a bit with his finger, to see how tight it is. "Not too
bad. I will dilate that in a bit."

I cringe at the thought.

The doctor turns to his tray and puts on a pair of latex gloves. "Hold his
arms, please." He opens the cap on an innocuous white bottle, and pours a
small amount of viscid clear fluid onto his fingers, rubbing it around to
coat his thin digits. Placing the bottle aside, he rubs Thor's anus and
places one hand flat on his hip.

Thor yelps as the doctor slips his finger in. He pulls against my grip as I
try to shush him.

The doctor feels around with the finger toward the spine, then rotates his
hand over and hooks his finger upward, causing Thor to thrust his pelvis
violently upward, breathing heavily. The doctor rubs for several moments
while Thor screams out through a clenched jaw.

My heart sinks a bit, and I remember being strapped to this very table -
the dehumanizing feeling of someone invading one of the few internal
sanctities I once held sacred. It wasn't long after it that Madger found
other ways to explore my inner sanctities, but I was twelve then. Thor is
four months and a day from eight.

The internal pressure and Thor's full bladder cause him to release. He
pisses all over himself and the unsuspecting doctor. Quickly the doctor
backs away, and Thor's hips fall to the table while he breathes with
athletic fervour. Madger stifles a laugh.

"Oops," the doctor shrugs, "my fault." He grabs from a stack of clean, blue
hand-towels, drops one on the floor over a small puddle, and cleans what he
can off Thor's torso with his free hand. He throws the used towel in a
hamper, and pulls off his exploratory glove to be discarded in a biohazard
bin.

Then, the doctor grabs a set of small forceps from a metal tray on the
counter. Thor turns pale as the doctor holds them up into the air, and
passes out when he uses his free hand to grasp his penis.

===========

I watch Thor sleeping on my bed, still out from the stress of his exam. He
is only wearing a shirt, and is naked from the waist down to keep anything
from rubbing up against him. The doctor stretched out his foreskin so he
could pull it back, and if he didn't do it now, he would have problems when
he grew up. For the next few weeks, I'm the one who has to apply the creams
and make sure everything is working.

I find myself wondering what draws this kid to me. Why did he have to come
through my air vent?

Dutifully, I return to my work and try to find the answers of some obscure
thing, but now Thor has left an impression on the back of my mind. Now I
have to be responsible, and I don't know if I can live up to it. I don't
know if I can keep him away from Madger's twisted intentions.