by Ryan DeBruyn
All eyes tracked Rocky and Sela as they approached, and once they sat down, the group all moved in closer to the two of them. Zippo continued cooking but circled the stew pot to be able to more easily be included. Amber was the first to chime in, “I don’t think we ever thanked you,” she directed this statement at Rocky and Sela, “for saving us from that massive bear.”
The other A-Team members all nodded, except for Derik, who sneered and added in a quip, “Yeah, like he did it for altruistic reasons…”
Mr. Pips, who somehow was still a massively obese man even after the system changes, scolded, “Derik, we’re alive, and that means quite a bit more than whatever fictitious, underhanded ulterior motive you have cooked up.” Mr. Pips then smiled at Rocky and Sela, conveying that Derik was the only one who felt that way.
Bart, who they hadn’t seen earlier, was the spitting image of a Hell’s Angel biker. He had a bushy, white beard, and his long, white hair was tied back in a ponytail. He wore a leather jacket with a stylized picture of the Roman god Bacchus on the front. This was only clear because the letters Bacchus were spelled out on the back above the depiction. The persona and his obvious altruistic actions from earlier warred with each other and reminded Rocky never to judge a book by its cover.
With everyone but Derik’s seal of approval, Rocky began telling the story of what had occurred that morning, and he summarized their purchases in the shop. Derik’s scowl grew larger as he spoke, and his quick, angry glances at Smith weren’t missed by Sela.
Chapter Fourteen
Helion Resistance Headquarters – Deep Cave
Flowing, silver nanobots flew into the room like liquid metal and began piling up on top of each other to create a viewing monitor in front of Amelia Nanospark. “What in the Helion depths was the urgency?” she thought as she mentally commanded her nanobed to help her rise from her previous prone sleeping position to receive the message. A garment sailed through the air from her closet, and she stepped forward as more of her bots wrapped the garment around her pale nakedness. She was a Helion, which meant her appearance was of pure, white, alabaster skin; silver, orbed eyes; dark black, chitinous hair; clawed fingers; and sharp-pointed ears. While there weren’t many of her people remaining, they had always preferred the deep depth of their world, so being forced deeper by the invading guilds hadn’t been the primary cause of the genocide of her people.
No, her people had been slaughtered ruthlessly so the guild’s alliance could capture their first planet. Traditionally, one of the elder three planetary god’s military captured newly discovered planets and took them under their flag. While this wasn’t exactly a perfect situation for a new planet, it was still much preferred to the massacre that had occurred on Helion. It would seem that this was the third such endeavor orchestrated by the allied guilds, and they had learned their lessons from their previous two failures. In all other cases, the resident populace of the conquered planet had been left alive to join the guilds or been enslaved to serve them, but in both previous cases, that had led to their power being overthrown because of the massive support of the superpowered god planets. This time, her people didn’t have enough of a foothold to mount a serious rebellion. At least not yet…
This time, they hadn’t even tried to enslave or offer the populace of Helion anything. They had flown in with ships the likes of which Helion residents had only heard rumors of in shops and decimated ninety-five percent of the population. The only reason the genocide hadn’t been one hundred percent effective was her people’s lucky capture of the deep settlement that her rebels currently resided in. Waking up the next morning to the flames of a world that had barely had time to breathe had been a brutal truth Amelia and her remaining people could have done without.
Since then, they had scraped by using the boons of the Settlement, what her people called the Deep Cave, to survive. Organizing her people into hunters, seekers, builders, and deceivers, Amelia had desperately fought against extinction using her class of Nanospark to the best of her ability to help her people remain undetected as they leveled and planned a coup. Now those extremely powerful nanobots, came rushing back into the Deep Cave urgently.
The screen showed a flashing beacon on a deep space map. Amelia blinked, not seeing the significance of the blinking light or the need for such haste. Then she saw the solid red line that delineated an anomaly that had been a subject of vast study since her conception nearly four hundred years ago. The beacon was quite clearly on the wrong side of that line. She narrowed her eyes as she read the name of the beacon, “Starlight III.” She glanced over at the second blinking light, the beacon that she expected to see over on that side of the line. “Starlight DII.”
She shot forward out of her bedchambers and practically glided to the Deep Cave headquarters. Her nanobots disassembled their urgent screen message and flowed behind and under her feet, propelling her far faster over the stone floors than she could walk without their increased speed. She burst through the main doors to see a group of her people surrounding a single screen but looking up at its projected image on to the main monitor of the headquarters.
As she watched, more dots began to blip to life, starting off as faded, pale things before stabilizing into bright, blinking lights. Soon, near on five hundred dots were blinking at Amelia from the monitor in front of her. Her people slowly turned their wide eyes and open mouths in her direction.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for. This is our chance. My nanobots will have given us approximately two hours of advanced warning over even the most well designed Mechano-Lord beacons that were sent into the Etherless Void. Send them an order to stop the main systems of the research drones from coming to life for as long as they can! We need time to plan!”
Helion Prime – Guild Collective Castle – Alchemy Wing
Hectar stared at the multitude of tests that he had just run and shook his head, not sure if he should be excited or upset. His mood really depended on if someone was playing a trick on him or not. According to these tests, he had just found the most powerful Planetary Essence ever recorded. However, that in itself lent argument to someone playing a trick on him. Probably someone over in the Biology department. Those guys were a bunch of bottom feeders.
He picked up the results and began walking through the castle towards the guild head’s office. As he walked through the monitoring room, he overheard a conversation between two low-level members. “The battery on Starlight DII has been steadily climbing for the last few weeks. It’s now reading fifty percent, which is up from the four percent it had remaining. This is a really weird glitch.”
“You know that Garef told us that its systems are probably going haywire this close to Ether depletion. It will just blink out in a week, and we’ll launch the newest model in hopes of reaching the other side of the Etherless Void.”
Their conversation continued as he walked by and entered the elevator, the first one picking back up the conversation. “Yeah, Garef would know too. He helped build the last thirty that were launched. What are your thoughts on the zone?”
The doors hissed closed as he heard the second individual barely begin talking about theology. Must be a member of the Tenant guild with the level of excitement he mustered into his words. A brief pause later, the elevator began speeding upwards into the central tower of the highly advanced Technological Castle. As it ascended, Hectar considered if he was making a mistake bringing this to the leader. If he was wasting Dario’s time, his guild’s favor may fall, and that wouldn’t be ideal. Dario had just started his first five-year term as elected Guild Prime, which meant the worst-case scenario was he could piss in the waters for his guild for the next fifteen years. On the other hand–
The doors opened before he could finish his line of thought, and he walked carefully towards the Guild Prime office entryway. The AI secretary asked if he had an appointment, and he began to sweat profusely. Before he thought better of it, he used his guild clearance level to override the need. He was qui
ckly informed to enter the room and report his emergency findings.
He shuddered at what felt like a wave of cold water wash over him from head to toes. He swallowed hard and stood stock-still, trying to firm his resolve.
Unfortunately, to get a regularly scheduled meeting with the Guild Prime could take weeks. While it was not ideal to use his guild’s emergency code, which would be removed if the Prime deemed that it wasn’t an emergency, it was his only option. Hectar brushed his science robes down, swallowed a forming lump in his throat, and took a deep breath. This was a classic damned for and damned against situation.
If he didn’t report this and it turned out to be legitimate, he would be in trouble. If he reported it and it was a falsified finding, he would still be in trouble. But if it was a legitimate finding, he would be praised. He stopped brushing down his robes when he saw that he was leaving wet streaks from his sweaty palms.
Breathing out a mild curse, Hectar strode into the office of Dario’s, the ninety-fourth Guild Prime, office. As he entered, three other heads turned his direction, and he felt his step hitch for a moment. Dahrix, the head of the Mechano-Lords; Geb, the head of the Bio-cult; and lastly Tirahnya, the head of the mage’s guild were all present. He was in esteemed company, and he was only a Lieutenant-Captain in ‘Alchemy is the Basis of All’.
Trying not to faint, he fixed his eyes on Dario and studied the man who was currently reading something on his desk. The man had risen from the Martyr’s Chaos guild and had been their second in command before he took the high seat for his first term. Everyone gossiped he was a fair man and wasn’t quick to overreact. However, the robes of the Guild Prime didn’t seem to suit the wildness of the man.
The man radiated some sort of animal ferocity which spoke towards his prowess as a fighter. This was further evidenced by the robe’s tightness across his muscular chest, back, and arms. His dark black mohawk and full, wild beard added even more to the machismo of the man.
Dario looked up from his desk, and his vibrant purple eyes glowed in his gray skin. His lips pulled, flattening into a line, before he commanded, “You used your emergency beacon and have interrupted a meeting of some import. You have exactly two minutes to explain the situation!”
Not wanting to waste any time, Hectar began speaking at a fast clip, starting by handing the report to Dario. The three leaders attempted to catch a glimpse of the report as it passed by them but then went back to sitting quietly, waiting to see this particular piece of drama unfold. It had been millennia since someone had used an emergency beacon, and surely, a sheet didn’t warrant it!
Hectar finished his story about the Flow Ridians and their claims of having a great deal of this gas substance, and the room was in utter silence. The three leaders looked between Hectar and Dario. Dario looked up again with a brow cocked. “How many times did you run this test?”
“Ten times, Prime!” Hectar whispered, quickly hoping that he had made the right choice. The silence in the room deepened and added more worry to his mounting stress.
“What does it say, Dario?” Dahrix seemed to shout into the silence. Even though his voice was its normal pitch, everyone jumped at it. Dahrix had always had a fiery temper, which was strange since his entire body, besides his brain and perhaps a few other fleshy apertures, was mechanical and should have perfect chemical balance. As Dario blinked at the intrusion, Hectar examined Dahrix’s black, sleek metal, which had stress lines of perfect silver etched into the metal in a pattern that transfixed the gaze. His eyes were a blood-red and never blinked, making it clear that even though they may appear fleshy, they had long since been replaced with a mechanical counterpart. His face which was of the same dark metal seemed stuck in perpetual calm, despite his voice and tone.
Dario pointed to Hectar and nodded, asking him subtly to do the unveiling of the paper’s contents. Hectar swallowed hard and wiped his brow, the sound of the sweat striking the stone floor proceeded his awkward stutter, “The gasoline the Flow Ridians had… had contained a rather large amount of planetary essence… That planetary essence is by far the… the strongest concentration ever… tested on record.”
Tirahnya stood up in her white gown and pointed at Hectar, which made his world spin; then she exclaimed, “Youngling, the mage’s guild personally handed your guild a vial of Gelthisar’s planetary essence not one year ago!” She was a Mertill, which was a relatively short-lived race, at least compared to the other known races. On average, her scaly, fish-like race only lived to an average age of approximately one thousand years. Tirahnya was young then for her position. She was lithe and fit and had recently celebrated her hundredth birthday. Her strange habit of calling people young despite them being older than herself was frustrating, but no one could deny her magical prowess.
Hectar, who was older than her by at least a few centuries, felt his fear recede slightly at this realization. Confidence growing, he responded, “Yes, Guild Leader. The comparison between the two is on that page, and the newer sample is far more concentrated. Nearly doubly so.”
Geb, who was a blue-skinned Iranarian, stood up. His tall, skinny body loomed over the other two as he sucked his overly large, square teeth for a moment. The love between the biology and the alchemy guild was well known, and luckily, Dario forestalled whatever scathing response Geb had planned. Dario simply stated with a clinical air, “Please describe these Flow Ridians,” as he motioned to an open chair.
As Hectar got underway describing the multiple skin hues of the Flow Ridians he had seen and the striking similarities to the powerful human factions, the other three members in the room started to seethe. He felt his sweat glands begin producing buckets of the stuff as he literally saw the recognition and then thunderclouds rolling across their faces.
Rocky
“We could use them for everything from helping us build to defending the Territory if it was ever under attack! Not to mention our current predicament with the Irradiated Ether!” Sela clipped out, trying desperately to make her point again. “You can’t hate a race or group just because some of them have hurt you, Joaquim!” She finished pointing directly at Smith who was sitting, placidly nodding along with her points. Sela had a strange habit of using people’s full names, despite what others called them. In fact, she was one of the few who still called Zippo Jason and got away with it. Somehow, during the discussion, Smith had become the opposition to her vote of allowing the golems to stay, even though he was all for having them join as well.
He opened his mouth and replied, “I completely agree, Sela. However, as I claimed, the people will not like it. I personally went around to a random group of one hundred people and took a poll whether they would be comfortable with peaceful golems living among them. Seventy-five of them were strongly against it. I have no grudge with these golems and have barely seen more than three of them.” He took a long pause, then sighed. “I’m afraid that is different for the vast majority of the four thousand present in this Grotto, though.”
Before Sela could respond, Rocky stood and motioned her to sit down. She did so with a sigh. “I think the real issue here is that the only golems that any of us had seen before these five were considerably more violent…” He let that statement hang in the air because it was an obvious understatement. Then he continued, “I have been considering this issue since you first brought it up, Smith, and I think we can make a compromise. What if we were to let just one of them stay with us to begin acclimatizing our population to the idea?”
“What would the other four do, Rocky?” Zippo asked, curiously nodding with Rocky’s first point, then tilting his head in confusion.
Amber chimed in a quick, “They can go do whatever they want! If they want access to our Territory, they have to abide by our decisions.” In the intervening conversations, Rocky had noticed that Amber was a bit hot-headed and struggled to see the larger picture at times. If those five golems wanted to, they could eradicate everyone in this Grotto, so Rocky wasn’t going to be telling them to piss
off in such a manner.
Rocky shrugged and shook his head at Amber, then reminded her, “I have already told you all how strong they are.” Then he looked at Zippo to answer his question, “I was thinking of trying to convince them to go to nearby towns. If my car is still intact enough, I should have maps of Ontario in the glovebox. We could ask them to check towns for survivors in a direction away from the Chalk River. Maybe send some of our military and tanks with them?”
Smith nodded. “Would the Knights be willing to accept this compromise–"
Derik interrupted him, “Compromise! Stop trying to please everyone and just let them all in. No one is going to be able to hurt them, and we could use them for Tony the Tiger’s sake!” The clear vehemence in Derik’s voice made Rocky clench his teeth then recoil when the system adjusted his swear word. The system’s choice of word replacement made him hold back a smile, but Derik saw his laughter in his eyes and grew red in the face.
He shook his head as he realized that Derik hadn’t been present when everyone had discovered the system’s flagrant invasion of their minds. He considered telling him but then, with a quick shake of his head, chose to let him sound like a disgruntled Mormon child for a while. Rocky had sounded like one himself without knowing, and Derik deserved it, at least from his point of view.
Rocky raised his hands to Derik, not wanting to start a fight. “Sorry I’m smiling because I think that allowing all of them in is probably the best idea. I just don’t like agreeing with you!”
Derik wasn’t sure what to make of that statement and eyed Rocky sideways as they continued.
Chapter Fifteen
Despite trying to keep the filter a secret, Zippo had blurted it out to the A-Team during the continued discussions. Mostly because Derik kept trying to swear and was growing more and more agitated when people laughed at the system’s choice of replacement words.
