EXTINCTION WARRIOR

Chapter 23

The first set of stairs take us to the bridge. A tiny WEAPP officer takes pictures of the freak-a-droid's parts all over the floor. From every angle. Captain Bo and three officers stare at the lightscreens, reviewing the ship's log. Where it cruised, which ports it docked,its cargo, and when. They're so engrossed, they ignore us. We keep going. Tuk goes down backwards to catch me if I fall. I hop-limp slowly down each step, and grip the railing as we descend into a room filled with furniture.

"This looks like some sort of club." I mutter, scanning the room crowded with chairs and small tables. Leopard skin pillows adorn red velvet couches next to plump chairs in peacock blue.

"A club for criminals who kill endangereds." Tuk replies with his staccato, and walks stiffly to the other side of the room, to a glossy, black bar.

Zebra skins cover every inch of floor.

"I could use your shoulder." I ask, the stripes are making me lightheaded.

Tuk's behind the bar gazing at the mirrored shelves stacked with liquor bottles to the ceiling. He stomps his feet once and turns, expressionless. "Use my shoulder? You have your own shoulders. Why do you need mine?"

"To lean on! The stripes are like an optical illusion...I'm dizzy."

"That I can do." He replies, walks over and leans his shoulder into my stomach.

"Come stand next to me."I say, pulling his arm. "Just be normal." I ask, and instantly worry if I've said the wrong thing. He's taking everything literary."I need to steady myself. I'm going to hold onto your shoulder while you walk slowly. Got it?"

He nods, "Androids have feelings." He says again, like he doesn't think I believe him.

"Yes, Tuk, they do...you do." I nod, and for the first time, feel really sorry for him.

Leaning on his shoulder with my eyes half closed, I cross the dizzying stripes, hop-limping to the next set of stairs. We descend slowly into a dining room.

A massive, crystal chandelier hangs like a frozen waterfall above a long, rectangular table. Gold chairs sit shoulder to shoulder like soldiers, obeying the general – an enormous golden chair at the far end. It's massive, and shimmers with two dragons thrashing in unison. Their scales twinkle with gemstones. The serpents rise to face each other,their mouths open, the tips of their glittering tongues touch. Green stones glint from their eyes.

"I want to touch the dragons and their gems." Tuk says flatly. "Can you stand without my shoulder for a minute or two?"

He sounds like a little kid. "Sure...I can lean on the table, but why do you need to touch them, anyway?"

"To determine whether they are real."

How could I not know this about him? "Really? You can do that? With just your fingers?"I ask, amazed.

Tuk nods without blinking.

"Go ahead. Now, I'm curious."

He walks over to the chair, runs his hands slowly up one of the dragons, and circles the red, green and white twinkling gems with his index fingers.

Abruptly, my mindsight flashes on the old man from some earlier time, not long ago. He's relaxed, sitting on the velvet seat of his jewel-encrusted serpent throne, his hands resting on dragon spine armrests. He's eating,drinking, laughing with his leaders, Red Dragon captains from everywhere. White,black, brown and yellow men gather around the table from every part of the world. Arabs, Africans, Asians, Indians, Americans are thereto celebrate their success, to cheer the old Tuungak, demon of the endangereds. I shake my head to release the vision, and the feeling...and shudder at their complete indifference to the suffering, and devastation they perpetrate.

Tuk turns to report, "The dragons are 18 karat gold with genuine rubies, emeralds and diamonds."

"Ugh...guess I shouldn't be surprised. Let's keep going."

I grip Tuk's arm down the next set of stairs. We descend slower still, and enter a bedroom with walls of dark wood. Daylight cracks through the edge of heavy curtains.

"Pull the curtains open for more light, okay?" I ask.

"That is a simple task,and one I can easily perform." He replies, and opens the curtain as far as it can go.

"We are at sea level,next to the dock," he says, "and WEAPP has barricaded the waterfront."

"That's good." I reply, watching a procession of officers walk down the wooden gangway. They each carry a white mesh bag stuffed with a pangolin. WEAPP's blue ambulances and medi-trucks are waiting, lining the street behind the blockade. There's even a WEAPP helicopter further up the river bank, like a dragonfly at rest.

Tiger skins cover the floor here, and the bed is an impossible illusion. It hovers in mid-air?!

I can't believe what I'm seeing. "Do you think it's real?" The bed actually floats, like pack ice—two feet above the floor. With the curtain open, the whole thing casts a shadow.

Tuk sweeps his hand six inches above the bed, then squats and sweeps both hands six inches under it, like he's feeling the air.

He stands, and quickly walks to the furthest corner of the room. "It is real. The bed does float. My receptors detect a highly concentrated pressure harmful to my system, which I deduce are powerful opposing magnets that repel each other. This is what causes the bed to hover in place."

"The leopard skins are real too." I say. They cover the bed, their heads resting on the pillows. Their massive canines gleam from open mouths, forever frozen in a growl.

Tuk's next to two red chairs on the other side of the room. Lightheaded, I hop limp across.My leg cramps with every step, and plop into the chair next to a lap pool. Elephant tusk railings arc into steps into the water. In suffocated silence, a polar bear rug roars the horrors of climate change, and this horrible man.

Feels good to sit, but I'm nauseous. "I can't stay here...we have to keep going!"

Daylight dims to a lifeless gray down on the next level where the swooping stairway ends. We're in the kitchen. The windows are small, round and up near the ceiling. Pots and pans dangle from a rod overhead and in the back, there's a Dutch door. The top half is open.

"Water!" I exclaim,when I spy a square metal sink on the other side of a metal prep table. In a burst of energy, I hop over without Tuk's help. Turning the cold faucet full blast, I drench my head and gulp. Water! Fresh,cold, thirst quenching, water. I don't know how many minutes, I'm bent over gulping, slurping, letting it run down neck, and over my head. Cooled, and satisfied, I finally turn if off. Tuk trails me, as I grip the metal table and hop toward the split door in the back, my head slick and dripping down my neck.

Bending over the top, I squint in the darkness to another stairway. Industrial black metal steps go down. Steep. Nearly vertical. Even with red lights in the walls, it's dark as Wales at midnight in February. Tuk squeezes next to me for a view.

Expressionless with his monotone, he says, "This descends to the two lowest levels – the cargo and storage areas."

"Mig's down there. That means something else is there too. He wouldn't be there if there wasn't. We've got to go." I say, and open the bottom half.

The stairs are narrow.Railings on each side are close. Like a gymnast on parallel bars, I grip tightly, let my arms and upper body do the work, ease my legs and torso down, letting my eyes adjust to the crimson darkness.Halfway down I stop, and listen. There's a soft buzzing, like an insect. And a smell, a earthy pong, wet and green, like a rainforest. Then something moves below me.