Warp World

by Kristene Perron

  “There’s no sign of a struggle. Fismar would never give in without a fight—even one he couldn’t win.”

  “Then …” A heavy gust of wind caught the open warehouse door, slammed it open and then closed. With a pained expression, Ama raised her hands to the sides of her head. “He’s taken them to safety somewhere.”

  Seg didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Fismar would have done what every other citizen had done; he would have headed for the slideway.

  “Maybe—” Ama stopped at the look on his face. She started to speak again but halted. They both turned their heads at the unmistakable sound of gunfire from outside. Survival. These People were fighting for their lives, even as the Storm descended.

  “Shelter.” Ama stepped in front of him. Even inside the warehouse, they now almost had to shout to hear each other, and the roar was intensifying. “Can we hide from it? What did your people do before the shield?”

  “Underground, that’s the only way. But the old underground shelters in cities were converted to dwellings or storage after the shields went up; it’s been a century since we needed them. Even if some still exist, I’d have no idea where we’d find one.”

  “Nen’s death! We could— Wait. Underground? I know a place! Come on.” She jogged off across the expanse of the warehouse, passing by the empty bunks, and crates of food and weapons. There was a slight hobble to her movement; Seg winced to think of her shredded soles.

  “There’s a storage space in the floor,” Ama said. “Tirnich found all the supplies for our yoth game in it. It’s—” She pointed to a spot on the ground, directly beneath a large crate. “—right here.”

  Seg glared at the heavy storage crate, part of Fismar’s constantly-changing training ground. He scoured the surrounding area until he found one of the long pipes the troops used to shift the crates. He grabbed the pipe and jammed it under the edge. “Get another one. We might be able to move it enough.”

  Once Ama had her pipe wedged under the crate, he counted down from three and they shoved in unison. The crate budged a few scant inches. Outside, the shooting and screams had been swallowed by the roar of the Storm; the ground beneath them trembled.

  “Again!” Ama shouted.

  One of the warehouse windows shattered, wind screamed through the open space; the Storm was almost on them. They shoved one more time, the crate creaked and slid. A final push and it was off the hatch in the floor.

  Braced against the wind, Ama grabbed the latch to pull up the cover. Seg lifted it skyward. He could see a small landing area, then a ladder that led down to the shelter. The space was small but the lid was solid. Solid enough to hold against the Storm? They would find out soon enough.

  “I’ll go first and help you down,” Seg said. He hopped inside and climbed halfway down the ladder. He waited for Ama. After what seemed like minutes she hadn’t appeared. He craned his neck to see her but the space around the hatch was empty.

  A loud smash shook the warehouse.

  He shouted her name and climbed back up, visions of the rampaging gathac and the violent goring fresh in his mind.

  She had come for the book. She couldn’t say why, especially at this moment, she had felt compelled to retrieve it. All she knew was that her instincts seldom failed her. Now that she was here, she thought she might as well grab a few other necessities—her knife, a canteen of water, the blanket from her bunk.

  She bundled everything in the blanket, turned to go, and fell to her knees.

  The voices were back, carried on the Storm, burrowing into her head.

  Stop, stop, stop …

  A lighting fixture broke free from the ceiling and fell to the ground with a thunderous smash.

  The noise yanked her back to her predicament. She breathed through the pain, pushed up from the floor, and stumbled back to the hatch.

  Seg was waiting there. He shouted, wanted to know why she had run off again. It was too much effort to talk. She needed to get underground, away from the Storm.

  She climbed in, Seg right behind her. The hatch came down with a loud slam and the world turned black. Above, the muted howl continued to build and Ama felt the same frenetic energy inside her, swirling, pushing her heart to beat faster.

  Seg’s digifilm cast a faint blue glow. He took her bundle and helped her down the ladder. She should have been grateful—her head spun, her arm throbbed, her feet felt as if they had been dragged over barnacles—but it was as if the Storm had infected her with its wrath.

  Seg guided her to the floor. Once they were both settled into the small, concrete room, he turned off the digifilm.

  “Leave it on!” she said.

  “I can’t risk it. The Storm damages electronics and this is—”

  “You said the shield never fails. You said we were safe in the city. You said—”

  The voices rose again, scratching, demanding. She cried out, rocked back and forth, rubbed a hand against her forehead—nothing made them stop.

  Even this far below, the ground rumbled. Above, the roar had turned to a screech. Something scratched at the lid, sharp claws rasping on the metal. A beast wailed.

  “They’re dead! You killed them!” Ama said.

  Thuds and crashes rained about their heads. Ama gripped handfuls of hair and curled forward. She couldn’t fight them anymore. Women, men, children, thousands of memories, languages, lifetimes played out inside her head, overlapping, competing. Worse than drowning. She screamed; a long, tortured wail.

  STOP!

  Silence blanketed everything, followed by a static buzz.

  “It’s here.” Seg’s voice echoed from miles away.

  She knew it was here. She could feel the Storm, sense it the way she had once sensed drexla circling. Her dathe emitted that low vibration they gave when she felt threatened. The Storm was right on top of her, reaching for her.

  “Stop.” One word, that’s all she could manage. She curled in a tight ball, willing the invaders out of her thoughts.

  “Ama, what’s going on?”

  Seg’s voice. She tried to focus on that one voice among millions. His hand was on her back. Holding me here. Please, don’t let go.

  “Storm.” She forced out one agonizing syllable. “Voices. Hurts.”

  “Some people are more sensitive to the Storm than others. Concentrate on something else. Talk to me. Talk. Tell me what you went running after.”

  She tried to speak, but her voice was buried beneath the waves of others.

  “You’re stronger than this.” Seg had wrapped himself around her; his lips were against her ear. It felt good. Safe.

  “There’s so many—”

  He smoothed his hand over her hair. “What did you go back for?”

  She reached for the bundle in the dark, grasped the edge of the blanket with her fingers, and dragged it close. Seg took the cue and unwrapped.

  “Water,” he said, and she heard the sound of the fluid sloshing in the canteen as if she were listening to the surf in the fog. “Good, we’ll need this. Say it.”

  “Water,” Ama said. Her voice escaped like smoke through a crack in a wall.

  There was a rattle and then: “And a knife. Our sole weapon now.” He waited a moment then urged her to speak again.

  “Knife,” she said, then groaned. Hunger, she felt a burning hunger and knew it belonged to the Storm above. “Fismar gave … knife.”

  “Then it must be a quality blade.”

  Even in the black, she squeezed her eyes closed, the way her father had taught her, to keep away the demons and monsters when she was a child.

  Seg was silent for too long. She needed to hear him.

  “What book is this?” There was a catch to his voice.

  “Yours.”

  Another silence.

  “I b
rought it for you, but after everything …” Now it was Seg who lost the power to speak. She heard him clear his throat. “Remind me of the title.”

  “Culture and Conflict.” She worked hard to get it all out.

  “A good one. Basic, but good grounding. Have you read it all?”

  The ground around them trembled again. Ama let out another low moan.

  “Keep talking,” Seg said. “Did you read it?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I like the stories.”

  “What else? Go on, try more words.”

  “Different … types of people.” Speaking was like swimming against the current. But as long as Seg urged her on, she would keep paddling. “Hard for me to sleep. Stories kept me from thinking … about that place.”

  “I’m glad it helped.” Seg’s voice had a strange quality to it, as if he were also struggling to speak. “What stories did you enjoy most?”

  She fought back the voices to remember the stories in the book that had captivated her. “The people who live on cliffs. The—” She paused to catch her breath. “The Clidsk. I saw a real one once. On his head, he had—”

  “A shell,” Seg finished for her, as the strain became too much again. “They kill the animal, take its hard shell and fix it onto their own young, as protection from falls and from tumbling stones.”

  “Skulls grow around it until it becomes part of them. They never come off the mountain, they—” Her muscles tensed and once more she fought back that other thing inside her. “They climb as easily as we walk.”

  “A fascinating civilization. Tell me more.”

  Ama related more tales from the book. At first, the words came in chunks, like prolonged stutters. But, soon enough, she could speak in complete sentences. The Storm was still up there, but by changing her focus she had built some kind of invisible wall inside herself—a type of shield. After a time, the pain and hunger diminished and she only had to pause for breath now and then.

  “So many people, so many worlds,” she said. She could feel Seg’s exhaustion, as he pulled away from her. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and she saw him lean back against the concrete wall.

  “I wonder if the universe is truly infinite,” he said. “Not that it matters, really.”

  “I didn’t even know there was a universe until you invaded my world.”

  “You didn’t get to see the more pleasant parts of it. Neither have I, I suppose.” He rapped his knuckles on the concrete. “They’re gone. You’re right, I did kill them.”

  “Seg, I didn’t mean—”

  “I know.” He rubbed a hand across his forehead. “And I know I didn’t kill them, but I underestimated the man who did.”

  “Fi Costk?”

  “I don’t have any proof. I suspect no one does.”

  Ama tasted bile in her mouth as she remembered the old Shasir priest Fi Costk had tortured.

  “You think he took down the shield and murdered all those people just to get to you?” Ama reached for the canteen and gasped. Now that the pain in her head had subsided, she was reminded of all her other bodily complaints.

  “We should at least try to bandage your arm and feet until we find an auto-med,” Seg said. He shrugged off his dress coat, groped for the knife, and started cutting the fabric into strips. “This was probably not entirely aimed at me, but this is very much multiple tasks converging to a single priority. Give me your arm.”

  Ama held out her arm and tried not to flinch as Seg fastened on the makeshift bandage.

  “What do you mean multiple tasks?”

  “I mean—” He apologized as he tightened the bandage and she cried out. “The CWA has been trying to usurp the Guild’s power and take over our function for centuries. By destroying Old Town, Fi Costk is able to exact some revenge on me and also deal a significant blow to the Guild. There’s more to it than that, of course.”

  “He’s a demon,” Ama said.

  “According to the Kenda definition of that term, I am inclined to agree.”

  Ama heard the knife slice through the coat again.

  “Foot,” Seg said.

  She shifted sideways and offered the first victim. He was as gentle as he could be considering the state she was in. When both feet were wrapped, he wet a piece of the fabric and used it to wipe the blood and dirt from her many abrasions. He finished with a fresh piece of cloth to her face. She could have done this herself but she didn’t say anything. This silence and closeness was as close to peace as she had been for far too long.

  When he was done, Seg sat back once more, against the hard concrete. “I made an oath to Brin. Those men were my brothers.” Perhaps it was the dark, and she his only audience, but Seg spoke without any of his usual composure and control. Whatever anger she still harbored fell away at the sound of his voice breaking. “You should hate me.”

  “I did,” she said. “When they put me into that place and I thought you’d abandoned me, I hated you. Then, Gressam, what he did …What I did.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “I didn’t just hate you because of what I thought you had done to me, but because you were a part of all of it. All of the cruelty, everything that your people do. I thought: Seg helps them, he helps them take slaves and destroy other worlds. And I hated you for it.”

  Seg remained silent.

  “But then, tonight, I saw that priest at the auction and I realized I helped too. I gave you the Shasir, the Damiar, the Welf. They weren’t people to me. All I cared about was the Kenda, saving my own. Just like you, just like your people. Worse, maybe, because I wanted our enemies to pay for what they’d done to us. But that priest, he was just a man, a frail old man. I helped make him a slave. How many people will spend their lives suffering because of what I did? It has to stop. Somehow, I’m going to stop it. I’m going to destroy the system.”

  “Good,” Seg said.

  She reached for his hand and intertwined her fingers with his. A small gesture that pulled down the stones of the wall between them.

  “Can your people change?”

  “Change or die. We’ve been stagnant for too long and we’ve been losing ground at the same time we’ve been building our moral ignorance. Change has to start somewhere.”

  “Maybe it started tonight. Maybe you brought change to them,” Ama said.

  He laughed a harsh, grating laugh, then coughed. “I started a riot. Accidentally, for the most part. It will fizzle. What will come is beyond my control. I’m so far into debt that capturing Julewa was my only hope of recovering, the equipment I paid for is being destroyed over our heads, and my people are gone. We might as well run to the wastelands after we get out of here; our prospects are better there.”

  “I can’t ever go back there, to Cathind, can I? No matter what?”

  He reached into his pocket and found the controller for her collar. He studied the faintly glowing display for a moment, then tapped a memorized sequence. Once the Storm had passed, an alarm would sound to alert the wardens, and likely Efectuary Akbas, and Facilitator Certine, but it made no difference now. With a slight metallic clink, the collar automatically unlocked. “You’ll never go back there. And I’ll never let them hurt you again.”

  Ama gasped. By the dull glow of the controller, he watched her pull the foul thing off, with shaking fingers. It tumbled from her hand and rattled against the floor. She wrapped herself around him, and he circled his arms to draw her closer.

  “I failed you,” he said.

  “You tried to warn me not come here. I didn’t want to listen. I wanted to be with you.”

  “I wanted the same. Jarin told me to leave you behind but—” He broke off there. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever comes, we’ll face it together now. There’s nothing left to lose.” He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, brushing a thumb over her dathe and down to where
the collar had been.

  Together. The word sounded impossible somehow. Unattainable. Just speaking and hearing it spoken filled him with a rare sense of foreboding.

  Jarin unfastened his formalwear as he rushed down the corridor of the Cadet Instructory Facility; Gelad hurried step-for-step beside him.

  “So, I’m not sure he believed me, but I got the message out,” Gelad said.

  “And then the comm died?” Jarin asked.

  “Which we didn’t get word on.” Gelad spread his hands. “We got lucky to have any warning before we lost comm. No time to get riders going, nothing. We just got full comm service back up a few minutes ago.”

  Jarin halted at his office door. “Stand by in the comm center and inform me of any critical developments.”

  With a nod, Gelad strode away.

  “Maryel, Ansin,” Jarin said, by way of greeting, as he stepped in and tossed his coat on the desk. “Where is Shyl?”

  “En route,” Maryel said, her eyes glancing to Ansin as she spoke. “There were problems outside her residence.”

  “I’ve warned her, more than once,” Ansin said.

  Behind the two, a newsfeed played. Images of Cathind flashed in quick succession, though not Cathind as anyone had seen it before. Smoke, flames, angry crowds, lines of wardens and raiders. Maryel directed Jarin to the feed as a separate comm feed played in the background, a babble of terrified voices transmitting from Old Town.

  “The shield is down! Down!”

  “Help us!”

  “…rescue the Creche, there are three hundred children here.”

  “The newsfeeds don’t even mention Old Town,” Maryel said. “Only the riots.”

  Jarin stepped forward and mashed a finger on the button to kill the audio comm feed. “Old Town is lost. There’s nothing to be done there until the Storm passes.”

  “How did the shield fail? That should be impossible,” Ansin said.

  “Unless it is deliberately sabotaged.” Jarin held up a hand. “I have an agent in position, but no hard proof—if we can get it at all.”

  “This is an act of war!” Ansin surged to his feet and slammed a fist on the desk.