by Hodden, TE
“Why?” Harris whispered.
“Because it will kill a good many people,” Phoebe said. “And because he does not believe I should be back. That once people die, we should bring them back.” She sighed a little. “He is a good kid, but he… believed the rhetoric of the Yeoman without question. He believes the…propaganda. It will stop him making the necessary choice.” She took something from her pocket. A syringe full of a yellow liquid with spores floating in it. “If you want to see me again, you just need to join the network. When that happens, I’ here. It’s a one-way decision. Once made, it can’t be undone. I know you don’t want it now, but… if things happen as I said, if the others won’t do what is necessary, this is how you reach us.”
“Excuse me,” Harris said, tautly, “if I don’t believe your friend is well intentioned, when he just sent a goon squad to chase down an innocent girl.”
Phoebe laughed. “He’s got to protect his cover. Do you have any idea how deep Allistaire’s roots go into the underworld? Relax, he knows Osprey is watching her. He’s running the same plan we used in Lyon. Understand? She has the contacts to get out of here, if you can keep her alive long enough.”
“That’s it?” Harris asked. “I’m free to go?”
Phoebe grinned, the way only she could. “We aren’t your enemy.”
Harris lowered the crossbow, and stepped past her, to the door. “Phoebe would know this was wrong.”
01000
The suit closed around Barney, sealing his head in a helmet, and configuring one arm to a shield, the other to Gravity Gun.
The armoured henchmen opened fire, and a rain of bullets sparked against the shield. They marched forwards, stepping past Magic, who ducked back around the corner for cover.
Barney fired back. A cone of gravity rippled down the tunnel, bowling the henchmen off their feet, and sending them tumbling back out of the tunnel.
Flintlock grabbed his wrist. “This way!”
They ran through the tunnels, taking a series of rapid turns. Harper dug some keys from his pocket, and they rounded a corner into a dead end.
“Cover him!” Flintlock snapped. She clicked her fingers and one of her tattoos removed itself from her skin, becoming a crystalline liquid, that slithered down her arm, forming into long barrelled duelling pistol, that fired a rapid salvo of laser bolts at the thugs.
Barney pressed himself to the end of the tunnel, and reconfigured his armour, to fold away the shield, and swap the gravity gun for a sonic shotgun.
Harris tapped into his Link. “Barney?”
Harper lifted away a section of the wall, to reveal a gate behind it.
“Harris!” He grinned. “Where were you? I’m with Flintlock. We’re under attack and¬”
“Hornets?” Harris asked. “They’re working for Misrule.”
The first two of the Hornets closed in. Barney opened fire, and slammed them to the wall in a daze.
The second ducked into cover, and fired back, their bullets chewing at the corner wall.
“We know!” Barney took carefull aim, and popped a shot at Hornet, catching their helmet and knocking them out.
“Can you get to the maintenance vehicle bay?” Harris demanded.
Barney looked over his shoulder. “Can we get to a maintenance bay?”
Flintlock and Harper shared a look.
Flintlock sighed. “We’ll meet him at water processing.”
“Water processing,” Barney said. “They have another way off.” Something clicked inside his head. “I mean… she would do, wouldn’t she?”
Behind the gate was a narrow shaft and a ladder. The rock and concrete within were covered with frost.
Flintlock shoved him towards the ladder. “We don’t know what’s at the bottom, so if it’s nasty men with guns, better if they meet you first, eh?”
*
After several minutes of crawling through the old service tunnels and airways of the mine, they crawled out of a vent, into the engine room of the water processing plant. The room was surprisingly clean, the towering machinery freshly painted, and the vast, airy, floor crisply lit by sterilising lights.
There were two Hornets unconscious on the floor.
Harris dropped from the shadows. “We need to keep moving.”
Harper nodded, and took his keys from his pocket again. This time he unlocked the controls for pressure shutters over a disused tunnel. They ducked inside, and closed the shutters behind them.
“This way,” Flintlock said, marching off. The concrete walls and bulkhead lights quickly gave way to natural rock, slick with water, echoes, and darkness.
The suit compensated for the dark, and constantly flashed warnings. The tunnels grew colder and darker.
There was a crack of sunlight hanging in the air. A slither of a meadow, in a pleasant spring afternoon.
Barney stared at it. “Is that…?”
“A schism-way,” Harper said. “It’s how we… do our job.”
Harris nodded. “Well, we needed a way out of here, but…”
“Don’t worry,” Flintlock said. “There are a few ways back to this world. Some of them in more convenient spots, where fewer people want to kill us!”
“Sounds good to me,” Harris said with a chuckle.
Barney cracked his neck, and stepped through the crack, into another world.
The meadow stood under an alien sky. A gentle breeze rippled the grass and wildflowers, that rolled on over the hills, as far as he could see. The fracture in the air was one of twelve schism-ways that floated above the top of the grass.
Barney steadied himself as he dropped to the ground.
Something shifted in the grass. Something leathery and prickly, with long, slender, powerful limbs, talon claws, and a serpentine tail, and a skull-like face.
The ghoul hissed, as it pounced.
Barney flexed his thoughts, and formed a sonic-shotgun on his forearm. The creature bowled him to the ground, and snapped its jaws, the teeth gouging the suit’s armour plates.
Barney crashed into the long grass, and landed with a thud. He blasted the creature with the sonic-shotgun, and it scuttled away, with a banshee shriek.
The others followed him through the rift.
“What was that?” Barney demanded.
“A ghoul,” Harper said, helping him up. The blue skinned man smiled at Barney. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah…” Barney dusted off his armour. “Are we going to see many of those?”
Harper nodded. “Where we are going? Yeah. Loads.”
Harris sighed. “Wonderful.”
Flintlock pointed to another of the schisms. “This one leads to a dead world. There are a few ghouls, but we have transport there. A few hours across that world, and we will find a portal to Toronto. From there, you will have to make your own way.”
Harper nodded. “Toronto? I can get us transport from there.”
“Us?” Harper asked.
Harris nodded. “You will be safe in New York. I promise.”
Barney nodded. “We have friends. They will look out for you.”
“Right,” Flintlock said, stretching the word out. “Sure.”
Harper raised an eyebrow. “He’s telling the truth.”
Flintlock rolled her eyes, and stepped through the next rift.
Harper gestured to Barney. “After you.”
“And…” Barney stared at the rift. “You said there were more of those things?”
Harper nodded. “Yep.”
“Outstanding,” Barney growled, as he stepped through to a different world.
This one was covered in snow. On one horizon were the ruins of a city, shredded and burnt by war, left to moulder for countless years. In the other direction were distant mountains, covered in a forest of willowy, top heavy, pine trees.
Around the schism-way was a campsite, with neatly stacked supply crates, and something bulky under camouflage netting. Barney scanned around, but the suit couldn’t see any signs of ghouls
lurking close by. There were tracks, but they were several hours old.
“Help me, will you?” Flintlock asked.
Barney nodded, and folded away the shotgun. He helped her drag the netting from a bulky, beetle shaped troop-transport, with the all-terrain tracks. “Wow.” He grinned. “I love this! Where did you get it?”
Harper stepped over and leant on the truck. “I have ways and means.”
Harper’s smile was bright and easy. Barney found himself smiling back, without being sure why.
“Are we ready?” Harris growled.
Flintlock nodded, and pulled open the doors. “Let’s do this,”
*
The troop-transport thundered over the snowy tundra.
Barney sat in the back, watching the countryside through a letter-box window. They were being followed by creatures that were equal parts vulture and bat. “Another damn world.” He looked around. “No wonder the Dweeb can be so…weird?”
“I guess.” Harris was staring intently at a glass phial.
Barney leant over. “What is that?”
“The fungi that Misrule is using,” Harris said. “They said something about… a Network.”
Harper looked up. “Network? Interesting choice of words…”
Harris glared at the blue man. “What does it do?”
Harper thought for a moment. “When it grows in a host, it takes root, in the brain and the nervous systems. The roots make new connections, like… upgrading the processor core of a computer. For humans it taps into the psychic centres most people have, but can’t access. It lets them connect to magic, and to the psychic, but it also tunes them in to other infected. Depending on what you do next, it could be a powerful tool freeing society, or a terrible weapon to enslave them.”
Flintlock groaned. “Before you ask, I thought… I thought I was giving the right people the first one. Now… I’m scared I gave the wrong people the latter.”
Harris nodded. “What about the dead? Could it…”
Harper pursed his lips. “In theory. If the network was powerful enough, if you could reach the Sleeping Dead in their dreams, they could exist in the network, but it would be a really, really, bad idea.”
Flintlock slammed on the brakes, and the transport slewed to a halt.
She hopped to her feet, and loomed over Harris. “Has it happened?”
Harris looked at her. “Why?”
Flintlock went rigid. “Is that why you are asking? Because it happened?”
Harris stared at her. “Why is it such a bad idea?”
“The dead don’t belong in the world of the living,” Flintlock said. “There is a reason why haunted houses feel cold, and unwelcoming. The presence of a soul that no longer belongs is corrupting. It makes reality decay around it. The longer it hangs around, the more damage it leaves in its wake, and the more souls can find their way out of their dreams and into our world.”
Harris cocked his head. “So… we could bring others back? Until we bring everybody back?”
Harper shuddered. “The world would become unstable, and unravel. It would fall apart.”
Flintlock gritted her teeth. “It would become Hell.”
Barney cleared his throat. “That’s why we are stopping it. Right?”
Flintlock and Harper shared another look.
“Okay,” Harper said. “You really want to do this?”
“Do what?” Harris asked.
“We’re in,” Flintlock said. “We don’t want the world to die.”
01001
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Melisa asked, cautiously.
Padmaja tied her dressing gown closed over her pyjamas, and rose, shakily, from the hospital bed. She nodded, and hobbled over to the wheelchair, dragging the nanite drip with her. “I have to.”
They were in the infirmary of the Honour Guard’s Pelham Headquarters, where Padmaja had been resting, under the watchful eye of medical scanners, as Padmaja’s nanites had sped along the healing of her internal injuries.
Melisa had been torn between the purest relief her family friend was alive, and the sickening horror of seeing Padmaja so close to death, again. Memories of her parents, and the crash, stained her thoughts with grief and sadness.
At the back of her mind, Charlie’s presence was there, offering her his support. She gently nudged it away, locking her thoughts down, and steeling herself.
“Okay,” Melisa said, making herself smile. “I guess that means we both have to endure this.”
Padmaja made one last adjustment to her scarf, and nodded. “I guess so.”
Melisa wheeled the chair out of the infirmary, and through the HQ to the grand hallway. They got there just as the elevator doors opened. Harris marched out, with a face etched to an even deeper, darker, scowl than usual. He was followed by a man and woman, both breathtakingly beautiful. She was lilac grey, bald, with blue tattoos in Celtic tribal patterns. He was blue, with white hair, and lilac tattoos. Barney followed, and offered to fetch coffees, as Harris took the others to the conference room.
Barney stopped at the kitchen door, and looked back. The blue guy was still watching him. It was hard to tell if Barney, or the other guy smiled first, but neither wanted to look away. Their auras prickled and sparked, with the first flickers of a connection.
“Don’t pry,” Padmaja whispered, with a smile.
“I’m not!” Melisa scoffed. “I’m wondering if I am going to need to teach those two to shield themselves better!”
Padmaja laughed. “Come on. Before all the best seats are taken.”
Melisa pushed them into the conference room, and positioned Padmaja near the head of the table. Matthew was stood at the head, his arms folded across his chest, as he, and Catherine spoke to Captain Lionheart, who looked like he was struggling to contain the miasma of pain and stubborn disbelief that surrounded him.
Angel was sat at the table, opposite the blue and grey couple, her fascination spilling out from behind her veil. The blue guy leant over to talk to Angel, while the grey woman stared at Charlie, with darkness in her eye, and hatred burning in soul.
Charlie’s emotions were armoured over. He was toying with his screen on the table. Knowing him, he was still brooding and fussing over Wormwood’s escape.
Harris loomed over the far end of the table.
Barney waltzed in with some cups of coffee, handing them out to Harris and the newcomers. He and the blue guy had another, lingering look, with a little more of a spark.
Summers walked in last, and closed the door behind her. She gave Melisa a quick look, and pecked her cheek. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Melisa admitted. “I’m okay.”
Catherine looked up. She and Summers shared a rosy, familiar smile, as Summers walked over to join the others at the head of the table.
Matthew raised his voice. “I think we are all here, now.”
A tense hush fell over the room, as everybody took their seats. Captain Lionheart’s doubts wallowed around him.
Matthew tapped open the main displays on the wall. They showed the lunar facility venting energy into the eternal night. “The Paradox facility on the Moon was attacked. The attackers gained access to the Quantum Cascade Generators and overloaded them. This energy release was a beacon, that we believe the Legion will have heard.”
Charlie looked up from his screen. “Legion already knew we were here. How does this change that?”
Angel breathed her veil. “He sent a limited probe before, a vessel that could breach out of fold-space through an unstable, exploratory gate, and survive. Larger ships would risk being torn apart by the sheer currents. Now he has the signal pattern needed to open a stable gate within your system. There will be no limit to the number, or size, of vessels he could send here.”
Matthew nodded. “The… message… that told Earth how to make me, contained the formula, to help us develop a means of escape. Unfortunately, the materials needed to operate the technology are rare within our solar sy
stem, and we have no way of reaching those stars.”
Barney cocked his head. “How long do we have?”
“Hours at best,” Angel said. “Days at most.”
Barney looked at his watch. “My suit learned to shield against that white ray of his. I’m guessing he will have adapted. That attack won’t work again, will it?”
“No,” Catherine said. “And the Legion will not send a single avatar. It will attempt to overwhelm us. Worse, our own Government will believe they can deal with it. They won’t.”
Lionheart slammed his palms on the table. “You keep saying that! But I have yet to see any evidence for it, other than taking Paradox’s word for it. I know Luther Allistaire. He is a good man, and a good commander. He never wanted to be President!” He caught his temper. “I mean no disrespect, ma’am, but I have fought clones, shape shifters, and psychics, my whole life. There are dozens of explanations we can’t overlook.”
Harris cleared his throat. “Misrule knew they were in league.”
Everybody looked at him.
Charlie froze. “You saw…”
“I heard a voice,” Harris said. “I saw a metal ball, and the illusion of my wife.”
“See!” Lionheart exclaimed.
Harris stared at Charlie. “Misrule knew what was coming, before I did. He claims to be working against it. He has a plan. I get the feeling he will hold back and see if we have a better plan first, but if he has to…” He pointed at Charlie. “San Francisco. The rift to the elemental plane that Wormwood was trying to open. Could that kill the Legion?”
The grey woman gasped. “No! They can’t!”
Charlie looked aghast. “That is not an option. We can’t let them try.”
Melisa leant over the table. “Is that what they want Wormwood for?”
Harris gestured at Melisa. “Sit down.” He looked at Charlie. “Kid. I need to know what we are dealing with here. Tell me what they think they can do, and why it is a bad idea.”
Charlie stared back at Harris. “During the Schism War, the war between realities, there was a weapon called the Extinction Stone. It burned the life from cities, from worlds, and left them dead and corrupted. It was a genie from a bottle. When it was unleashed, it killed anything with a soul in the radius, and burned their minds away. It left entire worlds… not just dead, but…”
