by Ramy Vance
Suzuki took the most time with the binoculars. His initial impression of the monolithic creature in the distance was correct. It was a man, but it looked like something was wrong with his body. The seat he sat in was far too bizarre-looking to be a chair. He knew they were going to have to get closer to figure it out. It was the closest thing they had gotten to what amounted to a clue as to what this cavern was being used for.
The Mundanes continued on through the cavern, slowly approaching the behemoth of a creature. Finally, they stood before the thing. A rusting ruin of a creature, it was covered in mold and lichen and more of the black petal sprouts that had been peppered throughout the caverns. The creature sitting atop the throne was at least sixteen feet tall. Its body was covered with an exoskeleton of some sort, not that different from a carapace of an insect. The throne itself was more of a small rocket or console of some kind. It was impossible to see if there were dials or if it had a computer screen from where they stood. Suzuki could tell the dead creature had been interacting with whatever it had slumped against when it died.
The throne itself could not be a throne proper. It looked to be more a floating seat. As Suzuki looked at everything, he was reminded of the grocery carts you can sit in if you have trouble walking. That was what first popped into his mind. Whatever this creature had been, it had used this throne to move around.
Suzuki walked closer to the creature. If the creature was dead, it had been dead for some time. The only smell in the cavern was of rock and the black petal sprouts and their acrid discharge. There was no smell of decay.
The closer Suzuki looked at the creature hunched over its device, the odder it seemed to him. There were tubes sticking from the creature and black stains ran down its mouth and sides, pooled in a frozen puddle on its thigh. The back of the creature appeared to have split from its exoskeleton, and what could only be described as organs and bones were spread almost like wings.
The rest of the Mundanes came up beside Suzuki, walking the breadth of the creature, trying to make sense of what they were looking at. Finally, Stew asked, “Hey, is Myrddin’s whole thing just for book nerds?”
Suzuki was wondering the same thing. “Yeah, do you know if he ever worked with Cameron or any of those guys? This looks eerie similar to the Space—”
“Dude, shut up. Remember what Diana said about the magic?”
“Oh yeah, sorry,” Suzuki said, surprised Stew remembered specific instructions, instructions about magic Suzuki had forgotten.
Beth walked behind the ruined creature. She seemed really interested in the creature’s back. “It looks a little bit like an angel,” she called before returning to the group.
Suzuki agreed before turning to Diana and Chip. “Do you think you guys could find out if Cameron or those guys ever worked on something with our ‘Angel’ here? Could give us a tip of what we might be up against. Though reading Verne didn’t really prepare me for having an existential, physic experience.”
Stew scoffed as he stretched. “Dude, you obviously were not reading Verne the right way,” he said. “Every one of those books put me in a crisis.”
“You? Having an existential crisis?”
“Yeah, I think about my own existence sometimes. It’s called introspection, ass-hat. Maybe try it some time.” That was a little bit more like the old Stew.
Chip pulled up her HUD and started writing a message. After a couple of minutes, she sent off the message and then gazed at the Angel. “The HUD don’t register our beauty as threatening.” She whistled. “I say we keep on moving if we’re all done with our little detour.”
Diana walked away from the rest of the Mundanes, back toward the Angel. “I wanna take a couple of samples before we leave,” Diana yelled back. “It could be useful. There’s a lot of flora in here I’ve never seen before. It could have a link to the Angel.”
While the Mundanes waited for Diana, they crouched and talked amongst themselves. “That was a pretty good name,” Suzuki said to Beth. “Didn’t even realize how freaky that thing’s back was.”
Beth spat on the ground and absentmindedly rubbed it in with the bottom of her boot. “Yeah, the whole back thing is freaky. Funny, I would have thought anything here named an angel would have been all EVA style. Glad that’s not the case, though. Could you imagine having to run after giant mechs with your mother’s juices inside? God, that sounds horrifying.”
Stew cast a glance at the dead Angel. “Really?” he asked. “I don’t know. I think that thing is freakier than anything I’ve seen in an anime.”
Suzuki laughed as he ran his finger over his axe, checking to see how well his enchantments were holding up. “Apparently, you aren’t watching the right kind of anime,” Suzuki said.
“True. Sandy’s shown me a couple of hentai that made me want to pull my dick up into my stomach. I was regretting my balls ever dropping.”
Beth laughed so hard she had to grab her side. “Goddamn, Stew, I forgot how much I like questing with you,” she exclaimed. “I’ve hardly heard anyone crack a joke since we started this damn thing. Everyone’s been so in their fucking heads. Don’t blame you, though. Walking through that ley line seemed like it was fucking everyone up. Suzy didn’t even make everyone uncomfortable by talking about nerd shit for too long.”
Suzuki’s eyes narrowed as he turned bright red. “Wait, I make people feel uncomfortable?”
“And we were way overdue for some of that classic ‘Suzy Insecurity.’ God, how I know you all must have missed that shit.”
Suzuki was right.
It was the first time he had heard anyone laugh in a long time.
It had been a while since he had felt like laughing as well. Hopefully, it had just been the ley line hanging over them earlier.
The only thing Suzuki could still notice was off was his chest. It felt like there was an intense pressure on it ever since they had gotten out of the ley line.
Suzuki chalked it up to the number of odd sprouts that seemed to be everywhere.
Ever since he was a kid, he had a hard time with pollen.
There wasn’t much more time to sit around and think, though. Diana had finished her sample gathering and was waiting impatiently for the rest of the Mundanes to stop sitting around and enjoying themselves. Suzuki was slightly annoyed at how quickly Diana wanted to get moving. Maybe they could all have benefited from sitting around and relaxing a little bit more. That shot of ambrosia had calmed Suzuki down a lot. He definitely wouldn’t have minded more.
The temperature of the cavern was changing dramatically. It was not nearly as hot or cold as earlier, but the air had taken on a definite chill. Suzuki thought he could hear running water up ahead, which he knew made no sense. They were too far down in the mountain for there to be any rivers or whatever. But that could also have been said about giant relics of creatures from days gone past. And the whole reason why they were down in a volcano was to try to make it to the center of Middang3ard to see where the super-intelligent dinosaurs had come from. Running water was hardly a stretch.
The cavern looked as if it dropped off in a few feet. There was a cliff in the immediate distance, and the Mundanes made their way over it. Just as Suzuki had thought, there was water. Underneath the cliff’s edge, there was a waterfall and what sounded like a coursing river. A massive chasm stood between the cliff’s edge the Mundanes were on and the one across from them. On the other side of the chasm was something like a military facility.
Beth took out her binoculars and glanced across the chasm. “What the fuck? That looks like one of ours,” she muttered. “I mean, one of theirs. Sorry, I keep forgetting I’m a Mundane, not whatever nickname those douchenozzles have for themselves.”
Suzuki checked around his immediate vicinity for something that could give some clue how to get to the other side. After a little bit of searching, he found what looked like a switch built into the side of the mountain. It didn’t look like any tech he had seen before, and he wasn’t sure how to operate
it. “Hey, Chip, can you come check this out?” Suzuki asked.
Chip came up to Suzuki’s side and leaned over to look at the switch he was pointing at. “Now, that’s an interesting piece of tech,” Chip admitted. “Any idea how to turn the bugger on?”
“I was wondering if you could help me out with that?”
“Flattering, but just because I’m mostly wires, it doesn’t mean I’m an idiot savant at tech.”
“Actually…I was wondering if you were capable of interfacing with it?”
Chip looked warily at Suzuki as she bit her bottom lip. “What you going on and asking? We all saw how that ended up last time anything interfaced with me,” she said quietly.
“That was different. That was someone overriding you. What if you could actually connect with tech on your terms?”
Chip shook her head as she backed away from Suzuki. “Ain’t happening, boyo. Too big a risk. I know you’re supposed to be a big leader and such now, but that is a lot of trouble you could be bringing down on yourself and everyone around.”
“Hold on, hold on. Our HUDs can read threats, right? How about you see how much of a threat that switch poses. Anything over ten percent we don’t bother with?”
Chip crossed her arms and looked at Suzuki as if he were joking. “The HUDs pick up on enemies. Do you think—”
“Enemies and traps. And if you think a switch can be a trap to you, doesn’t that mean the HUD should as well?”
Chip sighed and turned back to the switch. “I’ll humor you because you’re cute when you’re all hopeful and naïve. But don’t get your… All right, you little bugger, you win this one. Less than a two percent chance it’ll be a danger to me. You happy?”
“So, you’ll try?”
Chip flipped Suzuki off.
Then the tip of her middle finger broke off, showing a series of small wires that stretched out as if they were autonomous tendrils.
She turned to the switch and touched it, letting the tendrils snake around and worm their way into the switch. “Oh, gods, that feels a touch odd,” Chip murmured. “Ain’t ever done this before. And definitely never felt anything like this before. And…oh, there goes another computer system.”
Chip’s eyes went white and her body went rigid. Suzuki tried to see if everything was okay, but Chip didn’t respond to him. He called her name and waved his hands in front of her eyes, but to no avail. He was getting ready to wave the other Mundanes over when Chip’s eyes snapped back on and she let out a nervous giggle. “Do you mind?” Chip said as she straightened her clothes. “We’re in the system, and we got a nice little trolley coming across to meet us.”
Up above, Suzuki could hear gears and machinery whirring. Something like a large warehouse elevator lowered itself from the ceiling. Now that Suzuki knew what he was looking for, he could see the cables overhead and the rail that ran beneath the trolley. When the trolley came to a standstill, the gates opened.
Suzuki cast an over-the-shoulder glance at Chip. “And this is how we’re getting across?” he asked.
Chip walked past Suzuki toward the trolley. “Of course,” Chip said. “Nothing to worry about, either. No tech in there. AI, things of that sort, yes—just good old-fashioned folders and instructions. Like popping open a HUD.”
Stew ran his hand over the rusted trolley. “This thing looks ancient. What if it falls apart on us?”
“Falls apart?” Chip exclaimed. “Is there no trust in my skills at procuring comfortable travels for us? Why, I would trust this thing with my life!”
Chip knocked twice on the iron frame. There was screeching and a labored groan, then the cables the trolley were attached to snapped and the trolley fell into the chasm. Chip went red and sucked her lips back so her teeth were bared. “Okay, so I was certain about the trolley,” Chip said. “Not a lick of diagnostics on the cables, though, loves. But I got a backup. Got some directions for how to get to the other side through the little computer box, although it’s not what I would label as easy. If anything—”
Beth interrupted Chip. “Did you happen to at least find out what this place is before we start risking our necks trying to get to it?”
“Always pragmatic, my darling. You are going to make a great ranger. And, uh, no. That information was unavailable.”
“So, the place isn’t military then. There’s no way a military base wouldn’t even have the bare minimum of information. It would have been classified, but you would have been able to find something that would let you know there was classified information on there.”
Suzuki looked at the base across the chasm. “If it’s not military, I got a pretty good bet who’s behind this.”
Stew shook his head as he held up his hand. “The Dark One? This tech is way behind what we’ve seen him working with before.”
“Yeah, that was until we pulled that tech off the dinosaurs. And Diana said so herself, no one ever comes to this island. This could have been abandoned a long time ago. It would make sense that the tech is so outdated. I say we check it out. We’re already here anyway, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of options we have for exploring further.”
“I don’t know, dude. I’m really not into getting killed underground.”
Beth gave Stew a look as if he had just said he was an elephant. “Wait, are you into getting killed in other situations?” she asked.
“Of course. There’re definitely ways I’d be down dying. Doesn’t everyone have a preference?”
Chip raised her hand, but none of the other Mundanes did. Even though Diana looked annoyed with the conversation, she seemed unable to keep from asking Stew, “How do you want to get killed? And we are talking about being killed, not just dying?”
Stew’s eyes lit up brighter than a Christmas tree. “Oh, yeah, of course, those are two entirely different questions.” He beamed. “I could talk about that all night. If I was going to die, I would want it…and guys, this is totally hypothetical, all right? Don’t laugh. But if I were going to die, I would want it to be in a three-way fight with a dark dragon and a chimera. I think that would be fucking sick.”
“Are you saying you want to die in a free-for-all with two creatures that greatly outmatch you in power? That you would hardly have a chance against one on one?”
“Yeah, can you imagine if I got a couple of solid hits in there? I’d be so fucking stoked.”
Diana rested her face in her palm as she shook her head and laughed. “There are many things I haven’t been able to understand about yours and Sandy’s relationship, and the more you talk without her around, the less I understand. Gods bless you, Stew. Gods bless you.”
Stew’s eyes jumped from the rest of the Mundanes as if he were trying to gauge their reactions to what he had said. “That’s a compliment, right?” Stew finally asked.
“Yes, Stew. It is a compliment and a blessing.”
“Sweet.”
Chip cleared her throat as she bashfully kept her eyes lowered to the ground. “It’d be pretty sweet to be torn apart by an eldritch sea monster,” she muttered.
Diana’s eyes widened the way a schoolteacher’s did when she caught a student misbehaving. “Chip, are you serious? You would throw your—”
“No, nothing about throwing my life away. This is a hypothetical ideal final epic battle, nothing more.”
Chip’s HUD went off, indicating she had just received a message. She opened it up, skimmed through, and smirked. “All right, young’uns, just got word back, your pop culture knowledge is spot on,” Chip said. “Cameron was working with Myrddin. Did a couple of projects ‘till he claimed to be abducted by aliens…Myrddin wasn’t sure about working with him much after that.”
Suzuki couldn’t believe what he had just heard. A guy who was supposed to lace humanity’s consciousness with the idea of aliens got fired from his job because he thought he was abducted by aliens. “So, what Myrddin doesn’t even believe in the stuff he’s trying to get humans to believe in?” Suzuki asked.
“Could have thought it was bunk. You know, folks tapping into the collective unconscious is hit or miss sometimes.”
Suzuki shuddered, thinking back to the first time he had seen Cameron’s aliens with his parents. “For our sake, I hope we don’t have to deal with any of that shit,” he said. “You guys remember those movies? They were horrifying.”
“Obviously not hitting the point home in the right. Either way, I don’t think anyone is going to be too excited about how we’re crossing this here chasm.”
Diana pulled out her wand and pointed it at the chasm. A bright light stretched out, and in a flash, returned back to her. “From my estimate, we have to cross more than a hundred feet. So, however we do it is probably not going to be easy or enjoyable.”
Chip smiled before leaning over the side of the cliff. “You guys ever done this before?” she asked as hocked up a loogie and spat over the cliff. “You should give it a try. ‘Cause that’s where we’re on the way to. Hopefully much less quickly.”
13
Suzuki had never done anything like this before in his life.
The closest he could think of was when he was a kid and used to jump down from trees he had climbed. As he peered over the cliff, he thanked God he didn’t get vertigo and wasn’t afraid of heights. Or at least, he wasn’t sure if he was afraid of heights. The longer he stared over the edge, the more certain he was it was a terrible idea.
Chip was manning the descent.
She said it was the least she could do since the lift hadn’t worked out. It took her nearly fifteen minutes to scope out the potential depth. During that time, the Mundanes paced, each of them airing whatever misgivings they had about leaping off a cliff to descend into a volcano. Chip was undeterred by their complaints and reassured them it was the fastest and safest way down to a bridge below that they could use to cross.
Beth crossed her arms and clicked her tongue as she looked over the side of the cliff again. “I know you’re saying it’s the safest way, but I don’t see anything remotely safe about this,” Beth said.
