It was the first thing they did, when the organic mechanic made his way through the pass. Stuffing the lifeless and still warm body of his { FAVORITE } wife into the doctor's arms, Joe roared at him with enough ferocity to shake the mountains that stood around them-- silent witnesses to the heartbreak. "My baby, get my baby out of her now!"
& so he did. With precision and technique, the man cut the woman open before her cooling body could become her child's COFFIN. "Cryin' shame. One more month...woulda been a viable human bein'." You had a brother, Rictus. A little baby brother...and he was perfect in every way.
They wrapped his warm and bloody corpse in a rag and set him out of the way as Joe continued his pursuit of his other wives-- just out of sight, but not out of the aggrieved man's mind. Nor was he out of his brother's mind, not for one single second. I had a baby brother, a little baby brother...and he was perfect in every way.
And when no one was looking, when he thought that he could get away with it, the brute of a man-child picked up the small bundle to look at his brother. He was so small in his hands, too small. It made him sad. It made him cry. "You were going to be my baby brother...I was goin' to show you how to play fun games. I was going to love you."
Squeezing the infant to his chest, Rictus nearly missed it. It hadn't registered that the child was still warm-- not to his subdued mind. But what he couldn't miss was the shuddering gasp of breath and the small fussing sounds that began the moment he let up. Pulling the baby back from the tight hug, his eyes were wide as the moon above them. "Da'....Da' the baby..."
It didn't make any sense. Didn't make any god damn sense. But to the war boys who witnessed it, it was a miracle-- SON OF THE IMMORTAN, AWOKEN FROM THE DEAD. A perfect son of Immortan Joe-- A son who would NOT SUBMIT TO DEATH.
