Andrea Cort 03: War of the Marionettes

by Castro, Adam-Troy

  the wrist expecting to find flesh I knew Skye no a quiet voice said it was the last person I ever would have needed as angel of mercy Fox how I climbed down to you when you stopped answering us for Ocean to do that in sheer darkness in order to reach pocketful Ania was one thing he was an expert climber after all and his strength and reflexes were both more than human the sheer disregard for her own safety that Tara Fox had demonstrated by doing the same thing was more than I could even begin to measure I tried to sit up she forced me back down don’t try to speak that has historically been the kind of advice I’ve always been least likely to follow what are you you have not been coherent for almost a day I was the only one who could get to you almost a day all over this world some Vani were stalking human beings and killing them other Vlade were laying down their lives in human defence Skye was Jews alone knew where and that idiot ambassador Kroy could be whipping up any kind of insane military action in response almost a day could be measured in more than just corpses and again she restrained me this is not a place to move around if you can’t keep your thoughts straight of course it wasn’t I had already proven that by cracking my skull and I could prove it again by pushing her aside and falling however long gravity wanted me to fall before that fall was arrested by a splattering impact I wanted nothing to do with her this woman who had participated in crimes beyond redemption but there were circles within circles in this place where we found ourselves mysteries that had everything to do with the apocalypse taking place in the world above and mysteries that had nothing to do with anything but those of us who were just the smallest part of this dori sometimes I didn’t have the luxury of separating the important from the trivial so I found myself croaking why she misunderstood you’re my only hope of getting out of here and finding meirin no I need to know why you hated Derek Schiff I could not see her face which would have been impassive in any event but I imagined her frowning and sheer disbelief does that still matter we have time please it was a funny thing being cradled like a baby by a person incapable of expressing feeling my animal heart knew that I was being cared for and insisted on wanting to interpret her touch as the compassion one human being shows for another my mind knew that it could not be and that this was nothing but proximity my prosecutors soul paid close attention to the tenor of her breath searching for the subtle signs of tension we all display whenever we’re pressed toward unpleasant truths she surrendered with a cold resignation that would have made a normal human being slump in shame and surrender it is more than I find easy to express you said that he saw your enhancement as a personal rebuke that was your exact phrase yes but personal rebuke for what for not feeling enough guilt she remained silent I was close but not there yet was he angry at you yes how angry angry enough to hate me how did he hate you every way he could was he abusive yes physically no but with words yes I didn’t need specifics finding myself in the position of having to work with this woman who had made herself alien to him Schiff could have shown his resentment with cruel words with backhanded slights and a thousand other little expressions of disgust for Fox who had rendered herself unable to respond every day would become an exercise in weathering his rage but I was still missing something after all almost everybody finds out what it’s like at some point to work for a bastard he had to know it couldn’t affect you he knew I was incapable of showing that it affected me which is not the same thing this was beginning to make a terrible kind of sense the longer she remained a stone wall unmoved as far as he could see by his rages the harder he would have pushed the angrier he would have grown the more vile his behavior would have become it sounded like the very definition of hell but it remained incomplete I still didn’t get the reason he would have wanted to hurt her or the reason she would have been compelled to sit and take it you couldn’t even protest her tone remained his level as it might have been had the subject been a few decimal points of interest in some company contract hating him was just insufficient reason for opening my mouth you could have left no she said with utter finality I could not we laid together for a while that final denial colouring the darkness between us there was still more to this far more I could feel it cruel experience has left me a reluctant expert in the various forms of evil and the kind of evil Fox described coming from the man I’d met failed to make any sense as bad a man as he’d turned out to be his particular corruption the corruption of moral expediency of profits taking precedence over the sanctity of life had never been the exact same thing as the evil of personal cruelty if it had been we would not now eulogize history’s greatest monsters by speaking of their love for dogs or their kindness toward their own families people are people they sin but they compartmentalize putting all their sins into one box so they can do the right thing in another I had not sensed anything in Derrick Schiff capable of a kind of casual sadism Fox described nor anything in Tara Fox even the altered Tara Fox that would apply to her to take it and maybe it was my own fuzzy thinking right now but his cruelty and her willingness to take it weren’t the only things that failed to make sense why would any captain of industry take the artificial suppression of an underlings emotions as a personal rebuke employees with personal lives employees who take time off to attend to their friends and their marriages and their children employees who might be more interested in going out and getting laid for once than they are and staying in the office an extra six hours to finish up the latest division report employees like that are remarkably inconvenient for those who need their single-minded dedication an employee even a beloved one who stopped bringing personal bullshit to work even if that made her a shadow of a human being why would that be a personal rebuke unless what she’d taken from herself she’d also taken from him counselor she asked me are you all right no I think what I think I know who you are you already know who I am not until now it was the one deduction I’d gotten wrong when demonstrating my skills to chef the one thing I thought I’d figured out that had not been accurate but in his words accurate enough I should have pursued it then but how could I have known before the massacre before everything that had happened since that it would be worth pursuing at all my blindness had been even more unforgiveable later when Fox played meirin’s redacted message had I not been humoring her I should have recognized the nature of the recordings elisions what were they meant to hide the specifics the salutation the identity of the specific person being addressed I’ll always be entirely your daughter entirely your I clutched Fox’s arm felt the muscles tensing beneath the skin and since that moments of direct human connection hurt her it must have been like being chained inside a steel cage allowed ravenous hunger but not the opportunity to eat all within sight of a feast that offered all the sustenance she could ever want I squeezed her arm fought a fresh wave of dizziness in the aftermath of an answer successfully found and murmured a comforting it’s okay counselor you don’t need to tell me the reason you need to save her the scratching scraping noises grew louder closer probably though the darkness and the depth of the echoes around us made it impossible to tell how close Tara Fox stiffened seized by an impulse something like the fear she was not supposed to be able to feel she said they’re coming I heard a whistling sound followed by a whip crack Fox was ripped away in a sudden effortless motion I fell back against the rock crying out as my injured head struck stone again other voices in the darkness our fellow prisoners too far away to reach but not too far to share in my terror shouted my name demanding to know if I was alright or if

  the creatures had come for us at last I did not have the time to answer as to long snaky cables snapped shut around my midsection cutting off my breath others seized me by the neck and wrists and ankles I tried to thrash and kick anything to carry on the pretense of struggle but I was a creature of meat seized by things whose limbs had the tensile strength of Steel I could not move a millimeter not to fight and not to convulsing panic my limbs were immobile unless they decided to move me it was the final irony on a world that had known more than its share of ironies myself rendered marionette by creatu
res who were known as marionettes they could have lifted me without strain but for some reason perhaps whim and perhaps apathy they dragged me across the ground as they pulled me from my hole the floor dropped out beneath my legs but I didn’t fall the whips held them tight preventing gravity from claiming them my back still pressed against the ground scraped so hard against stone that the filthy remains of my black suit already ruined by blood and dirt and other things split across my shoulders and I could only gasp as called damped stone clawed against my unprotected skin I forgot my promise to myself and screamed.

  CHAPTER 15

  The Secret

  Skyee Porrinyard drifted in and out of sleep

  for more time than she could measure every waking moment a reminder that half of everything she was remained is cut off from her current consciousness as an amputated limb she had the sense of days passing as the ambient light dimmed or brightened but could not say whether that was an accurate appraisal or just her own mind attaching order where no order existed sometimes she woke and saw dance pilgrims writhing while incomprehensible machines word above them sometimes she woke and saw huddled people weeping from horrors that may have been as terrible as the ones she’d seen more than once she woke and saw full-sized Lonni moving around inside this underground chamber with her their whips coiled close to their heads in order to fit into a space that would not have permitted them to carry their limbs at full extension one though this had to be a dream carried a human head female paler skinned and framed with curly red hair severed from any actual body but unmistakably awake and moving her lips without emitting any obvious sound then clarity returned and she opened her eyes the pain reduced to no more than ferocious burning at the sight of her wound the first thing she saw in the dim light was an ovoid AI source med bot still hovering above her it’s black surface an unnerving reminder of Lonnie chitin then she saw that she was naked before it her two strips of clothing having been removed either for laundering or ease of surgery she wondered idly if she’d ever get them back not that she particularly cared either

  way even if there hadn’t been greater worries to occupy her thoughts right now the Porrinyard s had never given a rat’s ass about modesty it took her a second to register ambassador her paws

  kneeling beside her platform his head bowed as if in apology or grief given the inexpressive reorg all face it was impossible to know how he was feeling until he spoke I am sorry his grief and shame were so palpable that it was like having the heart ripped from her own chest oh no oh shit Andrea his hand felt dry and papery as it came to rest on her wrist no no no I was not offering condolences I have no reason to believe that anything’s happened to them in fact I was hoping that when you woke you would be able to tell me where they are Skyee closed her eyes desperate to get something anything from Ocean what she got instead was a kind of static fleeting images of cold and darkness accompanied by the impression of scraping noises it didn’t help my link with the other half seems to be down could he be asleep I would be able to wake him up this is more like only part of our connections being allowed to work the thought called her she could understand her own metabolism being shut down to almost nothing when her wounds required that but she was better now fully capable of handling her half of the consensus if she couldn’t sense Ocean the problem would now have to be on his end not hers how long have I been here

  her path rubbed the top of his head his scaled paw making soft scraping noises against his scaled scalp two days I’m sorry to say that we have not been able to track the counselors whereabouts for almost three three I assure you we are devoting all spare resources to the search and not just because she has one of my own people with her but I’m afraid the current definition of air Resources is minimal he hesitated we are hoping that you can give us more intelligence than we have how much do you remember from your other half sper spective Skye had processed fragments some of them terrifying but had gotten little she could use since being shut down Roy goes home the human teeth the rear go lowered his head staring at some indeterminate spot on the ground I was afraid of that that’s the last we know as well he squeezed her upper arm a gesture of hope and comfort that imparted neither of those things then made to stand up as if eager to make the next in a series of useless official visits to the many casualties of Vaughn but Skye retained the poor and yard reflexes and was able to seize him by the wrist before he could move tell me he hesitated glanced at the AI source ovoid as if consulting it on the proper response then turned his black eyes back to her the death toll he said is already beyond counting his words halting as if each one ripped away a little piece of himself as it escaped his mouth her puff told her what she had missed Paul Rako had as promised led the various embassies searching for Andrea on a wild goose chase that ate up about 00000 kilometers and half a day of wasted effort before deciding he’d done enough and coming to a peaceful landing atop a snow-covered peak in blonde southern hemisphere catching up with him ten minutes later Kreutz people had not been overjoyed to see that they’d been fooled and had taken him into custody for questioning even though he didn’t know any more about councilor court’s whereabouts than they did by then her path told her his voice halting it barely mattered the whereabouts of councilor Andrea court and her companions had become the smallest of all possible concerns trivia next to the destruction of everything ten separate offworld delegations had ever built here every single embassy and installation on vlad with the single exception of the wetlands home of the Kison houghton and desolate polar facility manned by the chi had been overrun by hostels either after being evacuated or not the list of embassies that had not evacuated in time included her paths own which had been subjected to a sudden strike from all sides even as arrangements were being made to take all its personnel to safety only a couple of skimmers made it into the air and those at only minimal capacity of those one got away and made it to the Chi embassy with six survivors the other which had been carrying sub ambassador of air cough and a couple of wounded human beings among its pitiful handful of passengers had not reporting his every moon FEA high-techs in case he didn’t make it their cough had ordered a low pass over the carnage in a desperate attempt to pull out anybody still capable of being rescued they’d been going for a woman attempting a swim across the lake when of Lani maybe even one of the ones the reorg all had considered a friend erupted from the water latched onto the skimmer in mid-flight and within ten seconds or so whipped fair cough and all the other survivors in his charge into a froth containing few solids larger than a single cubic centimeter it was her path said if anything cruel are still that no crash or flameout ensued after the Villani responsible for the killing leaped out the skimmer itself continued to hover in place a basin preserving its now grisly cargo for anybody who might later get the assignment to identify the various parts with the survivors and evacuees of the various embassies considered safe at the Chi embassy attention had turned to the other victims the Villani who’d caught the madness had slaughtered entire Warren’s of those that had not the situation growing even more hopeless as an increasing number of the unaffected suddenly caught whatever the contagion was and turned against their own side dance pilgrim encampments all over flan had come under attack as well many of them exterminated to the very last man the latest estimates from observers in orbit had more than a third of the global dance pilgrim population some three hundred thousand people already believed dead and their largest encampment Noorie EV now swelled by refugees was said to be only hours from destruction itself there was no possibility of a peaceful intervention there were not enough vehicles on vlad to evacuate that many people in the time that remained and even if there had been there was no place to put them the polar Chi embassy aside there was no longer any safe place on Valon and all the cargo space in all the orbital docking stations maintained by all the offworld powers didn’t possess enough capacity to house more than a few thousand the few who had gotten to safety and who now followed the inevitable from whatever refuges they had found now face the
prospect of being silent witnesses to annihilation by the time her path was done his voice had gone dead and the perpetual upward curve of his rear column mouth looked less like a smile than the rictus of a corpse whose rotted lips had pulled away from his teeth I told you before that I was sorry and not because I thought I was offering condolences I should have known this was coming only then did Skye recall something the AI source had told her before the pain drove her back to unconsciousness something about the rear Gong government secret complicity in their activities a second later she massaged the abraded knuckles of her right hand and felt a little better despite the lingering pain of a blow that had done more to human flesh than rear Gong scales her path rose from the floor blinking more than rear gong were usually known to his two thumbed right hand massaging the noseless blank spot in the center of his face I have lost friends colleagues their cough was like an egg mate to me and he is gone my adopted human daughter chewed puck is missing and might also be gone my last chance to reconcile with her lost if you think that I have not suffered for my sins then you are wrong my life has come to nothing it might not be too late to earn back a few points ambassador I’m sorry you’ve lost friends but maybe I don’t have to maybe we can still stop this catastrophe from getting any worse I don’t see how we’re my embassy still intact head I more people to send on a fruitless search I would send more people to look for the councillor but I’m not entirely certain that we could or that there’s time even if I still had forces to Skye put steel in her voice as she swung her legs over the edge of the platform ignoring the remnants of pain in her legs and abdomen Ocean Porrinyard is half of me and whether she appreciates it or not Andrea Court is the other half if I lose them my life is nothing and the one moment of connection I had with them during surgery I saw them being taken by Villani then they’re dead I may not be receiving his experiences but I’d still know if Ocean were dead I’d even know if he’d lost hope and as long as he’s still alive and fighting he’ll do whatever he can to keep the councillor alive as well her path trembled and what amounted to one last desperate moment of denial but I’m telling you we don’t even know where to look ambassador if you need redemption for your own life to be worth more than nothing then buys yuge let’s go out and find some her paws stared at her in paralysis the impassivity of the reorg all face hiding any reaction he might have had to her words for a number of heartbeats Skyee had no way of knowing whether she’d gotten through to him and then he stepped back about the odd earlier golf bow and hurried away she tracked him until he stopped about 20 paces away to speak with another reorg all unfamiliar to her she didn’t wait for him to report back but instead propped her hands against the edge of the platform and forced herself to stand her legs objected to this but lost the argument with only a sharp twinge to mark the moment of surrender to the inevitable she supposed that it might be a while before we climbed down anymore cliff sighs but that she could walk and carry herself as well as she’d need to the internal injuries worried her a little bit more though the fresh skin around her midsection showed no obvious scars she could still feel fierce knitting at work inside her and guessed that it wouldn’t take much of a physical insult to overwhelm the functional capacity of the Nano fleet still putting her back together she bent her knees squatted stood bent over at the waist gave a little hop her insides complained the ovoid net bot said will you require further pain management no thank you the last thing she needed was anything capable of compromising her edge but you can help me with something else I came in with a dance pilgrim named Thoth Arcee I know I am sorry to report that she did not survive the Porrinyard s had seen too much through both their perspectives to be shocked by the mere fact of death but Skyee felt a wave of sadness anyway she didn’t seem that badly wounded when I last saw her she was not her physical wounds were easy to patch she stood up and walked away from this place fully healed while you were still unconscious then what happened the hope you tried to offer her she rejected the life we tried to return to her she did not want when she left this place she lived only long enough to become by choice another victim Skyee almost asked the suicide method the Farsi had chosen but decided she did not want to know whatever course she’d taken that angry embittered bereft woman would not be the first to many who lived through these events would have to endure the aftermath she felt a wave of dizziness and fell heavily against the platform thinking of prospects for her own life as a shell come on Andrea wherever you are save yourself and save me she was still holding on to that thought like a buoy that kept her from drowning when ambassador her paw through turned another rear gulf following close behind him the newcomer was slighter than most rear Gong Skyee had seen and though he was also shorter overall an unusually larger percentage of that height was taken up by his narrow stringy legs his compact rear gaunt torso rode so high on those spindly limbs and was so squat even in comparison with the typical model of his species that it almost functioned as a parody of Avalon II head bobbing along atop towering whips this is one of my few remaining people her path told her he is our EXO historian third grade Buckeye Hill goth I feel it is important that he accompany us while I place myself at your disposal why because I fear that somebody in authority at my embassy will have to place me under arrest if today’s crisis requires me to speak to my human daughter like the one I had commandeered from the embassy the rear gulf flyer had been retrofitted for the comfort of its occasional human passengers a good thing as Skyee was in no condition to straddle the raised spines that the species used for seats on the negative side it had a closed cockpit and its air supply included a perfume that might have been heaven for recall but smelled a little like decaying meat to human beings this guy could only limit herself to shallow breaths as her path and pill cough shattered amongst themselves in some consonants a ated rear Gong dialect that sounded like it had been designed exclusively for use at mass funerals she had asked her path to bring her to ambassador Kroy and he had agreed directing the vehicle over the desert mountains that hid the hidden facility they had left and over the vast done plains that separated the range from Nureyev as they flew from a region experiencing Twilight into one experiencing the harsh light of a desert morning the landscape beneath them flattened becoming a stark plain marked by streaks of what may have been salt deposited by the waters of some now departed see her path had been kind enough to give her something to wear a leathery tunic cut for a recall that would have been a confining smock draped over her own human form she considered donning it but had yet to figure out if there was any point so she just placed the folded garment on the ground at her feet and watched the two rear Gong jabber in one of their kinds own languages it was an attempt to shut her out at least for a while but Skye had learned a little about the limits of tact from her time with me ambassador I’m waiting there bemused looks resembled those of the terminally dignified who had just seen a drunken dinner guests sweep her meal off the table her path said do you know you almost sounded like the counselor there that’s because like her I don’t appreciate being played I assure you Skye you were in the verge of being honest with me before now I’ve given you something constructive to focus on and you’ve gone back to lying by omission but I won’t let you claim your Redemption that easily not if your government really knew all along that the ballet was an AI source project not if you’ve been allowing human beings to come here and die without ever telling the rest of us why it was not my place to tell how long her paths glanced at Phil Goff was pregnant with shame with apology with the self-justification of a diplomat about to give up that which his kind had always treated his top secret the sadness in the air between the two was as thick as any living presence Skyee had the sense that it was not recent that it had always been with them perhaps always with every individual of their kind all of whom might have been as stained by the sins of the past as humanity itself had been by the various crimes committed by its own nation’s then her path gave it up everything you think you know about the history of this place is a lie the Burstein II di
dn’t discover Vaughn they rediscovered it for long seconds the hum of the skimmers drive was the only sound to break the purity of the silence you were here first it’s true that we were here before them but we cannot claim first either the kiss in Halton first landed here some five millennia ago the CID 00000