Note to readers: “2200 Blues” is a novel in progress, and each chapter is an early draft in its unfolding journey. Your thoughts and reactions are invaluable, guiding its evolution and refinement. 2200 Blues © 2024 by G.R. Nanda. All rights reserved.
Nickel was tossed aside in the tumult of the fight. Tipped over alongside the cot he was tied to, the noise of the frenzied battle took over around him, partly muffled by the surface of the cot sticking up on one side in the air.
The Death Riders screamed into battle with Rishi. Their cries turned desperate and flailing. A storm of swords clanged against unseen surfaces. The whirling of rock and earth tossed into the air rained down like crumbling sand, gushing from above.
Nickel groaned, trying to free himself from his bonds. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to bring the calm he had found with the Oracle before. Instead, he found little to distract him from the stabbing unease and fear percolating in his chest. He grunted in exasperation, opening his eyes again.
When he did, he jerked his head to the side, writhing. The blindfold slid an inch off his face, slipping upward. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted an appendage sticking out of a frame embedded into the earth.
He was certainly far from home—the Thraíha. He would have to reckon later with the fact that he now thought of the Thraíha as home.
“Find him!” roared the voice of the Death Rider in charge.
Nickel froze, lying limp against the ground, letting his head fall slack.
“The Rishi is here somewhere!” the voice shrieked. “Get up!”
Angry footsteps sounded amidst the tossing and turning of the Death Riders, rattling their chains against each other and the ground. Nickel started squirming again, writhing on the ground and butting his head through the dirt to reach the metal appendage sticking up in the air.
“Now! Or I’ll feed you to the Motherboard! Keep swinging your spikes—he’ll reappear into them!”
Nickel inched forward desperately, dragging his head against the ground and shimmying his legs across the earth. The blindfold loosened from his head as he moved. The squirming surrendered to the earth as a welt of cuts on his cheek started to sting with warmth. Nickel winced.
A string of screams pierced the air, and a series of toppling Death Riders fell to the ground. Shouts of alarm followed, and Nickel decided to keep moving amidst the chaos. He could now see better, the blindfold only covering the top half of his left eye, with the cloth skewed to the side, covering a little more than half of his right eye. The warmth of his right cheek grew hotter, so he tipped his head to the left, scraping the left side of his temple against the ground instead of his cheek.
He made it to the metal hook protruding from the ground and bucked his head over it, hovering slightly, his nose just above the hook. He attempted to position the edge of his blindfold over the hook so it would catch under the cloth and over his skin, removing the blindfold entirely.
His head shivered over the hook, shuddering violently with effort. It took the stomping of the Death Riders nearing him for him to gradually, but swiftly, lower his head so the hook could enter the narrow space between the bridge of his nose and the cloth of the blindfold.
A loud burst of force erupted from the earth, sending rubble crashing to the ground and more Death Riders screaming.
The edge of the hook drew a sharp gash over the skin of Nickel’s nose, causing him to wince even more, squeezing his eyes shut. The tumult became a muffled cacophony around him, and Nickel tried lifting his head back to avoid the sharp edge of the hook, only causing the blindfold to tug at his face, wedging the hook slightly forward. Nickel immediately stopped moving, not wanting to drive the hook deeper into his skin.
“Hey!” barked a Death Rider. “It looks like the cub’s loose!”
A series of sharp footsteps sounded against the earth, closing in on Nickel. His heart seemed to stop and leap out of his chest at the same time.
“Get him! How’d he get out?” the voice snarled as the footsteps drew nearer. “He’s raw meat. Gnash him—”
“With a spike?” asked another Death Rider.
“Yes!” barked the first. “Don’t let him on his feet—we’re already at the Motherboard. As long as they see him, it doesn’t matter if he’s dead or alive.”
Nickel immediately drove his head down, letting the edge of the hook cut into his forehead, but the blindfold slipped off completely. The fiery world of grotesque, skeletal metal structures arose around him as his vision cleared.
Gasping, he tried standing, remembering that his hands and feet were tied. He rolled over, bending his body and shifting his legs back to scoot them nearer to the hook. He lifted his feet together into the air, over the hook, and pushed them far to the sides. He grunted and brought his feet down, only chafing the rope binding them slightly. The nail was just in between the rope and in the middle of his two feet. He was now bound, not only to the rope tied around his feet, but also to the hook sticking out of the ground.
The Death Riders stomping their way to Nickel roared with venom now that he was more in their field of vision. Their torsos were visible over the tipped-over cot, marching together toward Nickel. Nickel reached his feet, pushing them against the rope. He shook his feet back and forth, driving the binding rope against the edge of the metal hook. He dug his heels into the ground, rocking his feet back and forth, withering the fibers and strands of the rope away.
The Death Riders stormed around the cot toward Nickel. Nickel’s limbs moved before his mind did, his legs striking out against the earth. He slid his left foot across the ground, driving his soles over and through the gravel. He spasmed, trying to get his body off the ground, rolling over and onto his side.
He started up as the first Death Rider lunged for him, tripping over the hook as Nickel struggled to remove his feet from the bindings of the rope. His sudden rolling over and the Death Rider’s momentum caused the attacker to fall over himself, landing where Nickel had been lying. He reached for Nickel’s feet, shifting his weight as he fell forward.
The heel of Nickel’s left foot grazed his chest as Nickel staggered away, holding his bound hands out behind him. The Death Rider let out a high-pitched wailing scream, interrupting Nickel’s escape. Turning around, he saw the Death Rider writhing, face-down on the ground. In trying to reach for Nickel’s feet, he had impaled his arm on the hook, most of which was buried in the flesh of his arm.
Three other Death Riders ran past their fallen comrade, running after Nickel. Nickel whirled around, running through the arrays of metal workings splayed out on the ground in front of him. Strange glowing objects were embedded into the structure of the metal. Nickel barely paid them any mind as he ran past them, weaving through the open ports laid into the labyrinthine structure hulking around him.
“Come back here!” roared a Death Rider, his voice moving in and out of the noise of the tumult.
Nickel kept running, nearly tripping over the protrusions sticking out of the labyrinthine metal structure. The noises of the Death Riders fighting Rishi and the few chasing Nickel rose and fell like waves crashing onto a shore, roaring onto the sands and dissolving, retreating before surging into another crashing wave.
Nickel ran and ran, knowing the Death Riders behind him were in close pursuit, gradually closing the distance between them. Nickel could imagine running forever, constantly on the move, running as far as he could and disappearing from everywhere else and everyone else in these canyons. To disappear completely into the depths of Atalanta, never to be seen again.
The Thraíha had taught him enough. He could hunt on his own, maybe make a bow and spear out of the woodlands their hunters traveled to but which had always remained unseen to Nickel—places he had never ventured to.
He had gotten himself into the hellhole of Atalanta by letting his hovercraft drift aimlessly through the atmosphere while he mindlessly consumed endless entertainment on the Eagle’s screens. Now he was here, having undergone immense stress, learned a better way of seeing things from a foreign culture, only to find himself running away from the most terrifying experience of his life. If only he could remove the rope bindings chafing at his wrists and leave the Death Riders behind.
A loud jangling of chains jolted him out of the muffled blur of tumultuous fighting. Nickel winced, anticipating the strike of the spiked ball as he jolted to the side, staggering as he whirled around, just in time to see the weapon hurtling toward his shoulder.
He spun away in a scattered smattering of footsteps, dodging the strike and slithering out of its path. Nickel had become more nimble and athletic since living with the Thraíha and training in their ways, but he didn’t know if his training would be enough to out-run the marauding Death Rider in front of him. The attacker turned to face Nickel, lurching to his feet and dragging his weapon away.
The weapon clanged against the arm of the metal structure it struck instead of Nickel’s shoulder. The Death Rider yanked at his weapon, grunting and lurching backward.
As he continued to pull at it with both arms this time, heaving even harder to dislodge the spiked metal ball, his back was now fully turned to Nickel. Nickel spun away, running from him, moving back in the direction he had come from but angling to find a better vantage point, away from the fighting Death Riders and especially from those chasing after him.
He spotted the rest of the pursuing Death Riders coming from his far right, staring and moving, confused, toward the Death Rider still trying to pull his weapon free from the metal structure.
Nickel darted into a narrow recess that climbed upward. He was soon followed by the footsteps of the Death Riders searching for their comrade. Nickel whirled around, finding that two of the Death Riders were pursuing him while two stayed behind to help their comrade free his weapon.
G.R. Nanda 