Bender of Worlds

by Isaac Hooke

  “I see you looking at that jumpjet unit,” Grizz said. “You’re thinking about stealing it and shoving it into your storage pouch, aren’t you?”

  “The thought didn’t even cross my mind,” Tane said. “But I was considering wearing it.”

  “Don’t think the big boss would like that,” Grizz said. “Especially since you won’t be coming back. At least not while we’re in this universe.”

  “It’s all right,” Tane said, turning away.

  He retrieved the D18 plasma rifle from his pouch and slid it over one shoulder, letting it hang down. Then he clipped the shield generator and storage device to the utility belt.

  He went to the shuttle hangar bay and found Sinive, Lyra, and Jed waiting. Sinive and Lyra were dressed in spacesuits similar to Tane’s, while Jed’s battle armor had returned to its previous thickness. Jed had activated his built in helmet, which provided a complete protective environment.

  “Okay, before we go, I have to clarify something,” Tane said.

  “There’s another reason you wanted to come to this moon other than the lenses,” Lyra said.

  “I guess I’m a little obvious,” Tane said.

  “Just a bit,” Jed said. “Is there even a lens?”

  Tane smiled grimly at the Volur warrior. “I wouldn’t have led you all the way here if there wasn’t. Yes, there is a lens, and it’s at the coordinates I gave to Lyra. It will bring us back to our universe when I touch it. However, there’s somewhere else I’d like to go first. Somewhere nearby, about ten blocks to the south. A dark artifact lies there. Like the one on Remus.”

  “And what do you hope this artifact will give you?” Jed asked.

  “Answers,” Tane said. “I’m marking the area on the map and sharing it.”

  On his HUD, he highlighted the location as a waypoint between two skyscrapers.

  Jed’s eyes defocused. “Exactly ten blocks south.” He glanced at Lyra. “We could force Nebb to land closer…”

  Lyra shook her head. “No. This is the closest shipyard. The refined metals the smuggler needs for repairs are here. And take a look at the map. There’s nowhere for a ship the size of the Red Grizzly to make a landing. The streets are too narrow, the landing pads on the rooftops too small, designed for local flyers… we might be able to squeeze in on one of the larger rooftops, but we’ll probably end up damaging the ship in the process, considering that most of the landing pads are crammed full of flyers. It’s only ten blocks. The shuttle will do.”

  “I like how you kept our real destination hidden, Outrimmer,” Sinive said. “You know you could have probably just told them. Lyra and Jed would have agreed.”

  “I guess I still don’t really trust them,” Tane said.

  Jed scowled at Tane before entering the shuttle. Lyra, meanwhile, remained expressionless.

  Sinive’s probably right. What was I worried about? It’s not like Lyra and Jed were going to radio ahead and get a bunch of Volur to ambush me at the artifact.

  Tane loaded into the Ladybug class craft and took a seat across from Jed. Lyra and Sinive also took facing seats.

  “Welcome aboard, little ones,” Cub said over the comm. “It’s been too long.”

  “Not nearly long enough,” Sinive said.

  “I missed you, too,” Cub said. “Destination, please?”

  Sinive turned toward Tane. “I’ve given you authorization.”

  Tane sent the coordinates to Cub, and the shuttle departed the ship.

  A short while later the shuttle was hovering above the area between two skyscrapers Tane had pointed out. There was nothing down there on the external cam but the insubstantial street, and a few motionless vehicles.

  “Well?” Sinive said.

  “It should be here,” Tane said. “Look at the threads emerging from my body.”

  Those dark filaments, thicker than ever, led from his spacesuit down to the cabin floor and toward the street below.

  “Those strands could simply be pointing toward the gravity well of the moon itself,” Lyra said.

  “Maybe loop around the building, Cub,” Tane suggested.

  The craft circled the building. Tane kept an eye on the ventral camera feed, but he only saw the blue-shaded asphalt, and some ground craft parked next to the curbs. Even so, there was something a tad unusual…

  “Maybe the memories are wrong?” Sinive asked.

  “They’re not wrong,” Tane said.

  “It’s actually very easy to fake a memory,” Sinive said. “Especially with nanotech. It wouldn’t be any different with whatever engramic programming the dark artifact did to you.”

  “Sure, but, didn’t you notice how my dark strands stretched?” Tane said. “They don’t just point straight down… but to the same spot in the ground: the other side of the skyscraper. Cub, go back to the original coordinates.”

  The Grizzly Cub flew back around to the far side of the skyscraper.

  Tane studied the street below on the video feed. The strands indeed terminated in the middle of the road, at an angle away from the shuttle.

  “It’s obviously underground,” Tane said. He spotted a grav tram shed near one of the bordering skyscrapers. “There. That tram entrance will probably take us to it.”

  “What do your memories tell you specifically?” Lyra asked.

  Tane concentrated. “I see myself, or rather Tiberius, forming the artifact…” He shook his head. “But I can’t discern my surroundings. They’re cloudy. All I have are the coordinates. But like I said, it seems obvious the artifact is located inside the grav tram station.”

  “One thing has been bugging me,” Sinive said. “If there really is a dark artifact somewhere down there, why haven’t the kraals devoured it after all these years? Remember how they chased us when we stole that pulsating crystal from the food court?”

  “Two different things,” Lyra said. “The crystals—Diracs—are a food source. The Dark Essence, as found in the lenses and artifacts, is something they fear.”

  “On the bright side, that means we won’t find any kraals waiting inside the grav tram station to ambush us,” Tane said.

  “Yes, assuming the dark artifact is actually present,” Lyra said.

  “Well, there’s something down there,” Tane said. “Cub, can you detect anything underground at all?”

  “I’m not equipped with an X-Ray scanner,” Cub replied. “Even if I was, it’s doubtful such a device would penetrate to the depth of a grav tram platform from the surface. The beam intensity required would kill everything inside.”

  “Not that we’re worried about killing anything at the moment,” Jed said.

  “That would be an added bonus, wouldn’t it?” Tane said. “Scan for the artifact, and if it’s not there, we kill any surrounding kraals in the process.”

  “Cub, take us down,” Lyra said. “It seems we have some urban spelunking to perform.”

  “Ooo, spelunking,” Sinive said. “I’m surprised you know that word!” When she realized the Volur was scowling at her, Sinive quickly added: “Just kidding.”

  The shuttle landed in the street about halfway between the bordering skyscrapers, and a short walk from the grav tram shed.

  Jed stood up as the ramp lowered. “Stay here until I give the word.”

  The warrior Volur unholstered his pistol—the weapon pulsed in sync with his armor. Jed stepped down the ramp and the weapon elongated as Tane watched, transforming into a battle rifle.

  Gotta love high tensile memory metals.

  Behind Jed’s faceplate, the Chrysalium piercings began to glow slightly. The Volur was likely Siphoning through them at that very moment.

  As the warrior proceeded outside, Tane switched his attention to the overhead map, and watched Jed’s indicator circle the shuttle before heading toward the tram shed.

  “Area is secure up to the shed,” Jed announced over the comm a moment later.

  “Sinive, you’re on point,” Lyra said. “Tane, you follow her. I’ll take
drag. Activate your shields as soon as you have clearance. Double time!”

  “Why do I feel like I’m back in the military?” Sinive quipped before drawing her pistol and rushing outside.

  Tane lowered the plasma rifle from his shoulder, stepped toward the ramp, and activated his shield generator. He ran down the ramp after Sinive, while Lyra brought up the rear. The Volur woman lagged slightly, no doubt still somewhat weary from her earlier jump, despite the boosts from Jed.

  The moon’s gravity was vaguely weaker than the artificial gravity aboard the shuttle, so Tane increased the resistance of his servomotors slightly to compensate.

  He swept his gaze back and forth across the insubstantial street. The blurry buildings bordered the roadway, which felt somewhat claustrophobic with the skyscrapers hemming the place in on all sides. The dark blue hue gave the street a slightly malevolent atmosphere.

  In seconds the trio reached the tram shed. Jed waited at the glass doors; he kept his glowing rifle trained on the surrounding buildings, and slowly swept the muzzle to and fro.

  Sinive dashed through the doors and Tane followed behind her; he was careful to observe the half-meter clearance required by the shield generator. Sinive approached the far side of the shed and aimed her pistol down the stairwell.

  Tane’s dark threads led away from him and down those very same steps.

  “Clear on my end,” Sinive said over the comm.

  Tane approached, and aimed his rifle into the stairwell. He could see a portion of the platform at the bottom of the stairs. The dark filaments passed through the concrete wall near the bottom, heading for some object on the platform that wasn’t visible from his current position.

  “Jed, lead the way to the platform,” Lyra said.

  Jed swept past Sinive and descended the stairs. He passed right through Tane’s threads, and became invisible close to the bottom.

  “Man, that’s so handy,” Sinive said.

  “I found your artifact,” Jed said a moment later. “But there’s something else, Engineer. You better get down here.”

  9

  Tane glanced at the overhead map. Jed had mapped out the wide tram platform below. In the center was a dark blue marker that could have only been the artifact Tane was looking for. But beside it was a red dot, ordinarily reserved for enemy combatants.

  Tane started to walk past Sinive—keeping beyond the limits of both their energy shields—but she stopped him with a raised hand.

  “I should go first,” Sinive said.

  “Why?” Tane said. “I’m not some fragile piece of glass.”

  “You’re the Bender of Worlds,” she said.

  “Which is exactly why I should go first,” Tane said.

  But she was already leading the way down.

  Tane glanced at Lyra, who merely shrugged inside her suit.

  “We do have to protect you,” Lyra said.

  “Actually, you don’t,” Tane said.

  He followed Sinive down the stairs before the Volur could answer.

  Glow panels in the ceiling provided dim light, so that ahead of him he could see benches and the translucent polycarbonate screen that separated the actual grav tunnel from the loading platform. Jed had become visible once more, and he was standing next to the base of the steps, his glowing rifle aimed at something beyond Tane’s line of sight.

  When Tane reached the bottom to stand beside Sinive and Jed, the center of the platform came into view. A dark lens-shaped artifact, four meters tall and one meter at its widest, balanced on the tiled surface ahead. It seemed to eat up all the light produced by the glow panels.

  The dark filaments emerging from Tane’s body terminated in that object, entering its periphery from all sides so that the artifact appeared to have black tentacles. The edges of the object were distinct, unlike the surrounding world, and he knew immediately that it wasn’t one of the lenses that would transport him back to his own universe, because those edges also didn’t appear to distort spacetime, and it rested on the floor rather than floated.

  Yes, this was a dark artifact like the one on Remus. An artifact that would impart great knowledge once touched.

  Except the touching might prove difficult: just in front of the artifact, lying on the platform, was a dweller.

  The alien wore no protective suit of any kind, and seemed to be either dead or sleeping: Tane couldn’t be sure either way because there were no obvious signs of respiration.

  Even stretched out like that, the creature was still half as tall as the monolithic object behind it. And like the lens, it seemed more substantial in this universe than even Tane and his comrades.

  “Is it dead?” Sinive asked over the comm.

  “I can’t tell,” Tane said. “Jed?”

  “I can’t, either,” Jed said. “But a single shot to the head will resolve the matter either way. It’s not wearing any discernible shield generator.”

  Jed had his rifle trained on the dweller, and he glanced at Tane for confirmation.

  But Lyra, standing behind Tane, was the one who answered. “Shoot it,” she said.

  “Wait.” Tane quickly stepped in front of Jed’s rifle. “Don’t fire. I know this dweller, I think.”

  Tane approached.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Lyra said.

  So do I.

  Tane studied the dweller as he approached. From the left and right sides of its large carapace emerged eight legs, currently crimped underneath it. In front, stalks jutted forth, and from them drooped long tentacles tipped by three fingers. Its hunched, sideways jaw hung open slightly, revealing the serrated teeth within. Half those teeth were missing, as were several tentacles. One leg on the left side was gone, too, Tane noted. The dark gray skin was wrinkly, and lacking the iridescent, Labradorite coloration of other dwellers Tane had seen. A tiny metal box was secured near the base of the head, above the tentacled stalks.

  Tane stopped about a meter in front of the dweller. Still he hadn’t seen any signs that it was alive.

  He deactivated his shield generator and stepped between two of the drooping tentacles, and slowly extended his rifle toward the creature, intending to touch the carapace with the muzzle. The dark threads emerging from his body flowed through the dweller and into the lens behind it.

  A few seconds before making contact, Tane paused. Again he felt that premonition of doom.

  Maybe this isn’t the best idea.

  He glanced at the far side of the platform, where another passageway led underneath a neighboring building. He half expected dwellers to come surging inside any moment.

  He dismissed the thought, and forced himself to touch the carapace with his muzzle.

  No response.

  He shoved, applying pressure, attempting to shake the body, but the alien was too heavy. The dweller didn’t respond either way.

  “Hmm,” Tane stepped back, retreating between the two tentacles, and reactivated his shield. He turned around to face his friends. “I guess it’s dead.”

  “That would be M’alancretes,” a voice sourced from multiple human speakers arose, coming from the dweller.

  Tane spun, but the creature remained motionless on the floor.

  “My mate,” the voice continued. The sound emanated from the small box attached underneath the alien’s head.

  “Where are you?” Tane asked, activating the external speakers of his helmet.

  “Nearby,” the voice said. “I have learned it is unwise to reveal myself when humans are near. In the past, they have proven to be… trigger happy. I’ve lost a few tentacles that way.”

  It was difficult to understand the words, given that each was voiced by a speaker with a different accent and dialect, and then simultaneously distorted to both high and low octaves by the Umbra.

  Tane slowly swiveled about, running his gaze across the underground platform: past the benches, pillars, and the translucent polycarbonate screen, and the passageway leading underneath the building, but saw no sign of
the alien.

  “The dark power linking you to the artifact marks you,” the dweller continued via the voice box. “M’alancretes and I have waited almost a thousand years for you. A century ago, my mate at last decided to forgo the Renewal, and succumbed. I have been alone all these years. But Tiberius said you would come, so I waited steadfastly. And now, finally, you have arrived.”

  “Who are you?” Tane asked.

  “G’allanthamas,” the dweller said. “Keeper of the Dark. Tasked with guarding that which is most precious.”

  “And what’s that?” Tane said.

  “The memories of my master,” G’allanthamas said. “And now those memories are yours. I suggest you touch the artifact.”

  Filled with a sudden suspicion, Tane eyed the dark monolith doubtfully. “You’re guarding these memories, you say? How? If you’re not even here to protect the artifact?”

  “I don’t have to be present to defend,” G’allanthamas said. “Do you truly believe we dwellers are so technologically backward? At this very moment, five hidden energy weapons embedded within the walls of the subterranean chamber around you have activated. You are squarely within their sights, and the weapons await my command to fire. Your pitiless energy shields and armor are useless against them, I promise you. If you were not the Bender of Worlds, I would have destroyed you the moment you set foot upon the platform, and then dragged your bodies far from here. If you wish to receive that which you have come for, then touch the artifact. If you are not ready, then leave.”

  Tane surveyed the walls, wondering if the dweller was bluffing. He didn’t see any signs of energy weapons.

  He glanced at the others waiting near the base of the stairs behind him. Sinive merely stared at him with frightened eyes behind her faceplate. Lyra seemed indifferent. While Jed nodded.

  Tane turned back toward the artifact and sidestepped the fallen dweller to approach. The bottom edges of the great lens were flat, he noticed, and slightly rectangular-shaped rather than curved—shaping the base like that obviously helped keep the object upright, and served as a built-in stand of sorts. The tendrils emerging from his spacesuit were exceptionally thick that close to the object, and seemed almost solid rather than translucent.