by Stone, J.
After the firing had ended, Ian yelled, “Stilts! You’ve made a grave mistake in coming here tonight. This won’t end well!”
“You touch one hair on her head, and I will make you wish you were never born!” Samuel threatened.
“What’s the play, Sam?” asked Hirim.
“No clean shot,” he explained. “And there’s four of ‘em total in there. Too many that they could use as hostages.”
“Any ideas?” Hirim asked.
“Just the one,” Rowland said.
“Which one?” Hirim asked.
“The one I just explained of course,” the professor answered.
“You didn’t explain anything, doc,” Hirim said.
“Did I not?” Rowland responded. “Hmm, that must have been in my head. I was thinking I would just mind control them all.”
“You can do that?” Samuel asked, surprised.
“We are about to find out,” Rowland remarked.
The professor flipped open a hidden compartment in his gauntlet and pulled out a slender vial of purplish goop. As he poured the contents into a syringe, Rowland noted the liquid had the distinct aroma of freshly cut grass. He injected the concoction directly into his arm, just above his gauntlet.
Rowland then pointed the device around the corner of the doorway into the barn. A blast of energy poured into the structure, and everyone inside was rendered immobile. They all stopped what they were doing, staring blankly into the distance.
Aloud Rowland issued an order, “Drop your weapons.”
Everyone holding a weapon inside the barn dropped it to the hay-covered floor. Even those who didn’t have weapons mimed the same action.
Samuel peeked around the corner again to see what the professor was doing. Upon seeing the corpsmen disarm themselves, he began to enter the barn.
“Oh, no,” Rowland said. “I would not do that. You will be caught in my brilliant mind control wave too.” The professor moved out from behind the barn wall and issued another command, “Walk toward me.”
The mob of people, corpsmen and hostages alike, shuffled forward. Rowland walked backward toward the crops and signaled for Samuel and the others to do the same.
Once the crowd was outside and in the open, Rowland stopped and said in surprise, “On no!”
“What is it?” Samuel asked.
“I think I just stepped in a wild animal’s defecation,” he explained.
The other rebels looked from one another but decided to ignore the comment. Rowland meanwhile rubbed his heel on the dew-covered grass.
After he cleaned his shoe, he said, “You will have to stay out of the path of my gauntlet, but you should be able to safely eliminate the guards now.”
“I’ll handle it,” Samuel said.
Carefully, he aimed his rifle at each of the corpsmen, shooting them one at a time. Instead of killing Ian outright, Samuel shot the man in the stomach. The wounded man didn’t even flinch when shot due to the effects of Rowland’s mind control.
“Let ‘em go now, doc,” Samuel said.
The professor clamped his fist shut and everyone under his control was released. The bewildered group of people fell to the ground, and some even vomited from the experience.
Samuel limped over to the body of Ian to find him writhing in agony on the ground. He held his hands at his stomach, trying to cover the blood flow from his gunshot wound, when he looked up to see Samuel.
“This is what you get, Burrows,” Samuel said. “This is what Cultwick breeds.”
Samuel aimed his gun at Ian’s head and unloaded the rest of the ammunition in his pistol. He looked around to find his wife, Eva staring up at him. He slowly walked over to her and embraced his wife, as she released a stream of tears.
“I knew you’d come,” she said.
“Almost didn’t,” he explained. “Wouldn’t have had the capability without the Chromework Confederacy.”
The professor smiled at her and said, “My name is Professor Rowland. Do you by any chance have any rock candy? I am having a craving.”
Eva stared at him with a confused expression, but Samuel interrupted the silence saying, “He just saved all your lives.”
“Oh. Thank you,” she finally said. “And you have the thanks of our whole city. It seems you’re a regular hero.”
“So no rock candy?” the professor asked.
During the commotion, Seymour was forced to tell Robinson’s wife and son what had happened to him. The other factory workers found their loved ones and affectionately reconnected.
After their brief rendezvous, the group made the journey back to Pendulum Falls. Rowland met with Germ and the rest of the families at the factory.
With his arm wrapped around his wife, Samuel said to Hirim, “Now, about this skyship...”
Chapter 26. Fiona the Dreamer
Inside the dark confines of the skyship cabin, Fiona tossed and turned. She had dreamt a plethora of dreams during her hibernation. She slept time away, as she waited for the moment in Newton’s vision of her future. As her mind became more occupied with the memories, emotions, and experiences of the people, she absorbed, so too did her dreams. The increased minds also meant that she reflected more on her own experiences as well.
A nightmare plagued her mind - a painfully exaggerated memory of being experimented on during her time at the Center for Empirical Research. Her body was strapped down tightly to a cold, metal slab in the middle of a large white-tiled room. Dr. Norton picked up a syringe filled with thick, white liquid from a nearby table laced with an excessive number of medical tools.
Taking the needle, he forcibly and violently plunged the sharp metal into her left leg. She attempted to scream out from the prick, but some chemical concoction she had been given prevented her from operating her body correctly. This didn’t prevent the excruciating pain, however, as the doctor again jammed the needle into her leg.
He proceeded to inject her with the syringe, working his way slowly and methodically up her body. Tears dripped off the side of her face, while he worked. She wished silently to herself that someone would save her from the pain, but no one had come to her rescue. She was forced to endure the procedure for several hours, before Dr. Norton finally finished.
Afterward, Fiona was thrown back into her cell by a pair of guards. When she landed on the cold floor of the prison, her mind altered itself. In a refusal to be put into a place of pain or suffering, she created the separate minds of Fiona and Newton.
Realizing no one would save her, she was forced to save herself. Newton couldn’t protect herself from the viciousness of her tormentors, but Fiona would be there to endure it for her. Fiona suffered for years after that initial experiment, safeguarding Newton from any further pain. It wasn’t until the migraines and their related visions started that Newton even began to remember what it felt like to experience pain.
From there the dream wandered to the experiences of Festus Fitzgerald. Festus and his partner in crime at the time, Brady Saxton, had stolen a herd of cattle from a traveling rancher. They managed to get them to Red River and sell them to the stockyards for a considerable amount.
They had bought a room at an inn in town after a long night of drinking to celebrate. During the night, Brady had crept into Festus’ room and stolen his share of the profit.
Festus publicly swore to kill Brady should he ever find him but had thus far not made good on that promise. In the years that followed, he heard rumors of Brady settling down with a wife in Red River. Festus had not looked into the truth of the matter, but had always made a point to one day look him up.
Fiona’s dream shifted somewhat from Festus’ past and jumped into his present as one of her ghoulish pets. The undead man had staggered his way into the town of Red River under the concealment of night. Instinctively, he sought out a specific home in the center of the town.
He tried the knob, finding the door to be unlocked, so he entered the house. There was a quiet stillness inside the domicile, as th
e rotting figure shambled through the rooms, looking for his old partner. Approaching a closed door, he could make out the sound of someone snoring in their sleep.
Slowly pushing open the creaky door, Festus found a large bed occupied by two bodies - a man and a woman. He approached the side the man slept on and pulled back the covers to reveal the man he knew as Brady Saxton. As the man slept, Festus lunged his mouth toward the man’s neck.
Blood splashed out of the wound, covering the white bed sheets with thick, red gore. Brady woke screaming and pushed the intruder away from him. Festus’ corpse stumbled backward and landed on the floor of the bedroom. Brady’s bride woke to the cacophonous exchange, as Brady tried to cover his gushing wound with his hands.
“Carrie,” he said. “Get out of here. Go get the sheriff.”
The woman got out of bed and raced toward the door, but Festus had already crawled toward the door. Festus managed to grab her foot, before she could exit the room. Pulling her foot to his face, he bit into her calf ripping off a chunk of her flesh. She screamed in pain, as she struggled to free herself from Festus’ grasp.
From behind, Brady had picked up a cane from beside the bed and bashed Festus on the back of the head. The ghoul was forced to let go of his grip on Carrie, allowing her to limp away from him in an attempt to escape. Brady was quickly running low on blood and fell to the ground after the swing of the club.
He lay slumped against the wall next to the door breathing heavily but was otherwise motionless. Festus crawled toward him and began to devour his flesh with little to no opposition from Brady. Before long, Fiona had acquired the life and memories of Brady Saxton, adding him to her growing collection.
Festus and Brady both stood and slowly staggered down the hallway, following the blood trail left by Carrie. They exited the front door to find she had tripped down the steps, bumping her head during the fall. She still lay there unconscious, as Fiona’s two ghouls ripped into her body, pulling out organs and binging on her entrails.
Her dream faded from that sordid scene and jumped into another memory. It was a considerably happier memory that she was more eager to experience. It was of Erynn as a small child, sitting in the living room of her modest home. She was six years old, working with her father to create what would become the first iteration of her automaton, Tern.
“Daddy!” she squealed happily. “It worked. I made his hand move!”
“You certainly did, kiddo,” he told her, after removing the wooden pipe from his mouth.
The components were spread across the floor in a mad arrangement of wires, partially assembled metal pieces, and scraps of paper with notes. She had already assembled the basis for a head and was piecing together limbs one at a time.
Picking up a small, elongated strip of chrome, her father asked, “What do you think would happen if you placed this where your finger is?”
Looking down at the robotic hand she was holding, Erynn pondered a moment before answering, “Will it increase his flexibility?”
“Smarter every day, you know that,” he said smiling at her. “Pretty soon you won’t even need my help.”
Fiddling the piece into the arm, Erynn looked up at him and said, “I’ll always need you, daddy!”
Smiling, he responded, “Well, that’s good to hear.”
Erynn placed the new piece of metal where her father had indicated, as he proudly watched her work. Before long, she had increased the range of motion capabilities in the hand.
She tested it out, and again exclaimed, “It worked!”
Her father smiled and picked up another component from their living room floor. “Try this one next, kiddo.”
“Daddy?” she asked taking the piece from him.
“Yeah, kiddo?” he replied.
She placed the component into the wrist and continued, “If you could have any super power, anything in the whole wide world, what would you pick?”
“That’s easy,” he said. “I’d pick super intelligence.”
“Super smarts?” she inquired looking up at him. “Why’s that?”
“If you’re smart enough,” he began, “you can do anything you want.”
The memory rushed forward a few years to find Erynn crying in the darkness of a closet. A man in a white lab coat opened the door with a giant rat man behind him. Fiona recognized the man as Rowland, but he looked quite different from the last time she had seen him. He didn’t have the respirator, the spectacles, or the mechanical gauntlet adorning his wrist. Germ looked similar to how she remembered him, but he appeared to be a bit younger and his fur whiter.
“Germ,” the man stated. “There appears to be a small child in the closet.”
“Yes, sir,” the rat replied. “I see that.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not supposed to be here. The dean just fired me.”
“Fired?” the rat asked. “For what?”
“I was supposed to be cleaning, but he said I was crying too much,” she said through the tears.
“Crying? What’s your name, little one?” Germ asked.
“Ryn,” she replied.
“I am Germ, and this is Master Rowland,” he said. “Now, why have you been crying?”
“My… my brother,” she said through tears.
“What about him?” he continued.
She wiped her eyes with a balled up fist and said, “They took him. For the lottery.”
Germ kneeled down to Erynn’s level and said, “What about your parents? Where are they?”
“The plague took them,” she explained, followed by an outpour of more tears.
“Those monsters took an orphan for their sick lottery?” Rowland asked, abashed.
“Do you have anyone else?” Germ asked. “Any other family?”
“It’s just me now,” she said. “Me and Tern, and I’m going to have to sell him.”
“Tern?” Germ asked.
“My automaton,” she explained. “I built him myself.”
“You built an automaton by yourself?” Rowland inquired.
“My daddy helped before he died,” she said.
“So he built the automaton then?” Rowland asked matter-of-factly.
“I built Tern!” she exclaimed. “I wired him, I welded his parts, and I programmed his logic.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Well, I have been thinking about getting an automaton. If you really did build this construct, bring him to me tomorrow. If he is worth his weight, I promise I will pay better than anyone else you will find in the city.”
Reluctantly, Erynn brought Tern to the professor the following day and showed him off to Rowland and Germ. Rowland was so impressed by the child’s ingenuity and workmanship that instead of buying Tern, he began to give her work. Her first job was to rebuild a broken pocket watch of his. Next in the height of plague fears, Rowland decided he wanted a respirator. Erynn quickly built one for him that exceeded all expectations.
It wasn’t long before Erynn was working on her creations in the corner of his laboratory and living at his home. Germ kept her clean and fed, while Rowland attempted to challenge her intellectually. She eventually made the elaborate spectacles for the professor, as well as the gauntlet he wore over his left hand.
Fiona’s mind moved away from the memories of Erynn’s childhood, instead to the mind of Benjamin Nettles and the dark thoughts of his family’s kidnapping. The corpsmen had come into his home, while his family sat down to dinner. One of the men assaulted Benjamin, hitting him in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle. As he attempted to recover from the blow, several others took his wife and young daughters.
Blood spewed forth from his broken nose, as the corpsmen’s leader told him about their new working arrangement. His blood boiled and his rage grew, seeing his family taken from him. He had failed to do anything to protect them or retrieve them though and over the days that followed, he regretted his lack of action.
With his mind stored inside Fiona’s, however, he could begin to d
o something to avenge his family. He slogged down the darkened streets of Pendulum Falls toward the mayor’s home.
The empire had been attempting to tighten its slipping grip on the ever more independent town and had somehow managed to get a loyal Cultwick man elected to the position. Due to the divisive election, his home was now constantly guarded. A pair of corpsmen patrolled the perimeter, as Benjamin approached the home.
“Hold there,” one of them called out. “What’s your business at this late hour?”
Benjamin coughed up blood attempting to speak, “Deee--” The sounds were interrupted, as a chunk of flesh was expelled from his mouth.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” the other guard asked securing his rifle in his hands.
“Deeaathh,” Benjamin finally managed to enunciate through his broken neck.
He lunged at one of the guards, causing the other to open fire at him. Before the onslaught of bullets, Benjamin knocked off the guard’s helmet and tore a chunk of flesh from the man’s face with his teeth.
The onslaught of bullets tore holes through Benjamin’s body and tossed him limply to the ground. He lay in a pool of blood, as Fiona’s connection to his corpse was slowly severed. Nearby the corpsman whose face Benjamin had ripped off bled terribly. The other guard attempted to help but found there was little he could do to minimize the effects of such a wound.
Moments after she found herself unable to control Benjamin, she inherited the memories and thoughts of Ethan Dalton. He had been a member of the Cultwick Corps for just over ten years, before he made the mistake of witnessing the wrong aristocrat with a woman not his wife. To ensure he didn’t talk, Ethan was transferred to Chrome City on a protection detail.
Fiona’s perspective changed from Benjamin to Ethan, as the body of the factory worker stopped moving. The other guard hovered over the body of Ethan, still attempting to find some way to help his comrade. Instead, Ethan pulled a pistol and fired several shots into the man’s chest. He fell to the side, as Ethan climbed on top of him and knocked his mask off, dripping blood, gore, and saliva into the man’s face.
After he sputtered out his last breaths, Fiona came to embrace the man, Harrison Clark, into her ever-expanding mind. Together Harrison and Ethan stood and entered the mayor’s home. The ghoulish corpsmen found the mayor awake and on vigil from the gunshots. He cowered in the corner of his bed, as the men shuffled into his room.
