by DJ Molles
“Stuber,” Teran warned. “We need to get out of here. There’s not going to be much left standing in a few minutes and I don’t really feel like being buried under rubble today.”
Stuber swept out of the room with the Surgeon and took the stairs to the second level. Perry followed, dreading what Stuber was going to find. As Perry hit the landing behind Stuber, he saw bullet holes in the walls. Hundreds of them. The doors to the rickety balcony were chewed to splinters.
If anyone had been on the top floor, they wouldn’t have made it.
Stuber plunged mutely through the darkness, his weaponlight flicking on and off as he checked every corner and every door—though there weren’t many in this small house.
The last one he opened was the bedroom.
Perry almost didn’t follow him in. He was scared. Scared for Stuber.
The bullets that had lanced the house had gone clean through the entire structure, and the bedroom had not been spared. The single bed upon which Petra had slept looked mangled. The pale sheets tufted throughout with ragged holes.
But no blood.
Stuber jolted through the room, his movements panicked and disordered.
The lack of blood on the bed did not dispel Perry’s own sense of dread. He slowly dipped to his knees. Looked at the space under the bed. And only then did he breathe.
“She’s not here, Stuber,” Perry concluded. “She got out.”
Stuber spun around and finally faced his friend. His expression was an uncharacteristic scribble of anxiety. His lips worked tightly together.
“That’s a good thing!” Teran put in from the door to the room. “It means she’s not dead! And unless you want to be, we need to—”
Perry assumed she was going to say “go,” but the roof of the building interrupted her by shearing completely off. They all hit the floor out of pure reaction. Perry stretched his shield to encompass both Teran and Stuber, the edges of it slicing cleanly through the bed and lighting the sheets on fire.
“Shield!” someone screamed.
Perry raised his head, alarmed and confused. Was that Teran? No, she was safely in the shield with him…
“Shield! Your fucking shield!”
That was Mala.
Perry extinguished his shield and only then saw the cause of the roof’s sudden destruction: Mala was crumpled in the corner of the room, her feet dangerously close to the charred line that Perry’s shield had created. He immediately pulled his shield back, extinguishing it.
Stuber was already on his feet. “Come on!” He reached out and snatched Mala’s wrist, starting to pull her up. She yelped and jerked back against him.
“She’s wounded!” Perry called out, crossing the room rapidly.
“Well, we still gotta go!” Stuber retorted.
The midsection of Mala’s black battle attire was slick. Her shield had given out, and she’d taken a round of something right through the side. Sweaty strands of black hair clung to her forehead. She bared her teeth, and used her own longstaff to haul herself to her feet.
Stuber and Perry caught her by the shoulders.
“I can move,” she gasped.
“You’ll move faster with help,” Perry said, navigating them around the bullet-riddled and burning bed, heading for the stairs.
“It’s coming!” Mala groaned. “Get your shield up!”
Perry brought his shield back up just in time for a torrent of projectiles to spear the house, just a foot away from Stuber’s face.
There was no holding back now. Ensconced by the bubble of Perry’s shield, the group was all forward motion. They tumbled down the stairs in a jumble of bumping limbs, those rounds tracking with them, carving through the walls and lowering Perry’s shield strength with every impact.
“We don’t have long!” Perry told them as they stumbled to the ground floor.
The whistling scream of micro-missiles in flight.
Perry cringed, unable to keep his feet moving as he hunkered down against what he knew came next.
The entire house around them simply vanished in a wave of fire and buffeted blasts of debris. Even through the shield, the multiple shockwaves punched at Perry’s chest and seemed to suck the air out of his lungs.
“Keep moving!” Mala strained out, pushing him onwards, even as she slumped against him.
Perry hauled for what he assumed was the alley behind the house, but with everything in cinders and dust, it was hard to tell. Raining debris crackled over his guttering shield, adding to the visual confusion.
“Can’t you just fly us out of here?” Stuber demanded.
“No!” Perry shouted back. “I don’t know how to do that yet!”
They crashed into the alley as a flurry of corrosive rounds splattered the bones of the house behind them, further reducing it to mush. As a single unit, scrunched together under the vestiges of Perry’s shield, they ran.
It didn’t escape Perry’s eyes that the old hag hung limp against her hovel, a flying stake of wood having skewered her to the wall.
CHAPTER TWO
CURIOSITY
Sagum stood hopefully in front of the mainframe of Praesidium.
And was promptly disappointed.
Looking away from the main projection that impudently declared his inadequacy—NO CODE FOUND—Sagum crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at the darkened piece of tech that used to house Whimsby’s consciousness.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t figure out a way to bring Whimsby back to life. His core processor sat on the narrow ledge beneath all the little flashing lights and jumbles of technology that made up the mainframe. His body lay in an inert jumble of limbs on a laundry cart. Looking like a man that is passed out drunk, except for the fact that his eyes were open, staring sightlessly at nothing.
He’s still in there.
Because if he wasn’t, then what the hell was Sagum doing?
Could you bring a mech back to life? Had anyone even tried it? That made Sagum feel like a bit of a pioneer. But the doubts about whether or not Whimsby’s consciousness would ever come back—and what it would be like if it did—overshadowed any positivity.
“Isn’t it a little late?” a voice from behind Sagum made him jump.
“Gods in the skies,” Sagum griped, turning and frowning at the tall, imperious shape of Lux. “I couldn’t sleep. Actually I was starting to get tired again, but you jumpstarted my pulse. Thanks for that.”
Lux’s eyes scanned the main projection and its accompanying message. “Still no luck?”
Sagum figured the projection spoke for itself. He turned back to the core processer. A few leads ran from the side of it where Sagum had managed to jury-rig a connection so he could plug it into the mainframe.
“I thought…” Sagum started, then stopped himself. He had a bad habit of talking to others as though they knew what he was doing. He shook his head and summed it up with, “I thought I had an idea, but it didn’t pan out.”
Lux made a small, disconsolate noise and leaned on the doorframe. “I can’t sleep with all this noise.”
Sagum cocked his head. It sounded pretty silent to him. Given that it was chock full of praetorians, Sagum somehow found that surprising. His experiences with Stuber led him to believe they’d be up all night drinking and ripping the chandeliers off the ceilings.
“What noise?” Sagum asked.
Lux twirled his finger in the air. “The animals. Outside.”
Sagum immediately thought of the genetic maladaptations that lurked in these mountains. The strange monkey-like creatures they’d encountered. And the raccoon-bears that Sagum still had not seen. Which was disconcerting in itself.
“What animals?”
“Crickets. Frogs. Nightbirds. They’re incessant.”
“Are the windows in your room open?”
Lux made a face, as though the crickets, frogs, and nightbirds were his mortal enemies. “I can hear them. Through the walls.”
Sagum smirked. “Guess that
demigod hearing has its downsides.” He turned back to staring at the core processor like it might sprout hands and slap him with a good idea. “Does The Clouds not have any nighttime noise?”
“There’s no wildlife in The Clouds.”
“Hm. Would’ve thought you guys had a…menagerie or something.” He stood in silence for a moment, but his attention began to drift from how to fix Whimsby to the demigod standing just two feet away from him.
It was still an odd experience. To speak to a paladin as though they were equals. To stand two feet from one without feeling the need to bow his head or bend his knee.
His focus shot, Sagum finally regarded Lux over his shoulder, eyeing the tall being for signs of what was happening behind that stern face.
“So what are you doing here?” Sagum asked after it was obvious that Lux was lost in his thoughts and not noticing Sagum’s stare.
Lux’s eyes drifted back to the present. “I told you. I couldn’t sleep.”
“And you thought a conversation with me would bore you to sleep?”
A dim smile peeked out from the corners of Lux’s granite mouth. And then hid again. “I was curious. About Whimsby.”
Sagum removed his arms from around his chest and took up the core processor, unplugging the unsuccessful leads. “Yeah. I’ve noticed. You seem very concerned with bringing Whimsby back. Why is that?”
“I suppose I’m naturally curious. It runs in my bloodline.”
Sagum had to think a moment to recall the myths and legends he’d been brought up on. Turns out, a lot of the ones he figured as false were true, and a lot of the ones he figured as true were lies.
“House Rennok, right?” Sagum asked. “Aren’t you guys like, the mediators or something? What’s that got to do with curiosity?”
“We seek the truth in matters.”
Sagum almost laughed at a demigod talking about truth. As much as they’d fabricated and sold humanity on the fiction of their Ortus Deorum, it was bitterly amusing that one of them would be concerned with facts.
Lux turned to looking at the core processor again. “You said that Whimsby had seen things when he connected to that Guardian. That he knew things that he didn’t have time to explain. I suppose I want to know what it is that he saw.”
“The demigods are the ones that hold the truth. Otherwise, why make up so many lies to cover yourself?”
Lux sucked in breath through his nose, but Sagum detected it wasn’t that he felt slighted by the question. More that he was bracing himself against the shifting structures of his own reality. “We know less than you might think. And much of what we once knew is lost to time. Or buried in it.”
“You didn’t know what The Nine would be like,” Sagum said quietly. “That must have come as a shock.”
Lux didn’t respond. He reached out to the core processor, and Sagum let him take it, somewhat reluctantly. Lux turned it over in his hands, his thumb brushing a bit of the scoring near the bullet hole that Sagum had so far been too afraid to dink around with.
“Praesidium is full of mechanical men,” Lux mused. “Surely you’ll be more successful with better parts.”
“You mean taking one of them apart?”
“Don’t act so aghast. They’re just computers on legs.”
“That’s what they said about Whimsby. And they were wrong.”
“Maybe. All the more reason to bring a phenomenon like him back to life.”
“He’s not a phenomenon,” Sagum retorted. “He’s a…a person.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Sagum felt a little miffed on Whimsby’s behalf. “Yes. I do.”
Lux shrugged. “Regardless, Whimsby was not like the other mechs. The others truly are not alive. They’re only programs meant to simulate life. If you commanded one of them to, they would shut down so you could take their parts.”
Unfortunately, Sagum had already considered this, and abandoned the idea. “You weren’t here when Whimsby decided to begin thinking for himself. He gave the others a chance to do the same. We almost got killed over it.”
“And did they?”
Sagum sighed. “No. They didn’t.”
“Then why are you arguing against this?”
Sagum took the core processor back from Lux’s hands, almost protectively. “Because Whimsby would want the mechs to make their own decisions.”
“Interesting. And if one of them freely chose to sacrifice themselves for Whimsby?”
“Then…I guess that’d be okay.”
“And have you asked?”
Sagum felt a little flustered. “I haven’t exactly had a chance, Lux. I’ve only been mucking around with this for less than a day.”
The sound of rapid footfalls came from the hall behind them, cracking the veneer of quiet in Praesidium. Lux pivoted out of the doorway, his hand instinctively gripping his longstaff. But it was one of the praetors.
The soldier stopped and pointed in a nebulous direction. “Skiff incoming. From The Clouds.”
***
The skiff lowered itself to the giant lawn outside of Praesidium, its hull struck silver in the moonlight. The perfectly-manicured grass shimmered, the darkness turning it almost cobalt. In the low lighting, Sagum could only make out one figure on board.
Sagum glanced at Lux, who stood to his right, backlit by the warm lights of Praesidium. “Do you know him?”
Lux’s face was hard and unyielding. “I do.”
One of the dozen praetors that flanked them on the front steps of Praesidium stepped up to Lux’s side. “How would you like for us to proceed, sir?”
Behind this praetor, the others stood, some of them with their eyes on the skiff, some of them watching Lux. Sagum had never seen the famed crack troops of the demigods look so unsure of themselves. This squad, and the several others that now crowded the atrium of Praesidium just through the doors…they were lost.
Everything they knew had been upended. The oaths that they took meant nothing.
Lux took a heavy breath through his nose. “It is one skiff. And one paladin. For now, we will simply observe.”
Sagum wondered if Lux felt the control of those praetors slipping away from him, or if he were so accustomed to commanding them that he had not noticed a change.
A figure descended to the earth beside the skiff. Enormously tall, as all demigods were. Clothed in white robes, the figure wore no battle uniform, nor did he bear a longstaff. Was this another one of the “un-Gifted,” like Warden Abbas had been? A paladin that could not wield Confluence? Or had he foregone his longstaff as a sign of truce?
The figure strode forward, and Lux did not move to meet him. He waited at the top steps, his expression unchanging. As the figure drew closer and stepped into the glow of the lights of Praesidium, Sagum saw a mild smirk.
The approaching demigod stopped halfway up the stairs and regarded the line of bodies before him. “Inquisitor Lux. Or is it just Lux of House Rennok now?”
“Is it Podro of House Nur?” Lux replied. “Or are there even houses now?”
Podro shrugged, set one foot on the next step up. “What do we need of houses when our progenitors have returned to us? Our namesakes now live among us.”
“And are they what you thought they’d be?”
Podro’s expression flat-lined. “They are all that stand between us and The Guardians that wish to destroy us. And you, as well.”
“You failed to answer the question, Podro. One doesn’t need to be an Inquisitor to interpret that.”
A flash of something skittered across Podro’s eyes. His lips slimmed. A note of apprehension in his otherwise confident opening sally. “Myths. Legends. Fairytales. The truth is what it is. Survival is what it has always been.”
“And they’ve taken control of The Clouds, I take it?”
“They have…” A swallow. “…Accepted their birthright.”
“They’re mad,” Lux said.
“You mean to say they are angry.”
“I mean to say they are insane. Centuries of existence in the place between realities has twisted their minds.”
“You speak unwisely.”
“I speak the truth you see yourself, but refuse to admit.” Lux glared down at the visitor. “Or have they not begun to kill yet?”
Podro’s face made a small quiver. “They have been very merciful to those that have been loyal.” He straightened. “And they are willing to extend that mercy to you, Lux of House Rennok. I come as a messenger to deliver you this good news: If you return to The Clouds with me this night and explain how your mistakes led you to this point, and beg for their forgiveness, then they are willing to grant it to you. After all, you were only pursuing the fugitive Mala. You were only doing your duty, and then became embroiled in the confusion. Regrettable, but understandable.”
Sagum gave lux a sidelong look. Godsdammit, but he actually appeared to be considering it.
“Lux,” Sagum whispered.
Lux held up a hand. “And what of this human here?” Lux put that hand on Sagum’s shoulder. “And of these praetors? Will they be granted mercy as well?”
Podro’s eyes did not stray from Lux’s. “The Sons of Primus have no desire to associate with humans.”
“Primus help me,” Lux hissed. “We’re all humans, Podro. You included.”
“We possess the Gift of Confluence. We are demigods.”
“You’re deluded. If the paladins were better then humans then why would The Guardians kill us all?”
“The decisions of the All-Kind cannot be explained with reason and logic.”
Lux husked out a laugh. “You claim the Sons of Primus are sane and in the same breath deny the sanity of the gods of our universe. One of us is in denial or flat out lying. And I am doing neither.”
“You cannot stand against them,” Podro replied, his voice soft and fearful. “No one can. Not even The Guardians.”
“I’m well aware of the power they possess. I’m sure you are too. And are you comfortable with that power being wielded by madmen?”
Podro took his foot from the step in front of him. Drew his shoulders back. Tilted his chin up. “I have delivered my message. You have heard it. You may continue with your heresy if you so choose.” He thrust a finger at the massive structure behind them. “But no stone will be left standing in Praesidium. And when their wrath befalls you, their ears will be closed to your pleas.”
