Tuners

by Aaron Frale

  They all filed out of the room after giving Magdalena the priest’s robes. Jon wanted to save all the others, but there was nothing they could do at the moment. They needed to get Ludie back, so he could figure out how to disconnect them safely. Maybe if they had time, he would swing back with the boy genius and see what he thought. If he couldn’t do it now, Jon made a silent vow to himself that he would be back here, and he would save Hailey’s sister and anyone else who didn’t belong in this place.

  31

  They wove their way through the castle once more and then eventually into some tunnels. Magdalena took a few wrong turns, and they had to backtrack on more than one occasion. Since they were decked out in priest robes, they were left alone. Magdalena’s were of a higher rank, so even the priests they encountered didn’t question them. Jon attempted to sink his face as far back in the hood as he possibly could, and the others did the same.

  Around the time that Jon was about to ask if Magdalena really knew where she was going, she pointed to a doorway with two guards. Jon was beginning to pick up on the culture of the cultists and walked towards the guards with a purpose.

  “Step aside, or I will flay you alive,” Jon barked, and the two guards lowered two fierce-looking halberds.

  Jon nudged Magdalena, and she picked up on the ruse. “You will obey my acolyte, or I will bring fire and brimstone upon your head!”

  “Mistress of Flame,” the first guard said. “I have orders from the High Priest of the Flame himself. No one is to enter this room.”

  “You dare defy me!” Magdalena roared. Jon was surprised by how good she was at this. For the meek girl they had saved, she seemed to be getting some of her confidence back. “The High Priest has given me orders! By defying me, you defy him.”

  “I beg your pardon, Mistress,” the guard gulped. “But could you show us the Scar of the Will of the Flame?”

  Magdalena glanced at Jon, and he shrugged.

  “Screw this,” Jon said and whipped out his sword. Meathook backed his play with a swing of his war hammer. Before the guards knew what hit them, they were both out cold.

  No sooner had the guards hit the floor when they noticed a boy standing in the hallway. He looked mangy, malnourished, and overworked. He was wearing rags and had a gravity collar around his neck. He had dropped the giant stack of linens he was carrying.

  “Hey, buddy,” Jon said. “Don’t worry, we are here to rescue you. We—”

  The kid took off running. Jon went running after him. Magdalena grabbed his arm. “Don’t. When they were sorting us for the ritual, they took the particularly weak and scared for ‘unclean servitude.’ Whatever that is, it breaks their will. In the days we were waiting, we tried to convince the ones who would come with our gruel or clean out our chamber pots, but they were too scared to even look us in the eye.”

  “I suggest we get our team members back, and we can regroup later. We cannot save everybody, Jon, at least not right now,” Patel said.

  Jon nodded and tried the door to the room. It was locked. He turned to Meathook and held up his hand. If the kid hadn’t sounded the alarm, the clang from the hammer would alert them. As a precaution, Jon inserted his earbuds and listened for HQ. The nearest tuning point was close, maybe even in the room itself. He noted the direction. He nodded, and Meathook made short work of the door.

  They stepped inside and were horrified by what they saw. There was a chair in the center of the room. Thick tubes with the same black liquid as the other machine descended on a boy shackled to it. Two priests were jamming them into his body while he cried out in pain. The High Priest watched with a mad glee in his eye. “Make sure you get every nerve ending,” the High Priest ordered. “We need to harness all his power.”

  There were at least fifty conduits for the black sludge in the kid. The blades at the end looked as if they were long enough to go all the way to the bone. They were jammed into his arms, legs, hands, and feet, and at least ten of them protruded from his spine. Two large vats above the machine pumped the black goop into the victim. They saved two massive cables with thick blades on the end for last. The cultists shoved the spikes into his ears. Blood dripped from every wound, and he moaned in agony. Jon noticed a couple others were being held by other priests. Hailey was one of them.

  “Hailey!” Jon yelled.

  The High Priest ordered the other priests to attack. There was at least a dozen in the room. He turned to the underlings who had poked the holes in the kid. “Don’t just stand there. Finish prepping the machine!”

  The cultists formed a battled line and threw off their robes. They were muscled bruisers with scars across their bodies. They were the fiercest cultists Jon had ever seen. They each drew two curved and gnarled blades. The Tuners threw off their cloaks and readied their weapons.

  Patel tossed Magdalena one of her swords. “Do you know how to fight?”

  “I’m better at stage combat than real combat,” she said.

  “I did a little theatre in school. It’s like the fake slap, except you really slap,” Meathook said.

  “Just swing at anything that gets by me,” Jon said and stood in front of her.

  The cultists charged, and the High Priest powered on the machine. Everything seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. Four of the priests were on each Tuner. Jon parried the blows of two, his armor saved him the other, and the fourth one got passed all his defensives and hit his arm. The blade had torn off a chunk of Jon’s flesh. Even though it wasn’t life-threatening, it hurt like nothing he had ever felt.

  Meathook slammed his hammer onto the floor and sent a shockwave that knocked his attackers to the ground. They were quick to jump back up. Meathook only had time to hit one of them across the room before the other three landed blows. Blood spurted from his arm and thigh. The others must have been stopped by the armor.

  Patel also wasn’t so lucky. She parried all the attacks but one. Even her unnatural toughness was not a match for the cultist. She was cut across the stomach, and there was blood, though not as much as there would have been had Jon received the same wound.

  The High Priest threw a lever, and the machine intensified. It shook, and the boy cried out in terror and pain. The machine began to hum. The goop pumped through the cables and into the boy. It oozed from his wounds. The child arched his back and screamed. The hum increased in intensity. The kid went into a seizure.

  Meanwhile, the Tuners were locked into combat. Jon managed to gut one of his assailants while Magdalena landed a killing blow when Jon had backed a priest into her blade. Meathook knocked one of his opponents into a table with different headphones, no doubt used to test for the tuning ability. Patel took more nicks and cuts but felled one of hers.

  The machine hummed and shook with a ferocity. The kid screamed out in pain as every orifice and wound on his body gushed with a mixture of the goop and blood. It was too much; the kid’s ears exploded, and he fell limp.

  The High Priest turned to his minion and asked, “Did it work?”

  “Yes, your Holiness,” the lesser priest said. “The breach was successful. Universe 62c is collapsing in on itself.”

  “Good! Get another.”

  The priests unceremoniously dumped the body of the boy on the ground. They grabbed Hailey out of the group. She kicked and yelled out. They punched a few buttons on her collar, and her struggles died out as the gravity dragged her down. They tossed her onto the chair, and she was barely able to get out.

  “Jon—help.”

  Jon fought his way towards Hailey. After some dodges, thrusts, and parries, he stabbed a priest through the base of the chin and out the top of his skull. The other had sneaked around to his back and was about to run him through when a cultist came flying through the air and sent both priests tumbling to the ground.

  Meathook said, “Go get Hailey, bro.”

  More priests burst into the room and charged into the fray. Patel, Meathook, and Magdalena formed a triangle with Magdalena on the far end. Jon left th
e battle behind and charged towards Hailey. The High Priest stepped between Jon and the two priests who were poking holes into her body. The High Priest dropped his robe, and his skin was more mangled flesh than a man. He ejected a blade from one hand and pulled a sword from the other. He grinned a toothless smile, and the swords ignited on fire.

  “You will be cleansed with the holy fire,” the High Priest said and whirled his blades as he approached Jon.

  “Not today,” Jon said and fired his crossbow at one of the goop tanks above the High Priest. The liquid gushed out and made contact with the flaming blades. It ignited, and the High Priest burst into flames. Jon could smell the flesh searing as the man ran screaming from the room in a streak of fire.

  The remaining priests saw their leader’s blaze of glory, lost heart, and ran. Jon ran to Hailey and pulled the spikes out of her. She was lucky they only were able to get to a few. They embraced. Jon wanted the moment to last forever, but there was too much to do.

  “Your sister,” Jon said. “She’s here.”

  “She’s… here?” Hailey said.

  “Yes. They have her hooked to a machine like this one.”

  “We’ll need to save her,” Hailey said, but she could barely move.

  After a moment or two of fidgeting with the controls of the collar, he figured out how to dial it up so she could move normally.

  “We need to find Ludie first,” Jon said. “She is wired in there. I don’t think we can get her out. We need someone who can figure out how to shut the machine down and remove the spikes without killing her.”

  Meathook yelled from the doorway, “Date’s over! We have cultists incoming!”

  Jon peeked out. There were too many to count. Warriors from all the different clans charged through each side of the hallway. There was no end to the flood of the snarling army. Jon backed away from the door and said, “Barricade the door! Hurry!”

  “With what?” Meathook said.

  “With anything!” Jon said and grabbed the nearest table. Patel, Hailey, and the others began moving tables, bodies, and just about anything they could find.

  Meathook shook his head. “This won’t be enough.”

  He turned to the machine at the center of the room. He dialed up his armor to the maximum setting. He walked over to it and squatted beside it. With a loud grunt, Meathook tore the machine from its base. The electronics crackled, and bolts popped off. The servos on his armor groaned, and some even cracked. He strained to walk a few steps with it. The others saw what he was doing and scattered. The cultists broke through.

  With a deep roar, he tossed the machine towards the door. It crushed the first few to enter and then got jammed in the entryway. A few unlucky cultists got their arms and legs stuck. The ones on the other side yelled and strained, but the machine wouldn’t budge.

  Meathook sat down. His armor was sparking, and some of it had shattered. He threw a gauntlet to the side and said, “Man, the gravity is intense in this universe. Now I know what it’s like to be you.”

  Jon patted him on the back and said, “We are not out of the woods yet.”

  The machine began to budge slightly. Jon scanned the room. They were out of options. There were no other exits. “We are going to have to come back for Ludie and your sister.”

  Jon put on his headphones. He really needed to find some better music. A victory song would have been pretty awesome right now. He walked in the direction of where he thought the spot would be. There was a tuning point where the machine used to be. He figured that something designed for punching holes through reality was bound to leave a mark.

  They all gathered in the spot and dialed HQ. Patel and Meathook each took one of the kids who were in line behind Hailey. Jon took Hailey in one hand and hooked his arm around Magdalena. With a tap on the screen, they blinked out of the cultists’ home universe just as the machine was pushed out of the doorway.

  32

  The ragtag group appeared on the platform at HQ. Jon never thought he’d be glad to see Hector, but he was elated to be out of the cultists’ universe. In addition to the gravity, the place was way too hot, and he was drenched in sweat. The room erupted in applause as they stepped down. Even Hector gave them a smile.

  The commotion was short-lived. Ludie appeared on the platform with three people in crimson robes touching him. The room fell silent at the strange sight. Jon, Patel, and Meathook readied their weapons because they recognized the three men at once. They were the High Priest and two of the elite members of the clergy. The High Priest lowered his hood to reveal a blackened face still smoldering from the fire.

  “You have done well, my child,” the High Priest said. “You will go far in the new order that will rule the multiverse.”

  “Don’t worry, Ludie,” Meathook said. “We’ll get you free.”

  “Yeah, how’s the face job?” Jon jeered at the High Priest.

  The security team for HQ burst into the room with their weapons pointed towards the platform. Hector held up his hand to signal to belay their orders. Jon and the others inched closer.

  “Tell them, my child. Tell them about your spiritual awakening,” the High Priest said.

  “Ludie?” Meathook frowned.

  “You all never respected me,” Ludie said in tears. “You and DeAndre always picked on me.”

  “Hey man, it was all in good fun,” Meathook said.

  “You treated me like a dummy even though my IQ is at least twenty points higher than yours.”

  “I did not mean to talk down to you,” Patel said.

  “And you…” Ludie’s eyes turned to Hailey. Then he looked at Jon in disgust and then back to Hailey. “I… I…”

  “It’s okay, my child,” the High Priest said. “All who hear the song of the Flame are elevated and holy. You will transcend to a higher order.”

  “I’m sick of this religababble. Let’s waste him,” Meathook said.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of your victory here today.” The High Priest nodded to Ludie.

  Ludie pressed a button on his TF3.

  “The barrier is down!” Ernest, a heavy-set man with a beard and Hector’s right-hand man, said.

  Before he could charge, cultists appeared throughout HQ. They were on the upper levels, on the walkways, at each of the monitoring stations. Each member of the security team had a cultist behind them. Meathook had three. Jon could feel a weapon at his back.

  The High Priest laughed. “Tell your little Tuners to drop their weapons, or I kill all of you.”

  Hector barked, “You heard him!”

  After all the Tuner and staffer weapons were on the floor, The High Priest stepped off the platform and inspected the room. “This is it. The oppressive Universe One’s legacy.”

  “What do you know of Universe One?” Hector asked. Jon hoped he had a plan because they were out of options. It seemed the cultists had won.

  “Only what the legends tell us. They forced my ancestors to live in the mire and the muck while hoarding the Promised Land to themselves.”

  “Sounds like a story a prisoner tells himself at night to make himself feel better,” Hector said.

  “We were prisoners in our own universe, but now we have claimed our rightful spot on the throne of all worlds. I had planned to destroy this place. All we needed to do was aim the holy artifact that rips the fabric between worlds, but your little Tuners destroyed it. However, the Flame works in mysterious ways. This will be a church, grand and mighty. The pure will come to worship, and the unclean will stoke the Flame! And all of you can be blessed souls and take part in this grand occasion. Swear allegiance to the Flame, and you can be part of the holy army!”

  “And if we refuse?” Hector said.

  “You will swear allegiance,” the High Priest said and pulled out his ceremonial dagger. “Ludie is the first of your kind! Be the beacon your friends can follow into the light.”

  Ludie stepped off the platform. Jon noticed that the two other priests hadn’t moved the entire t
ime. That’s when he saw the wires leading up to their ears. They were probably how the High Priest was punching cultists through. If we could take them out, maybe Jon could stop any more from coming.

  “You.” The High Priest pointed with the dagger to a technician. “Do you swear to follow the Flame, cleanse through fire, and seek truth in ashes?”

  The technician’s faced drained of color, and he wavered. The man took too long to answer, and the cultist warrior standing near him stuck a blade through his neck. The man toppled to the ground, and the High Priest moved to the next person.

  The High Priest went down the line. Some joined and had a star carved into their head. Others died. Jon saw the door to the room open. The cultists were too busy to take notice. However, Jon knew better. DeAndre had broken himself out of the hospital and into an invisibility cloak.

  As if to confirm his suspicions, the cultists' weapons popped out of their hands one-by-one at breakneck speeds. The invisibility cloak failed when it was torn by the blade of a warrior who happened to slash in the right direction. The streak of DeAndre could be seen dashing through the room.

  “Kill them all!” the High Priest yelled. DeAndre aimed for the ones behind Patel, Meathook, and Jon and pushed the cultists over like dominos. They all landed in a pile. Jon could see the run had taken a toll on DeAndre. His gunshot wounds had been torn open, and both legs were bleeding.

  At the same time, the Tuners were being saved, Duyi appeared behind Hector before the cultist gutted him. Duyi ripped the weapon out of the socket under the skin and punched the guy out. A few other security and techs in the room were not so lucky and were impaled by the spears.

  The entire room broke out into a melee. The surviving security fired shots at the cultists, and warriors battled the staffer team. Some technicians even picked up the weapons of the dead cultists and got into the fray. Duyi had brought a mace for Hector and had a Dao for himself. They fought their way to the ground floor two and three cultists at a time.