Andrea Cort 03: War of the Marionettes

by Castro, Adam-Troy

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  War of the Marionettes by Adam Troy Castro

  Prologue

  We were prisoners it had been hours maybe days since we had felt the heat of the Villani Sun. An eternity spent in a cramped pitch-black chamber with little food or water listening to the scraping noises the whips of our captors made as they punched through subterranean rock it was difficult to avoid being sickened by the stench of the blood that had long since dried on our clothes some of it was my own spilled from a nasty crack to the skull others belong to the people I’d seen ripped apart on a terrible killing ground the killing had spread across this globe like an epidemic of murder claiming fanatics and innocence true believers and cynics human beings and aliens people who had come to this world searching for meaning and people who had come here trying to understand a phenomenon I suspected that it went on still peace has always been a fragile thing it can end at any time but death bloodshed madness they have momentum all their own start the fire and it continues to burn.

  CHAPTER 1

  Four Days

  earlier I didn’t see the monster reach for me until its whip wrapped itself around my midsection and hauled me twenty meters into the dull brown Skye I gasped as the ground receded and I was brought within arm’s reach of the creatures spherical evany head its chitin was glassy enough to have like a mirror one which bore the unmistakable reflection of my own face pale helpless startled and far smaller than this creature so much more powerful than myself my name is Andrea Cort I hate Heights I hate being helpless and I hate creatures bigger than I am being plucked into the air by a creature whose limbs were whips thirty meters long never stood a chance of being one of my life’s five favorite experiences nor was it improved by the knowledge that its whips possess the tensile strength of steel and could with a single errant constriction reduced me to diced cross-sections of myself tumbling to the ground like bloody shrapnel the whip holding me looped under my rear end supporting my back and preventing the grip around my midsection from compressing my diaphragm even so my legs thrashed from unwilling panic I came damn close to landing a solid kick on the monsters head an act that would have accomplished nothing but shatter my toes far below me virile Hammersmith yelled stay calm counselor it’s being friendly friendly whoever told the stupid thing I wanted to be friendly I’d never placed much store and friends even within my own species the few I’ve managed to collect over the years among them Ocean and Skye Porrinyard who were somewhere down below watching and no doubt enjoying my predicament proved nothing except that some people are capable of superhuman persistence in the face of the kind of determined unpleasantness that would drive away anybody else I’m a bitch even a monster ask anybody it’s common knowledge and I certainly hadn’t invited this sudden gesture of friendly interest from a member of a species that had been known to kill human beings this all took place atop a rocky plateau in one of the northwestern deserts of flan it’s an arid region of a planet that has more than his share of dry and dusty play

  the painted sands stretched from Starke horizon to star Corizon broken only by mountains that were actually embedded rocks and patches of scarlet scrub just the right color to impress the human eye with their resemblance to open wounds having spent the majority of my lifetime in orbital environments where nature is safely confined to parks and neighborhood Gardens I hate planets on general principle and found the landscape a fine illustration of the principle that dirt isn’t one iota more scenic when piled on top of even more dirt nothing here would have been of any interest to me or anybody else if not for its dominant species who its first explorers had dubbed Villani but were also commonly referred to as spiders marionettes whip dancers or bugs when our guide Hammersmith landed us here to oblige my desire to see one of the natives close-up I had not bargained for this one’s desire to examine me it’s big round head probably weighed twice as much as I did it was black and shiny and devoid of any identifiable face and is hard to read as any other blank slate its intelligence was clear its intentions harder to read even with the translation program and Hammersmith sweep harness providing audio translations of the subtle width movements Fulani employed for communication it danced for me speaking via choreography Hammersmith swip harness which was equipped with a translator capable of puzzling out the few memes generations of researchers have been able to connect with consistent meanings helpfully provided as much of the meaning as it could provide friend hunting partner whip a pause and then the message repeated once twice then again friend hunting partner whip hammersmith shouted up at me talked to it terrific why would it think I wanted to talk to it I focused on the convex reflection of my own face looking tiny and vulnerable just above the sealed slit I presumed the Villani used for a mouth and ventured a nervous um hello that accomplished nothing but encouraged the monster to bring me closer to its big black head I tried not to cringe instead doing the only thing that came to mind padding its chitin with my bare hand it felt like glass I never would have recognized the surface as organic but for the whips sprouting from that head at irregular intervals to reached for the Skye and undulated in sequence communicating unknown volumes via the precise frequency of the sine curves that flow down there 30 meter length and waves three others stood planted against the ground supporting its weight one held me in its grip holding me close to the giant head another six identical to the others whirled about in constant motion some with dreamlike grace others with a frantic energy that rendered them hard to make out except his blurs I understood why so many people across civilized space proclaimed Villani movements to be beautiful why the hollows of their annual ballet were studied and admired on a hundred thousand world there was a presence to the Villani a powerful resonant poetry capable of capturing even Philistines like myself with no real room for poetry in their souls friend the Villani danced hunting partner whip how much of this crap do I have to take try telling it your name he yelled up at me it may want to add that to its vocab Larry I almost asked what the thing wanted with my name it wasn’t like I had anything to say to it not in my own preferred tongue palm sap mercantile and not in its danced language which required physical gifts beyond those of any human being not equipped with tools either carried or surgically implanted but I didn’t have all fucking day to hang here like an ornament either so I told that my name andrea court the Villani froze in place for the briefest of all possible intervals then flicked the two whips it reserved for communication hammer Smith’s whip harness picked up the fresh meme confirmed its meaning via context and repetition and added its meaning to the sequence of thoughts being danced by my unwanted new friend Andrea court friend hunting partner whip yeah well I love you too now put me the fuck down it offered another sequence of movements which hammer Smith’s whip harness translated in bursts irregular enough to reflect the unknown syntax connecting the few memes anybody had managed to translate so far wound infection sickness cure Fulani dance learn fight andrea court cure andrea court friend hunting partner whip joy Skye andrea court danger learn and then after a long string of movements that hammer smith’s whip harness could not translate at all
one last idea with a crystal clarity that made the bottom fall out of my world unseen demons far below Ocean and Skye Porrinyard cried out in unison their voices combining to form another richer and more filled with meaning than either could utter as separate entities huge Andrea did you hear that of course I had and of course it meant something to me many years ago on a world called Buckeye the entities I now knew as the unseen demons had used technological means to foment an orgy of sudden homicidal madness the casualties after that long night of killing had included my parents my brother my sister my friends my neighbors and my own innocence I was only eight years old at the time but the image the relief crews took of me when I was found blood-spattered manic playing with the eyes I’d gouged from the skull of a bulk iron I’d loved like a second father had gone viral and given me a wide reputation as the living symbol of mankind’s bottomless capacity for evil the Villani had just dropped my private name for the entities responsible a name that only the Porrinyards and the AI source were supposed to know into what amounted to casual conversation I found myself screaming at the giant head don’t just leave it at that you big fuck say it again tell me what you know a pause then Andrea Court friend whip you big fuck whip ballet whip unseen demons Andrea Court whip Skye human Villani whip you big fuck flan ii whip you big fuck andrea court Skye sickness cure of lani you big fuck human counselor Andrea Court hunting partner death ballet death death poison you big fuck meaning a torrent of it hid behind that jumble of thoughts but too much of the connective tissue remain missing the unseen demons tell me more about the unseen demons the whip wrapped around my midsection tightened not hard enough to cause pain or long enough to interfere with breath but enough to express a certain sad empathy that much I understood it was saying some version of that’s the best I can do then the head receded from me like a world growing distant and a transport viewscreen I felt myself being lowered with the care of a doting parent concerned about causing injury to an infant my feet touched ground the whip bearing me waited until I was certain of my footing before removing the support loop under my ass and uncoiling the grip around my waist the tentacle tip as sharp as a spear point patted me twice on the head then withdrew a few more undulations which Hammersmith swip harness translated as you big fuck goodbye

  and the towering Villani began to stride toward the eastern horizon travelling between 20 and 30 meters with every step within a few seconds it was running the Porrinyards braced me on either side Oshin a tall and muscular male his squared forehead ringed with a fringe of white stubble Skye a shorter and Sleater version of him in the opposing gender as much a physical paragon of humanity as he was as always they were as little clothing as they could get away with and still satisfy functionality and local etiquette which was in this case short done briefs at the waist and above that line only a thin strip of material that covered their nipples but left both shoulders and bellies bare the two of them were expressions that conveyed a single shared thought they looked like two people but were in fact only one sharing and enhanced but still only single consciousness when they spoke together

  as they did now they did not just speak in unison but split the phonemes to create a sound that seemed to emanate from some undefined location between them Andrea are you alright I managed no I’m not and fell to my knees do you know what’s most interesting about you Andrea court I hadn’t activated the interface in my head but here I was anyway floating in that endless field of blue the AI source had created the Avatar before me today for a face that seemed to compromise between one I’d expect to find on a human being and those of several other sentient species rear goal Qi Burstein II Bo kyon the gestalt was fluid and new features faded in and out every few seconds allowing the thing to achieve resemblance to several people I know some alive some dead some loved some hated still reeling from the reference dropped by the Villani I was not helped by this avatars distorted fleeting caricatures of Ocean and Skye Porrinyard Jason and Jillian beta line artists bringin and even that holy grail of Confederate law-enforcement the fugitive terrorist known as the Beast magress in’ they angered me or maybe angered me more because a part of me is always angry do you know what’s most interesting about you Andrea court that monster just said something about unseen demons the avatars face now belonged to Emil

  Sandberg a serial killer I’d confronted on the planet Qatar cos this is no surprise to us Andrea our ancient enemies do have a foothold here but you should care about our question as well remaining interesting to us is after all one of the terms your employment the AI source were a conglomeration of ancient software intelligences who had formed their collective after the destruction of the various organic civilizations that spawned them they were widely acknowledged to be the most powerful entities in the known universe nobody smart had ever given them any trouble and there was a good reason for that nobody would have survived it though everybody thought I worked for the diplomatic corps of the homme sab Confederacy I secretly defected to the AI source two years ago in order to further my personal vendetta against our mutual enemies their rogue faction the unseen demons the AI source believed me critical to their war but in between battles they also found my unpredictability a great source of entertainment I’m not a clown dancing for your amusement be that as it may we still find you a fascinating combination of weakness and strength the way you so often fall to pieces just when you’re about to stand so tall it’s as if you need your weakness and derive strength from it we don’t confess to understand this central paradox of your character but we will say that we find it admirable once upon a time I would have thrown a punch at that smirking face which had now taken on the appearance of an occasional ally by the name of deja Schapiro I’d learned the hard way that the avatar had no physicality and would remain outside my reach no matter how hard I tried to strike it so I just snarled I don’t want to be admired by you either I just want enough information to do my job was what that Fulani said a clue or not is this or is this not the world were the bad things going to happen a pause I hated when they paused I knew that they didn’t have to not with their computation speed then the avatars face became my own but damn them mine as a child the age I’d been when I was taken off

  Buckeye that you will know soon enough damn it give me something give me anything tell me how to make it better there was another pause not so much consideration since the AI source think at speeds that organic intelligences can only perceive as instantaneous as dramatic beat and then the AI source said the crisis you’re about to face began when human being saved something that never should have been allowed to live my time away must have lasted less than a heartbeat but Hammersmith blessum had seen me fall to my knees must have seen me stiffen don’t be too hard on yourself counselor most people don’t handle their first encounter with Avalon II as well as you have vo Hammersmith had a wisp of blond hair and skin so pale that he likely traded every hour beneath the Villani Sun with ten minutes of having his burn treated on the facility’s nanite bed his eyes were a shade of blue that cut like ice I would never tell him that I’d been impressed with his professionalism and disappointed with his bland personality nor would I have told him that he might have crossed the line from presentable to handsome if he could have dropped ten percent of his body mass and thus eliminated the layer of fat that softened what could have been a sharp chiseled jawline as it was his pleasant but forgettable features rested in that uncomfortable territory between establishing the possibility of a double chin and actually possessing one now rising with a support of Porrinyard on either side of me I asked him have you ever heard of Lani used that phrase before what phrase unseen demons yes he tilted his head so his hand could more effectively massage a sunburned place on the back of his neck can’t say I have but the translation projects been a tricky one anomalies pop up all the time there’s no telling who introduced it to the database why does

  it means something to you yes anything you

  can tell me about I’m sorry but no Hammersmith let it go oh well they might have picke
d that up from one of our people or come up with it themselves you’d be surprised how many human reference have shown up in the system would I just look at what you just did because of you some poor EXO linguist tracking Vani memes out in the field is going to have her own day ruined when her translation software tells her some Villani she’s observing drops the phrase you big fuck the Porrinyard s chuckled I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again Andrea you have a gift goes well with the curse I muttered I hadn’t meant the words to be intelligible but the porn yds heard me anyway oh dear is it going to be one of those days louder this time deliberate eat me maybe later while the Porrinyard s usually emerge from inter sleep feeling upbeat cheerful and horny the same wake-up call off and leaves me

  depressed foul-tempered and bitchy this is of course a moot distinction since the difference between that and my usual demeanor is not a dramatic one you’re not going to let me start a fight are you no reason the Porrinyard s said not when we can skip all that screaming and yelling and proceed directly to the makeup sex one short skimmer flight later

  Hammersmith escorted us into the gated compound of the hamsa embassy a knot of squat Brown buildings connected by paved walkways and decorated with gardens that did little to alleviate the earthy squalor the complex was more a fortress than most offworld embassies and was ringed with ionic shields and the barrels of defensive cannons a reasonable measure given the massacre at our previous embassy to Valon more than a decade ago a notorious incident instigated by a prior ambassador one Heidi zoo had ended with the slaughter of more than 30 of our people it was the chief reason our own dip core didn’t share the awestruck academic wonder the rear gall and verse teeny and most of the other offworld visitors professed to feel for the phenomena under study here they were tourists and academics we were uneasy occupiers half expecting new hostilities to break out at any moment there were only a few indentures to be seen right now the rest no doubt out already gathering at the famous Fulani amphitheater the few I saw were young and fit their faces red with winburn most wore the functional brown coveralls the dip core prescribed for the climate at this latitude I saw a couple of men and one woman stripped to the waist as they tinkered with the innards of a skimmer that looked like it had aged before its time thanks to ingestion of too much desert sand Hammersmith cleared his throat the difficult parts still coming up you know the Porrinyard s voiced my instinctive response for me you mean the massacre right it’s called the ballet but no that’s not what I meant I meant your meeting with the ambassador I moaned I have nothing to discuss with the Ambassador if you need em becae resources to complete your business here I’m afraid you do the Porrinyard s said is it true what they say about him yes he had a pretty awful experience a long time ago and hasn’t been the same since he’s borderline deranged I’ve been wanting to get the backstory since first finding out about the man’s personal quirk what happened to him Hammersmith shot me an apologetic look