Butcher Block Green

by Eric Kramer

  “All right, then. Come over here. This will only hurt a little.”

  Thaame led Saat over to the altar and pulled out a cable with a round circle covered in a soft fuzz.

  “Turn around. Bend your head down.”

  The witcher grabbed Saat’s head, a sigil-callused hand forcing Saat’s chin to his chest. Tufts of black hair began wafting down onto his bony shoulders as the witcher shaved his head.

  “This is going to burn, but don’t move.”

  Cold steel pressed into Saat’s skull. Liquid warmth spread around from behind, reaching his ears. Saat forced himself to remain motionless, unwilling to show fear. Whatever was on his skull emitted a small, high-pitched whine and his head exploded in pain. An involuntary moan escaped his lips as the thing bored into his head, the vibrations jarring his whole skull. The witcher pressed harder, twisting, and Saat felt a small pop right inside his brain. The witcher let him go and walked over to his nest of wires and tools. Through the fog of pain, he heard Thaame talking to him, and Saat struggled to focus.

  “… will take the implant a few minutes to connect to your own brain. You might see, hear, taste, or feel strange things. You will have a fairly painful headache the next few days, but not to worry. All of that will go away once we remove you from your mind and insert the god inside. This is quite the find. The god-brain appears to have no damage or rot.”

  Thaame walked back over carrying a long rod connected to a rat’s nest of different colored cables. He gripped Saat’s head with an iron hand, forcing his head forward.

  “Now, you need to hold still. If you move, this will go too far inside, and we’ll have to bind someone else to the god-brain.”

  Saat’s vision flared, and he vomited.

  Pain shot through his skull, and the taste of cooked meat filled his mouth. The scent of fresh figs came and went. Thousands of flies swarmed him, covering his skin, crawling all over him. Saat lashed out scratching and slapping, trying to get them away.

  “Stop fidgeting! You’re going to ruin the connection!”

  A heavy smell of smoke filled his nostrils. Saat gagged, stomach heaving. He became aware he was on the floor, unable to control his spasming muscles, and that he’d lost control of his bowels.

  Thaame squatted down next to him, studying the strange symbols of the ancients scrolling across the glowing parchment. He touched something on it, and Saat’s body went rigid. Another touch, and it relaxed, every muscle trembling. Thaame reached behind Saat’s head and unplugged the cable, leaving a rough metal square in the base of his skull.

  “You’re connected. Before we go further, I’m required to say that the town thanks you for your sacrifice, and you will be remembered in the list of the willing. Not that you had a choice, I imagine. One more thing, and we are ready. Lie down on your stomach. I have to place something in your back.”

  “I don’t want to! I don’t want to do this!” Saat’s voice was trembling, weak.

  The witcher seemed unsurprised. He touched the sigils on his face, mumbling to himself, tracing the scars, and then touched something on his glowing parchment. Saat went limp, unable to move his body. The witcher flipped him and cut his shirt off. Cold instruments touched Saat’s back for a second, then pulled away. The room was quiet save for the sounds of metal instruments clanking against each other—sounds that frightened him. A sharp pain blossomed between his shoulder blades, right over his spine.

  Saat tried to scream, but all he could do was make weak, breathless cries. His lungs didn’t seem to be able to take in a deep breath, leaving Saat hungry for air. The witcher worked on, uncaring. More things pressed on Saat’s back, tools that caused electricity and numbness to shoot down his limbs. The pain turned time into an eternity as exhaustion turned the boy’s cries turned into whimpers, his head buried in his arms. The witcher ignored it all, continuing to work, placing something heavy along Saat’s spine. A series of clicks accompanied a thousand sharp needle pricks along Saat’s back. He shouted, tried to jump, but remained paralyzed, glued to the floor.

  “Done.” A soft sound from the glowing parchment, and Saat could move again. The strange weakness lifted off his chest. Saat took a huge breath in and let it out. Tears streamed down his face, and although he fought to hold it back, Saat started crying. Thaame seemed not to notice, but started speaking to him as though nothing were wrong.

  “I’ve mounted the brain in your back, or rather mounted it in a device that will power it and allow it to communicate. The device is slaved into your spinal cord and blood vessels … that’s how it communicates and powers itself. After a couple weeks, it will overwhelm your body, and you’ll die. Before that happens, over the next few days, we’ll wake up the god, move it into your brain, and extract all the information we can.”

  Something flew across Saat’s eye, a hovering image. He swatted at it, but his hand passed right through.

  “There is a cot over there. Go lie down. Lie on your side … the brain is in your back, so you can’t lie flat.”

  An explosion rocked the witcher’s dome, blasting debris and dust past them. Startled, Thaame jumped up, racing to the door. He reached for the handle, and the door blew open, knocking him back in a ball of fire and smoke. Saat scrambled behind the altar, hidden in the thick cloud of dust hanging in the air.

  Through the dust he saw the witcher sitting up, holding his head. Dark blood oozed from it, dust sticking to the wound. The witcher touched his sigils and scars, moving his hands in ritualistic patterns. Saat hunched lower, unsure of what to do.

  In the doorway, an apparition appeared, loose shadows oozing off it, fluttering in the wind. The witcher still sat, rubbing his sigils. Dust congealed around him, twisting in gnarled knots. The shadow at the door saw it and gave a shout, running towards the witcher.

  Thaame froze, a single finger tapping a sigil on his forehead. The sand around him condensed into a solid column, driving forward with blinding speed, slamming into the oncoming figure. The wall of the witcher’s dome exploded as the column of sand punched through the apparition and blew out the wall behind it.

  The witcher stood, still rubbing his sigils, his hands now tracing down his neck, shoulders, and chest. Saat watched, terrified, as the witcher’s legs and arms began to thicken, elongate. Thaame’s head remolded, bone erupting from his sigils with liquid pops and crawling down across his face like a giant spider, covering his eyes, nose, and mouth.

  Outside the witcher’s dome, shouts and more explosions rolled in through the doorway.

  “I want you to stay out of this, boy. Whatever happens, you protect that god-brain. If you die before it awakens, we will not be able to recover it, and your soul will be forfeit,” said Thaame’s voice, muffled behind his bone mask.

  The witcher took a step towards the doorway, the building shook, and everything disintegrated in fire.

  *******

  Saat awoke to the sounds of distant screams and shouts. His head was ringing, echoing the smell of superheated blood and crack of weapons like a gong inside his skull. A white powder filled his mouth, eyes, and nose. He coughed, spitting out wet clots of dust.

  The vision in his right eye flickered, and he felt his right arm move. Startled, Saat looked down and saw an odd liquid latticework tracing over his skin. He touched it, gingerly. It was hard as iron, but when he flexed his arm, it appeared to flex with him.

  An explosion rocked the desert, sending melting globs of sand zipping past him. A few stung his face and arms, burning welts into him. Through the haze of sand and smoke, the witcher moved like a whirlwind, chanting oral wards in an ancient tongue. The man’s sigils had taken over his entire body, snaking out of his skin and taking on a life of their own. Three dark shapes were on him, swinging weighted battle-blades with brutal violence, trying to find an opening, but it was like fighting smoke. Thaame was a blur, dancing around his attackers with impossible speed, with greater fluidity than human joints should allow. Thick spears of sand whipped around him, glistenin
g in the heat of the midday sun like oiled serpents, breaking and reforming around the battle-blades. One of the sand spears found an opening, darting out like a lizard’s tongue and skewering a figure. A mist of blood and sand exploded out of the man’s—or daemon’s—back, and it collapsed.

  Beyond the frantic battle, an oily black smoke rose up from the town. Deep horns sounded. Saat’s heart stopped in his throat as he recognized the necrotic tones twining together, announcing the fall of the town.

  Raiders. Oh no … Quuin!

  TTTThuTTTTTINITIATE::::

  The sound pounded into his brain as though someone was inside his ears yelling at him. He understood every strange letter and symbol, even though he’d never heard or seen them before.

  TTTThuTTTTTINITIATE::::

  This time, it didn’t hurt. Off in the distance, one of the raiders, a giant as big as the witcher, swung low with a huge blade, slicing off one of Thaame’s legs. The witcher went down, sand spears writhing.

  “AAAAAIIIAAAAAIIIAAA!”

  The scream was raw agony, right into his brain. It came from inside him—from that thing on his back. The sound cascaded like molten lead down every nerve in his body, coming to a focal point at the thing on his back. Saat blacked out, but managed to stay conscious. After a moment, his vision returned.

  ::ERROR::ERROR::

  ::CHRYSALIS_WEAPON_AI::BAD::SECTORS.653.123.4.45::

  The sensation pounded into his brain. Saat squinted, shook his head, trying to focus on what was in front of him. One of the raiders was standing over Thaame, bringing an enormous spiked hammer down onto the witcher’s head. A shout, and the raider looked up, right at Saat.

  His mind was on fire. Nothing seemed real. Saat stood and started running. He didn’t move anywhere. Confused, he looked down and realized he wasn’t standing.

  What is going on??

  He stood up. After a second’s delay, his legs obeyed, as though they were operating a second behind his mind. He took a step forward. A second later his leg obeyed, and he moved. Saat almost toppled over. He tried again, and again. It was getting easier. The raider was walking to him, enormous battle blade gripped in a giant hand. A thick, painted mud mask hid the man’s features, except for his dark eyes, with red fluid leaking out under them.

  ::CHRYSALIS_WEAPON_AI::REINITIATE::

  ::CHRYSALIS_WEAPON_AI::ACCESSING::STORED::PERSONALITY::

  “EEEEEEEEEEEEEHIAAAAAAA”

  Saat had taken four steps when the same scream ripped through his head, brought him down—as effective as a blow to the head. Saat moaned, and tried to turn over, but a huge mass on his back prevented him from rolling farther than his side.

  ::ERROR::ERROR::BAD::SECTORS::

  ::CHRYSALIS_WEAPON_AI::PARTITION::COMPLETE::

  ::CHRYSALIS_WEAPON_AI::REINITIATE::

  Each word stabbed at his brain, arcing down his spine. Needing to get away, Saat jumped up, stumbling, running. More shouts echoed behind him, coming his way. Ahead lay the black-veined wasteland that leached in from the dead ocean, but he didn’t care.

  “Why are you running?”

  Saat jolted at the voice. It came from the center of his head, crystal clear in the desert air. Frantic, he looked around, his hands covering his head. Behind him, two of the raiders were running after him, huge blades flashing in the late afternoon sun. A third one knelt in the sand, working on something. He raised the thing to his shoulder, aiming it at Saat.

  “Why are you running?”

  “Those … those raiders are going to kill me.” Saat gasped, in between ragged breaths. Behind him, a low crack rippled across the sand, and Saat risked another glance back. A blur streaked over the pursuing raiders, arcing towards him.

  “They have fired at you. I am tracking it. Would you like me to respond?”

  “What? Respond? What do you mean? Who are you? Where are you?”

  Ahead of Saat, the projectile thumped into the ground, sending a geyser of sand and black outward. The black congealed mid-air, landing on the dune with a thump. The mass boiled down the dune, streaking towards Saat,

  They’d fired a capsule of blood spiders at him.

  He’d seen just one of the creatures before. What it had done to the town dog after the foolish animal had unearthed its burrow had etched itself in his memory. The poor animal had crawled around town for hours, the back half of its body eaten down to the bone. Saat still remembered the twin drag marks its hind legs had left as the poor dog wandered through town, before dying in front of miner Taaer’s house.

  Saat jerked to the left, terrified.

  “Would you like me to respond?”

  “YES! YES! RESPOND!” Saat didn’t know what it meant, and didn’t care. The blood spiders were right on him.

  His spine tingled. The latticework on his arm extended beyond his hand, and under the control of something else his arm came up, the latticework flattening into an odd, ridged plate. The air in front of it warped like a heat wave, and a wire-thin line of hot white shot out, into the center mass of the oncoming spiders. It struck one dead on, vaporizing it. The thin line expanded into a column, consuming the spiders as it widened.

  “I would keep running. Your pursuers are gaining ground.”

  Saat leaped forward into a run, not realizing he’d stopped.

  “Why am I unable to establish a geosynchronous link? The vertebral exoskeleton’s systems are online, but I do not detect any active satellites.”

  Saat didn’t know how to respond to the alien words. He sidestepped the thrashing thorax of a spider, angling west. A plan formed in his mind, if he could only survive the next fifteen minutes.

  “Your pursuers are gaining on you. I would consider preparing for close-quarters combat, in approximately fifty-eight seconds.”

  “Who are you? What are you doing in my head? Are you the god?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.” The voice was toneless, inhuman despite its human words.

  “WHAT ARE YOU???”

  “I’m a Tesla weapons artificial intelligence—an AI, tuned for ballistics. I am not compatible with the Sysops vertebral warsuit you are wearing. Additionally, the suit fusion was poorly done—you are likely to suffer long-term paralysis if the interface is not properly re-inserted into your spine.”

  “I don’t know what that means!” Tears flowed down Saat’s face, sheer anger and frustration overwhelming his control.

  “I have limited function right now, but you should know that the fusion battery in your suit has almost completely decayed, which may severely restrict your ability to use the suit. However, I do not understand how that is that possible, as battery life is one thousand years. How long has this suit been in service?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know! Just PLEASE help me! I need…” Saat’s throat seized up again, as he remembered the oily smoke boiling up from the town. “I need to find my sister. Quuin. She’s in Auburn. The town. Please help me.”

  A heavy object hit him in the back, sending him flying into the sand. The shadow of a figure—a giant—cast over him. He felt pressure on the back of his head as the figure stepped on him.

  “I’m patching my interface. Sysops tech manuals are intact, despite my neural core degradation. Stand by.” The voice appeared to ignore the fact that Saat lay face down with a heavy metal boot pushing his head into the black-veined ground.

  A rough hand grabbed Saat’s arm, flipping him over.

  Two raiders stood over him, blocking out the late afternoon sun.

  One spoke and the other responded in the cryptic raiders’ tongue.

  “Look at his arm. He has the god-brain. I can’t believe it.”

  Saat realized, to his shock, he could understand the raiders’ language, albeit with a small delay.

  “Greek and Punjab. Strange language combination. I am accessing weapons systems now. I’m unable to replicate the tightbeam; the communications module for this warsuit is nonoperational,” commented the voice in Saat’s head. />
  The smaller one prodded Saat. He smelled like rancid fat and camp smoke. “I think you’re right. Take a look … The witcher fused a totem to the kid’s back. The brain is mounted in it. See?”

  They crouched down and flipped Saat over, exposing the gleaming thing on his back.

  “What is your name and rank, so I may address you by your correct title?” The voice in his head seemed completely unconcerned by what was going on.

  “Saat … and I’m a … a boy.”

  The raider slapped Saat’s head, and he saw stars.

  “Shut up, bloatworm!” He spoke in Spanol now, Saat’s language. “Perfect condition. This is it … exactly what we need.” The crouching giant reverted to the raiders’ tongue, addressing his companion. “I think we should rip off the totem on his back. As long as it’s attached to the boy, it’s a threat. You saw what it did to the spiders.”

  The larger raider tugged at the thing on Saat’s back, sending strange tingles down Saat’s legs. “Yeah … it’s going to resist if we pull it right off, though. I’ve seen this before—last year, when we attacked that little town in the north. You were lucky, weren’t with us for that one. That unholy thing gutted three of Tar’s crew when they tried to pull it off the town’s witcher.”

  “I think we should brain the boy. I’ve heard the spine and brain create energy the totem feeds off. We crush the brain, it loses power, then we take it.”

  The larger one hawked and spit a wad of brown phlegm, hitting the sand next to Saat’s face. “Well, we’re not taking prisoners this time anyways. All right. I’ll do it.”

  The crouching figures flipped Saat over and stood. The one that smelled like smoke reached behind his back, pulling a pitted sledgehammer out of a harness. “Better stand back. Sometimes the totem doesn’t like it when we kill the host.”

  He hoisted it over his head.

  Saat froze, like a rabbit caught in a trap. The sledgehammer swung down towards Saat’s face, the head of the weapon a streak slicing through the air. Saat braced himself, and everything stopped.