by Tom Julian
Droma released a flurry with her baton, and Wrath took the blows on the snout spiritedly. There was a clang of metal against armor and Wrath turned, taking Droma out with his tail. Then they were up, Droma getting inside of Wrath’s grasp and landing fists under his chin. The Sabatin wrapped his razor-tipped tongue around Droma’s neck and threw her to the ground without drawing blood. Wrath roared at Droma when she fell and hurled her high into the air with his snout. Droma landed upright though, and swung her baton around again. The men roared now and the Phaelon hissed and screeched. Feigning left then right, Droma landed a series of blows and blood spurted from under Wrath’s chin. The two were intertwined now, Wrath’s claws out and scratching. After a few seconds, Thomas separated them and the crowd booed. The two came apart and Droma lifted her arms boastfully as if she was the clear victor, but she had never been a match for Wrath.
The Phaelon and the Sabatin exchanged respectful glances and a final hiss. Gray stood, enjoying the scene and pleased that the men were energized now. When Jan died, it had been different from when they lost the others back on The Outpost. He’d been the first to pass on in Highland, in Gray’s “new part of heaven.” He needed the men to embrace what had happened, not fear it, but to be made stronger by it.
Gray considered what was happening here and the messaging it required. Izabeck stood in the back of the group, writing the bout between Wrath and Droma into gospel. Gray felt fully invested in the path, but there was an emptiness inside him even as he drew close to his goal. He had been praying silently to himself as they walked. He’d been looking to have that personal conversation with God that marked the experience of the true believer. Instead he felt humbled by the silence, by the one-sided conversation he was having and by the lack of answers coming his way. He envisioned himself alone on the deck of a ship, a storm crashing around him, calling into the tempest in vain.
Sergey appeared before Gray, with Michael’s rifle at his back. The small man smiled smugly like the cherub he was, as if somehow he could read Gray’s doubts. “Must put a weight on you, looking for something you know you’re not going to find,” he said to Gray, as Michael pushed him along.
In the distance there was a repeating sound like reverse artillery, an unnatural twang/thump. The voice of Meta, the holographic sales representative, boomed from above but she didn’t appear. “Explosions are effective, but what about an implosion?”
The thumping grew closer as the party started moving again. Small, bright, pin-sized bursts appeared about head-high along the path behind them. “Let’s move!” Warner marshaled the men. “They’re falling from the ceiling!”
The party was in an all-out run, hurdling rubble through a simulated urban area ruined by combat. Bombed out buildings and old, gutted, armored vehicles lined the path. A baseball-sized object covered in small holes fell right in front of Izabeck, but didn’t explode. He kicked it away. It burst, but instead of exploding outward, it pulled matter towards it in a tiny singularity—an implosion, leaving a scooped-out hole in the ground. An armored vehicle took a direct hit. It twisted in the air, landing in the shape of a bowtie.
The group ran across a parking lot filled with battered vehicles. With a high-pitched thump, a falling grenade imploded between two Phaelon, leaving nothing but green mist in the air. “Get cover!” Gray ordered. They dove under the old cars and trucks as the onslaught continued unbearably. When it stopped, the party rose one by one.
“Call out!” Warner yelled.
“Sebaldi…Barnabas…Thomas…Blaise…Vitus…Thaum…Ahmed…Cisus…Michael… Windwhistle…Izabeck…Gray,” the men responded.
“We’re all here. Droma lost two,” Michael reported.
Droma had been nearby when the grenade hit, and she now wiped thick, green blood from her shoulder. Gray grabbed Sergey by the collar. The small man yelped. “I can’t control this! You should go.”
Gray put a knife to Sergey’s neck. Gray seethed, exhaling out his nostrils. “I am willing to take a chance here.”
“What kind of chance?” Sergey asked.
“That we don’t need you in the control room. That maybe your DNA would be just enough.”
“No! It’ll never work without me alive. I promise you that!”
Gray smiled, putting the knife away. “But I am willing to take that chance. We’re clear?” They heard a final twang/thump in the distance. “I really do not want to die. I hope you know that.”
“I don’t want you to die either,” Sergey said, “but I’m not in control of what happens here.”
Gray sneered. “Who is?”
“Management,” Sergey responded, spreading out his hands and indicating everything around them.
Gray shook his head. “Let’s go!”
WHERE IS MY MIND?
Timberwolf moved through the garden section in The Catalog, where it had been filled with high flowers and koi ponds a few minutes ago; its landscaped beauty was now reduced to rubble by the implosion grenades. A few artificial flowers in damaged planters wagged their heads at his presence, but were unable to target him. They went off as he passed, their flechettes firing wildly.
He’d watched the onslaught of implosion grenades fall from a safe distance and now had a bead on Gray’s party up ahead of him. He quickly moved through the Sabatin products display, the shop buildings pocked with spherical impacts. The model of the giant Trike Sabatin was halfway into the street, its back part missing.
Timberwolf4545: We have to talk.
He sent a message to Achilles. He needed answers about whatever it was he found on the Glox lifter.
Timberwolf4545: So is it company policy that everybody must get cloned?
After a long pause, he got a response.
Achilles301: I can’t tell you what that was.
Timberwolf4545: But you know it was something?
Achilles301: We go way back. Longer than you know.
Timberwolf4545: Specifically, to when I was twenty years old. Ever shoot yourself?
Achilles301: You weren’t supposed to find that.
Timberwolf4545: It was supposed to find me! Something made me look in there.
Achilles301: Penny is waiting for you.
Achilles dropped the connection and Timberwolf stopped in the path. Frustrated was not the right word. He was being toyed with and he had no options. He considered just leaving, settling on some far-off colony world, but he knew he couldn’t. Kizik would stay with him and grind his mind into dust. He knew that his only real option was Penny, meeting with the A.I. and playing out his role. Go before the computer and plead for Kizik’s removal. Kneel down before the artificial soul. Achilles had told him back on The Outpost that Penny trusted him. He’d blown it off as nonsense, but now he was starting to understand. She’d known him for decades.
He zoomed in on Gray’s party with his heads-up. They were about a mile up ahead, approaching another huge door. There was nothing stopping him from attacking Gray except that, in the moment, Timberwolf wondered what exactly his self was. Not in a philosophical way, but physically and biologically. He shared a consciousness with an alien mind-bender. He’d been taken and cloned years ago by forces of Highland. Dr. Tier had explored his brain to figure out what Kizik had done to him, prodded and probed his psyche. All of this must have changed him. Where is my mind? he asked himself.
He had no answer. He wondered what he was, if he was human, even a real person anymore. An anger came up inside him, starting in his stomach and reaching his temples. He fired up the plasma driver in his gauntlet and began running. Timberwolf felt like fighting.
THE SHADOW
Gray’s party moved past a neon sign that read Weapons Free Zone. Over a short bluff, another huge door was ahead in the rock face. Meta’s tune played and she appeared along the side of the path for a moment. “As the old song says, ‘don’t take your guns to town.’”
“Sling ’em!” Warner ordered the men.
“Tru ser!” Michael told the Phaelon.
“Just keep walking,” Gray said sternly.
Sergey beckoned them forward, his eyes darting around like something was about to happen. “We’re almost there. Just ahead.”
Wrath was agitated. He grunted and screeched anxiously at something behind them. Droma knelt beside him, sniffing the air and sensing something too. “Fer ka nu zu!” she turned and said to Michael.
“Droma says it’s the demon,” Michael told Gray. Gray looked back, his eyes filled with trepidation and hope. Might Timberwolf have survived? The thought raced through Gray’s head as more pylons rose from the dust.
Thomas tried to pull Wrath away, but the beast wasn’t having it. “There’s something bothering him. It’s back there, the way we came.”
Michael jabbed his rifle into Sergey’s back and called to the men. “Fire at nothing. This is a trap! No aggressive moves.”
Barnabas, the man on point, saw it first. In front of them came a dark figure, appearing over the bluff. “Contact!” he yelled. Wrath and Droma didn’t turn to the front though, still focused on something behind them.
“I’ve got it on my heads-up!” Barnabas yelled. Indeed, a white icon signifying an unfriendly showed on everyone’s heads-up displays.
“Don’t trust your readings!” Gray ordered.
“Hold fire!” Warner said, almost begging.
The figure was a man in a dark armored rig. Moving closer, it was unmistakably Timberwolf. He was just a few yards away now, bright plasma blades glowing on his gauntlets. Barnabas shook, his finger hovering over the trigger of his weapon. The figure raised an arm to strike. Without intent, Barnabas fired a plasma burst into the ground and the image of Timberwolf vanished, a projected hologram.
The pylons that had come up from the dust opened at the top, exposing mini-turrets. From all directions, hundreds of small projectiles clanged against Barnabas’s armor with a sound like ball bearings in a dryer. He spun to get away, but there was no escape and he was the only target. After a few long moments, he fell dead, a trickle of blood coming from a spot between his eyes. With a hydraulic hiss, the pylons disappeared into the dust again.
Through all of this, Wrath and Droma focused on their rear flank, hunting for a threat they knew was real and behind them.
Gray grabbed Sergey and threw him to the ground. The tiny man scrambled to his feet, a rock in his hand.
“Just ahead? Just ahead?” Gray bellowed.
“Yes!”
“Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you some pain before we get there,” Gray said almost casually.
“That doesn’t make any sense! I can’t control this!”
“My men didn’t need to die here!”
“You didn’t need to come here!” Sergey said, scared and desperate. Michael knocked the rock from Sergey’s hand.
“Hold him!” Gray ordered. Michael and Windwhistle each grabbed an arm. Sergey struggled. He was much stronger than he looked. Gray approached, stepping over Barnabas’s body. He knelt and fiddled with his rifle. A white-hot flame shot from the barrel like an arc light. “It’s never good to get an injury in the field. You know infection has killed more men than guns ever did. So, I’m going to make sure that your wound is nice and cauterized.”
“What wound? What are you talking about?” Sergey said, confused.
“His hand!” Gray barked. Michael shoved Sergey’s hand forward. Gray held the flame under it and Sergey cringed.
“Please, no! God!”
“Whatever you are, you don’t get to talk to God. You never will.”
Gray pulled the trigger and, with a pop, Sergey had a dime-sized hole in his hand. He writhed in pain. Michael and Windwhistle released him and he fell to the dust. Sergey moaned, releasing a hoarse yelp. He squeezed his eyes shut, rolling to his side.
Wrath roared, a deep vicious complaint. “Bishop Gray! It’s got to be Timberwolf behind us!” Thomas said.
“Might be more of our sorry little friend’s tricks,” Gray responded, rolling over Sergey to his back with his foot.
“Wrath is a beast, but I’m sure there’s something,” Thomas replied.
“You can make good on this. You’ve got a way to defeat his armor. I know you do,” Gray said to Sergey.
“I’ll have to be close to him!” Sergey winced.
“There’s a door ahead. I take it we’re going through?” Michael asked. Sergey nodded. “We let the Sabatin stall him and Sergey waits for Timberwolf on the other side.”
“I’ll need my device. What you took from me before,” Sergey said, sitting up now.
Gray pulled a small smart-device from his fatigues. “You’re in luck.” He tossed it to Sergey. “But if you try anything funny at all, Mr. Dacha, I will take your other hand.”
VIOLENCE
Wrath seethed in front of the giant door. He scratched the dust, awaiting the opponent he knew was coming.
On the other side of the door, Gray’s party had found a huge, marble, spiral staircase leading to a brightly lit and cavernous room below. The place was covered in dust like the rest of Highland. It must have been a ballroom decades ago. A giant, fallen chandelier lay smashed at the foot of the stairs. Rows and rows of columns held up The Catalog above. They took positions behind fallen columns and in alcoves along the sides of the space.
Gray assessed the location for its ambush potential. “This will do.” He nodded to Michael. “Good plan.”
In front of the door above, Wrath hissed and Timberwolf approached slowly and in the open. No need for speed or stealth. They both knew where the fight was. The Sabatin’s dull silver armor reflected the dust and his tail lashed impatiently. Wrath wanted to fight as much as Timberwolf did.
Timberwolf felt a cruelty rising within him. It replaced the anger from before. He wanted to go through Wrath and rip the beast to shreds. He wasn’t thinking ahead, just that he hungered to be vicious. They circled, wiser to the other’s style this time. Timberwolf ignited the blades on his wrists, one then the other. Wrath rushed, but Timberwolf parried, slashing a wound across his skull. Surprised, the beast slinked back.
Timberwolf went in and swung with a blade, missing wide. Then they were locked together, Wrath snapping at Timberwolf’s helmet. With a flurry, they were apart again. Bayonets extended from Wrath’s forearms and the beast slashed at him. Leaping back, Timberwolf hit him with a concussion blast, knocking Wrath to the door.
They rushed each other again and again, a blur of stabbing and slashing, colliding each time like a train crash. Below in the column room Gray, Michael, and Thomas listened to the sounds of the battle above, flinching at each impact.
Wrath and Timberwolf fought mercilessly, their forms a haze of black and silver. Tiring, they both began to falter. Timberwolf created a hologram, but Wrath didn’t fall for it. He smashed Timberwolf into a rock wall and pinned him there, his jaws tearing into Timberwolf’s shoulder. He took a glowing blade to Wrath’s throat, the beast’s armor dribbling off like melted solder. Timberwolf’s rig had tears and damage almost everywhere now and the tolerances were way up into the red.
Apart once more, Wrath lunged but Timberwolf jumped straight up, propelled by thrusters in his rig. He thrusted downward and landed on Wrath’s back with a crack, breaking the beast’s spine.
Wrath struggled to turn as Timberwolf circled. Again, he felt the cruelty inside him, the want for unnecessary violence, a thing that was surprisingly alien to him. Timberwolf got to the side of Wrath and leapt on the Sabatin, pounding on his skull plate again and again. Timberwolf could feel his knuckles bruising as he landed blow after blow with his heavy armored fists, but he didn’t care. He pounded on Wrath until a final blow cracked his skull, releasing a hiss of gas. Wrath’s head slumped forward, falling into Timberwolf’s arms. For a moment, he was forced to hold Wrath like a fallen colleague, but he dropped him to the dust and a pool of red blood began to spread from the bo
dy.
The beast still twitched. Timberwolf fired up his laser to finish him off, but he stumbled, landing on his haunches against the door. Exhausted and legs shaking, he stood up, avoiding looking down at Wrath and what he’d done.
He scanned the other side of the door with micro-drones and couldn’t see anything. Something blocked their signal. He creaked the door open, expecting an ambush from all sides, but instead found himself at the top of a magnificent spiral staircase that went down to a warmly lit space at least a hundred feet below. For a moment, he wondered what would happen to his brother and to Salla, but then even their welfare went beyond him.
I’m out of damns to give, he thought to himself.
RECKONING
Sergey picked up shards from the fallen chandelier at the bottom of the staircase. They were perfect diamonds, not a creation of some carbon pressing machine, but natural, mined from two miles down inside of Highland. He had found the huge deposit himself sixty years ago. He loved diamonds and gold and precious metals, but not for their value. He loved the way they made people feel and how they looked pressed into jewelry around someone’s neck. The chandelier included over two hundred kilograms of diamonds. He put a few of the stones into his pocket.
This place has no focus, he thought to himself. Penny was desperate now to meet Timberwolf, to see if he could perhaps provide Highland a conscience, a way forward. With his uncommon mental strength, she felt he was their only hope. Maybe this would ensure that she got to meet him, unless Gray killed him on the spot, of course. He thought Gray a barbarian, no better than the hordes that had trampled his beloved Russia over a thousand years ago. His hand ached and a spot of blood appeared on the bandage. He’d do Gray’s bidding now and play his part, knowing the surprise of the endgame. Oh, the look on his face will be priceless!
Michael, Gray, and Thomas watched Sergey from behind a fallen column. Thomas had been unable to monitor the fight between Timberwolf and Wrath and couldn’t know the Sabatin lay near death above. “Wrath might come down those stairs,” Thomas offered.
