by Danie Ware
But this was Ecko’s third night out here, and he’d not yet found a single zombie, shambling or otherwise. He hadn’t quit hoping though - and, hell, if he was gonna hope for zombies, he might as well hope for shotguns and baseball bats while he was at it. He prowled the ruin, his enhanced vision flicking lowlite and heatseeker, his super-charged adrenaline poised, eager, right on the edge. If he couldn’t have zombies, then he’d settle for the local alternatives: for beasties and bad guys, for the Thing-style stone mcnasties that had assaulted the city from the depths of Maugrim’s tunnels...
His hovering adrenaline spiked as he glanced up at the warriors on the walls.
Yeah, Maugrim whose bad-guy ass I kicked.
An’ did I even get a thank-you card? Flowers?
Over the rocklit defences, the sky was starless-black. One moon, full and gold and far too big, hung fat like some Christmas bauble - it streaked the mud with piss-bright yellow and made the garbage hunker like a nightmare. Higher up, its smaller, silver brother shone cold and distant.
Together, they made the moonlight bizarre, cross-hatched and entirely fucking impossible.
Chrissakes. Ecko aimed the thought at the silent city. I did your Noble Quest. I mushed your bad guy an’ saved your world. I found your treasure and got your hot girl - well, kinda. I saw the truth, whatever the hell that was. An’ I get what? A pat on the back? The ends of his stealth-cloak fluttered, laughing at him. Where’s my level-up, for chrissakes? My weapons upgrade? My skills package? My unlocked achievements? He wanted to rail at the impossible moons. An’ why the hell didn’t I score my ticket home?
The cloak billowed harder, agitating. It was a soft mass of folds and layers; had covered him from allies and foes alike, from eyes unwanted. For a moment, the flap was intolerable and he was tempted to tear it off, throw it down amid the garbage... but it was part of him, a shielding layer, something quintessential. He could no more tear it free than he could lose his own skin...
Again.
Chrissakes, enough. Get a fucking grip.
London, the tech he called Mom, who’d undone and rebuilt him, they were a world away, unreachable. Whatever the hell he had to do to get outta this program, this reality, this whatever-it-was they’d plugged him into... apparently kicking bad-guy butt wasn’t it.
Yeah, all right already, like it was ever gonna be that simple...
In his dark heart he knew it: This whole thing wasn’t just about completing some scenario. It was Virtual Rorschach, too complex to be solved that easily. Around him, his reality was an expanding fractal, based on his thought patterns. With every decision he made, every reaction and movement, he shifted those patterns and changed his possible futures. And every one of those futures was projected by the algorithm of Collator’s AI, watched by the therapist Eliza. Put simply, every new pattern was a multicoloured rebroadcast of his tiniest thought, no matter how subconscious or dark or humble. Eliza could see every single thing his mind was doing.
Every. Single. Thing.
Machine, mathematics and medic, in perfect harmony, twining through his brain like some inescapable hangman’s knot.
The city stood silent, not offering an answer.
From somewhere, there was a rising yip-yip-yip of a critter, loose in the Fayre’s ruins.
Ecko flicked out his cloak and began to move again, scanning the wreckage for loot. This fucking program wasn’t just about beating up bad guys, he kinda knew that already. To get outta here, he was gonna hafta tick Eliza’s boxes, prove he was sane.
And he couldn’t even fake it.
Looking at the moonlit ruin of the grasslands’ central market, Ecko wondered if that was even fucking possible.
Or if he was gonna be in here forever.
* * *
The moons slowly dissolved, tumbling under their own weight down towards the waiting mountains.
Cycling his oculars, Ecko was systematically ransacking the debris - with the loss of The Wanderer, down the hole into the Pit of Doom, he’d lost his hoarded stash. He was out of kit, weapons, and food.
The Fayre, though, was just about out of swag, place’d been picked cleaner than a nightclub drunk. He was finding almost nothing, now - fragments of broken pottery and ceramic, edges of fabric, rotting into the mud. The half-eaten corpse of some rodent-thing, its skull gleaming golden in the light. There were pieces of seashell, long since shattered; there was half of some tiki-type carving that seemed to have been made from bone.
As he picked up the tiki-thing, something shuddered in his skin, a subtle creeping, like fungus, a crawling sensation that spread across his shoulders...
And he knew exactly what the fuck that meant.
Shit.
He dropped the carving, pulled out of the thoroughfare and found cover - the remains of the nearest stall. He pulled his cloak tighter, kicked his oculars into the brilliant grey-green of starlites and turned to look for the predator.
Come on then. Heeeeeere kitty, kitty, kitty...
The dawn light was failing. The grey clouds thickened, closing over the fading moons and the city’s lighthouse tower.
The first spits of rain were cold, like gravel.
But Ecko didn’t care. His adrenals had kicked, elation and eagerness; their tremble spread slowly through his system, lifting and charging him, making him shiver. He felt faintly sick - and he fucking loved it.
Trembling with anticipation, he waited.
Just as he was creating the wave, teetering on the very tip, beginning to tell himself there was nothing the fuck there, for chrissakes... there came the sudden crash of toppling garbage.
The sound made his heart hammer, nearly scream straight out through his ribcage. He held his breath for a moment, throttling the immediate need to lash out, that instinctive knee-jerk adrenal reaction...
But damn, it felt so good...
He stayed as still as he could.
A moment later, there was a sharp snarl, close. This wasn’t Yippy, it was bigger - sounded more like a bear than a dog.
Did you get bears in artificial realities? Surely, they’d be in the woods? Or maybe this was gonna be His Greatest Fear Made Manifest.
Yeah, like I did that one already.
Ecko found his grin had spread wider, a slash of darkness.
He looked over the front of the stall.
Though the clouds were really massing now, a rising army of grey, his oculars could still see them clearly - two rangy, bone-thin critters, four-legged and taller than his hip, with heavy, protruding lower jaws. They fought for a discarded horse skull, shredding the last of the flesh from the bones of its nose. Its teeth clattered as they shook their heads, worrying at it.
As he watched, they pulled it to and fro, then dropped it. He could see them, noses lifting, heads turning, their eyes flat as mirrors and shining in the darkness. His breath froze cold in his throat - were they looking for him?
But there was no fucking way they could know he was here. He had no scent, no sweat, no fucking pores, for chrissakes. He made no noise; he cast no light, no shadow. Back in London, his tech had made him to be...
Yeah, right - this wasn’t London. Like the impossible moonlight, these critters could probably do anything. They might have motion detectors. Or radar in their butts. Or -
One of them bared its teeth, and snarled.
Fuck.
Ecko pulled back, realising he’d make a rookie mistake - he hadn’t left himself with a route out of his stealth position. If he needed to flee, he’d have to go over the front of the broken stall - and over the fucking critters.
The second one was slinking sideways, now, shoulders low -it knew exactly where he was, and was flanking him.
Teach me to be a fucking smart-ass. Shit!
He took a moment to scan the stall - weapons, ideas. Gifts of the gods, for chrissakes, a plus-five magical whosit of beastie-skinning...
There was a long, wicked-looking wooden splinter - too light to throw, but perfect for eyeballs
- and that was about his lot.
Bloody efficient fucking patrols!
The thing in front of him had lifted its chin, was still turning its head this way and that. For a frantic moment, Ecko tried to remember - was the wind supposed to be going from the critter to him, not the other way around? Hell, he’d never had to pay attention to this shit before.
Yeah, love the learnin’, Eliza, thanks for that. Gimme the download next time, willya?
But his blood was running high, his adrenaline was thundering in his ears as it hadn’t done in days. Hell, this was relief, release - trapped in the city, he might’ve been burning shit down by now, just to have something to fucking do...
Come on, critter; let’s see if you’re smart, shall we?
The creature came forwards, flap-like ears up - what had he said about radar? His starlites could pick out the other one, now to the right, just about visible through a split in the side of the stall.
No sweat. With his adrenaline kicked, he could be over the stallfront and this thing would be a carpet -
It sprang.
And fuck it was fast!
He was taken absolutely by the speed of the thing; his targeters tracked it a beat behind, their crosshairs flashing as if struggling to keep up. It was almost as fast as he was. He went over backwards, one arm raised, smashed into the back of the stall, falling awkwardly, debris scattering over him, the jaws of the thing right in his face, filthy and stinking and layered with shreds of fuck knows what.
The other one was a split-second behind it, slamming into the side of the stall hard enough to come clean through, surging forwards to help hold him down. He felt its heavy jaws slam shut a second away from his other arm.
Spittle slicked him.
Shit!
In the back of his head, something yammered, the litany of suspicion that never left him. Are you trying to teach me something, Eliza? That I can’t do this alone? That I need my friends? That I’m s’posed to be part of a fucking pack? Are you?
But the thought was a moment only; he had bigger shit to be worrying about.
In his raised hand, he still had the long wooden splinter. He flicked it through dextrous fingers and rammed it in the upper gums of the beastie in front of him, rolling sideways as he did so.
It screamed foxlike, burbling blood and drool; the sound seemed to shred the clouds, like the fabric of the stalls themselves. Through the rent, the dawn light was returning, and the back of the stall was splintering under his weight, splitting where he’d fallen into it. One critter off of him now, he flipped to his feet, tangled in cloak and wood bits, and turned back for the other.
It was there, still beside him, teeth bared, breath as toxic as its mate’s had been.
Come an’ have a go, if you think you’re beast enough...
A flash of memory: Kale, the Bard’s werecook, facing the doomed Maugrim - a flicker of over-image that made him think again about friends.
If Eliza was really trying to tell him something, she’d picked a helluva way to fucking ram it home.
Bitch.
But chrissakes, this whole reality was like that. It was like he couldn’t trust anything, like everything was some sorta tutorial, or assessment, or message -
Not now!
The thing beside him leapt, but he was already moving - one kick brought the back of the stall down completely, flapping and awning and all. He leaned down to tear the broken upright free with a savage jerk. Spear, or javelin.
Eat this, you motherf-
It was then that he saw the rest of the pack.
* * *
He came back to the city as the climbing sun streaked pink the tessellated streets. He was hurting, shaking, injured, but he’d taken out five of the fuckers, sent the sixth whining home for Mommy with its tail between its legs. Damn thing had taken a chunk of him with it - he hoped it had fucking choked.
Yeah, I still got it. The fight’s adrenaline had made him feel more like himself than he had in days. Stick that in your bong and inhale.
Around him, the tight streets of Roviarath were already wide awake. Maugrim may have been defeated, but he’d opened his darkness at the city’s border, thrown his monsters at her walls. The city herself was untouched, but her people were unforgetting and restless - and without the Fayre, they’d gotten fuck all to do.
And nowhere to live - for chrissakes, the streets were rammed.
Traders crammed the corners, bodies packed the roadways, the homeless slumped against the walls, hands outstretched. Despite the early hour, a surfeit of bazaar stalls had already grown out of the buildings, like some haphazard and multicoloured mould.
Jade’s soldiers were prowling, watchful - but there was no violence.
Yet.
One hand wrapped over his chewed arm, Ecko slipped through the chaos, a muttering, wounded wraith. He needed treatment - hell, that wasn’t s’posed to be funny - but had no wish to go to the hospice and answer a stack of nosey bastard questions. Besides, his improved antibodies should be enough, proof against tetanus and septicaemia and whatever else you got when a pack of beasties held you down and tried to fucking eat you...
When he got back up to his tiny room, though, he realised Eliza was still testing him - that he was never gonna get away from this shit.
Oh fucksake. Heeeere we go...
They were waiting for him - his erstwhile companions.
His friends.
Triqueta, rider and warrior, slight and warm and golden. Her skin and eyes and hair all gleamed in the light from his tiny window, the stones in her cheeks glittered opal. She was sitting on his bed as if Eliza had put her there, poised and gleaming, just to push his buttons.
Looking out at the city below was the girl Amethea, the leech they’d freed from Maugrim’s cathedral. She stood frowning slightly, her long blonde hair in a braid that reminded Ecko forcibly of fusewire.
Chrissakes.
Their presence made him feel trapped - like they were part of that hangman’s knot. He was never gonna get away from all this, every whichway he turned, he had to face the same conclusion - he had to surrender himself, and learn to be what Eliza wanted.
Dance, Ecko.
Yeah, like on the end of that hangman’s rope...
“Ecko!” Triqueta was grinning, up on her feet as she saw him. She went to clasp his wrist, smack him on the shoulder. “How you doing? Killed anything yet? Burned anything down?”
Her face was leaner; there were dark lines in her sunshine skin. He remembered the daemon Tarvi kissing her, the way the time had bled from her body...
He shuddered, pushed both her and the image away.
“Jeez, get off me, willya? How the hell’d you two get up here?” he demanded.
Amethea turned, a smile lighting her face. She, too, wanted to touch him, she gripped his shoulder as if he’d fade away or something. He flinched from under her grasp.
“It’s good to see you,” she said. Her eyes sparked mischievous. “You’re looking a lot... better.”
“Better than what?” Their warmth was freaking him out, they were too close. “What d’you want?”
“Us?” Triq said innocently, winking at Amethea. “We can’t just come visit?”
Visit.
The word was affectionate - a joke, an embrace. It was camaraderie and friendliness, reunion and welcome. It was everything they’d been through, everything they’d shared, all right there in the tiny room.
Visit.
“Redlock sends apologies, but he’s in the hospice.” Amethea was saying. “He’s still coughing. And dead grumpy.” Her smile was like the sun coming up. “He asked after you.”
Visit. Asked after you.
And that was the problem, right there, it was why he’d stayed away from these people: Redlock’s wound worried him. He fucking cared.
About these people. These pixels.
These ink-blots.
These devices that’d been set here to lead and control his behaviour.
“Good to see you too.” Amethea chuckled, pointed at the mess the critter had made of his forearm. “Anyone looked at that?”
“Yeah, you just did.” He was shrunk under his cowl, hiding. “Now you got five seconds before you take a flyin’ lesson. Why’d the hell d’you come up here?”
“Oh put a cork in it, will you?” Triqueta stretched the kinks from her shoulders. She looked tired, weary figments crowded at the corners of her eyes. She’d clearly been drinking, regularly and a lot.
But he didn’t care.
She said, “CityWarden sent us to find you. He wants you to stop upsetting his patrols.”
He snorted. “CityWarden can kiss my ass.”
“CityWarden’s had better offers,” Triqueta said. “You’re rattling around here like a dried grain in a skin drum, scaring the grunts and helping yourself to stuff you shouldn’t be.” She raised an eyebrow. “Larred Jade’s a good man - but you’re pushing his patience. He wants you to do something for him. A little trade for the stuff you’ve collected.”
“Oh, lemme guess.” Ecko crossed his arms and grinned. “He’s got - what? - a sewer rat problem? Local bandit lord needs spanking? Evil necromancer? C’mon, there’s gotta be -”
“Ecko, serious for a minute.” Triqueta flicked a ball of lint at him. “Jade’s working hard to fix this city. The Fayre can’t run from scattered stalls, they’ve got no way of tracking their stuff, knowing what goods go where, or what comes in return. No one can tally or allocate anything. Given enough time, the plains’ whole trade-cycle will come apart.”
Ecko’s targeters followed the lint, he caught it, flicked it back.
“I’ve just saved his fucking city.”
“He’s just saved his city. Personally went out there to fight the monsters. His people think he’s a hero and he might just save this place yet - but you’re making it hard for him. And it’s about to get harder.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Amethea said softly, “The plains are diseased.”
