by Stone, J.
Putting down the paper, Alice responded, “We ruined whatever their plans may have been by taking the girl. Besides, this was the last train going through Willow Switch for a week. It was this or nothing.”
“What if the train wasn’t part of their plan though?” he asked. “What if they had something else in mind?”
“Like what? There’s nothing in that one-horse town except the train station,” she answered. “What could they have possibly been planning there?”
“We only found the girl,” he said. “What about the others? What about the rebels? We know Hirim was with them in Ash Cloud. Where did he go from there?”
“We searched her room,” Alice said. “Put a guard on her door until we left. No one else was with her. Besides, I’m sure you’ll have the opportunity to further interrogate her for at least some small amount of time when we arrive in Cultwick City,” she said attempting to reassure him. “You’ll just have to wait until then.”
“Something isn’t right,” he said. “I’m going to check on her.”
“Do as you like, Mr. Hollow,” she said apathetically.
Edwin exited the room, leaving toward the prison car where Erynn was restrained. Alice turned back to her paper, finding another interesting article. This one described a more and more common practice in the Church of Biosynthesis and its followers.
It was a ritual where the follower would have a vial of their blood extracted and stored in the church archives beneath the Anointed Temple. The bishop of the church would then inject the follower with a syringe of genetic material from the church’s creator, Solomon Lyons, which would test the subject’s faith.
Alice recalled when she went through the baptism as a teenager. While her ceremony had proved exceedingly painful, she had ultimately survived it. After the process was complete, she was accepted into the church and began her advancement through its ranks.
Not all followers who were injected with the material lived through the baptism. The death from baptism was neither painless nor honorable. Those who died were deemed unworthy of Solomon’s gift and given a heretic’s burial. Their vial of blood was destroyed and they were erased from memory. The participant literally burned from the inside out. Organs exploded and blood boiled as the body rejected the foreign tissue.
Interrupting her nostalgia, the door opened and then shut back.
“Is everything fine, Mr. Hollow?” she asked without looking up from the paper.
“Mr. Hollow had an accident off the side of the train,” a female voice said.
Alice looked up to see Erynn walking toward her with a rifle aimed directly at her head. The operative stood dropping her newspaper to the railcar floor.
“What have you done, Ms. Clover?” Alice asked.
“Weren’t you listening?” she asked shuffling forward. “I pushed him off the damn train. You should realize though, that of the two of you... he was the lucky one. You’re getting a bullet in your skull.”
Before Alice had a chance to respond, Erynn had fired a shot from the rifle. The bullet lodged itself in her head, and Alice fell hard to the floor in a pool of her blood.
Erynn walked past Alice’s body to a table where her pistol was laying. She took it and placed it in the holster at her hip.
As she was exiting the car from the same door she entered, Alice began to stand back up, saying, “Not so fast, Ms. Clover.”
The bullet in Alice’s head slowly secreted out of her skull and fell to the floor with a soft thudding noise. The bleeding hole in the operative’s head began knitting itself back together, as Erynn looked on in horror and disbelief. Before long, the wound was completely healed, and Alice smiled calmly at Erynn. Alice brushed back a strand of hair behind her ear, wiped the blood from her forehead, and patted down her dress, ensuring she looked presentable.
“You didn’t think you would win so easily, now did you, Ms. Clover?” Alice asked.
“Clearly, it’s my fault for assuming a bullet in your brain would kill you,” she answered.
Pink, slimy tentacles began to peek out from the bottom of the operative’s dress, while a bloody crack tore down along her left arm reaching from her elbow to her wrist. The flesh peeled itself back and the bone jutted out forming a bloody blade where her hand used to be. The tentacles at her feet grew longer and longer, as they thrashed violently about the room.
Alice walked forward slowly, still smiling at Erynn. “I don’t show my beautiful mutations to very many people,” she said. “But I’ll gladly make an exception for you, Ms. Clover.”
“My luck continues,” Erynn replied dryly.
“I’ve been augmenting my body, since I was a child,” she explained. “I’ve made myself into the living weapon that the church and Cultwick need me to be. Now you will experience the power of my biosynthesis!”
One of the tentacles lurched forward, grabbing Erynn’s leg and knocking her to the ground. Her body dragged along the carpeted floor, as she was pulled toward Alice. The heretic dropped her rifle in the fall and reached back to try to grab it. Her hand grasped desperately for the butt of the gun, but she was pulled too quickly, and it was out of her reach.
Alice raised her blood-drenched blade arm, preparing to swing down, when Erynn drew her pistol and fired off another shot. This bullet landed in the operative’s stomach, causing her to loosen the grip on Erynn’s leg and delay the blow from her arm.
Erynn fired again, in the same location. This caused the wound to expand and blood gushed out of the hole, spilling on the carpet. The fabric of her dress ripped open, revealing underneath a collection of tattoos sewed into her own skin. Among them was the four-leaf clover tattoo she took from Erynn.
“You dare?!” Alice yelled, covering the wound with her hand. She again raised her bone blade and swung it down erratically at Erynn.
With the tentacles no longer holding her, Erynn crawled backward on the floor and out of the operative’s reach. Alice’s blade landed, but only found the floor of the railcar. The heretic fired off yet another shot from her pistol. This time it landed in the operative’s head, causing her to fall back from the force alone.
Erynn took this opportunity to get up, reacquire her rifle, and leave the empire railcar. Alice heard the door close behind her and looked up in time to see her enter the prison car. The operative dug the bullet from her skull with her fingers and tossed it angrily aside. A trail of blood littered the carpet, as it rolled along and stopped at the wall. She stood with a grimace displayed across her face and pursued her prisoner to the next railcar.
When she arrived in the prison car, she saw no evidence of Erynn inside. She also couldn’t see her through the window to the next car, so she walked slowly through the hall of cells passing a stack of crates. As she walked past them, Erynn fired another shot from behind the crates, this time piercing Alice’s leg.
“Gah!” she cried out, and fell to the ground in pain.
The heretic followed up the blast with a blunt hit from the butt of her rifle. Alice was knocked backward into one of the prison cells. While the operative was reeling from the strike, Erynn placed her rifle to the operative’s head and pulled the trigger. She pushed the operative’s body fully inside the cage and slammed the door shut.
Erynn swung the rifle strap over her shoulder and left the operative behind her. Before passing out from the repeated blows to the head, Alice saw her leave for the military car. Once the operative lost consciousness, the tentacles retracted, disappearing underneath the operative’s dress and her left arm reformed into a normal looking hand. The soft white skin of her arm was left in a pool of blood where the blade had previously been.
When Alice regained consciousness, she found herself still trapped in the prison cell and alone in the railcar. She stood, wobbling back and forth a moment before stabilizing herself. She tried in futility to push the prison door out but found it to be unsurprisingly locked.
Alice slammed her shoulder into the cage door, gritting her teeth, but it did
n’t budge. Stopping a moment to think, the operative spotted drilled into the wall, a hook holding a key ring with all the keys to the cells.
She looked down at her legs, as another tentacle slid out from under the dress and moved with intent toward the key ring. Alice stared with dead eyes as the appendage grabbed the keys and dragged them back to her.
The operative tried the various keys on the outside lock of her cell, until she found the one for her lock. She twisted the key and then pushed the door open, as she walked out. She retracted the tentacle completely and stared after the direction Erynn had gone.
Alice looked down at her hands covered in blood and gore, and said to herself, “The path to ascension is crafted by the syringe.”
She walked patiently back to the empire car, looking for her bag of supplies. She shuffled through the contents, until she found a syringe with a viscous, black liquid inside. Alice smiled wickedly, as she jammed the needle into her left arm, pressing down on the plunger and injecting the contents into her body.
The operative’s arm began to convulse erratically, and Alice fell to her knees in agony. The skin ripped itself apart, as the bone and muscle reformed into a thick, round mass of dripping gore.
She gritted her teeth and whispered to herself, as she stood back up, “I will sooner kill you than allow you to escape, Ms. Clover.”
Chapter 29. Germ the Assistant
The hull of the enormous skyship was coated in a vivid red paint, which had earned it the nickname, “Ruby of the Sky.” Along the ship’s edges were series of small steam engines with a propeller on their top. At both the front and back of the skyship was an additional propeller jutting up vertically.
The vessel was housed inside a huge wing of Samuel’s factory. Stairs led up to the deck of the ship, where Germ, Rowland, Hirim, Samuel, and his wife Eva were headed.
As they arrived on the deck, Samuel turned to the others and explained, “This is the empire’s Dreadnought Prime.”
“It’s certainly big enough,” Hirim said, looking around at the ship.
“If you’re ready to leave now, I’ll go ahead and get the startup going,” Samuel suggested.
“Sooner the better,” Hirim told him.
“Then I’ll get things ready,” Samuel said as he prepared to head toward a stairway leading down.
“I’ll need somewhere to set up my lab,” Rowland said.
“Eva,” Samuel said, turning back. “Show him down to the lower observatory. It has easy access into the exhaust system’s pipes, which is, I think, where we’ll need to pour in the cure.”
“Certainly,” she said and showed Rowland to another stairway at the back of the ship.
“I’ll go too,” explained Hirim.
Samuel nodded, and then added, “Germ, why don’t you come with me? I’ll need some help getting this behemoth started.”
“Very well, sir,” Germ said following behind the limping man as he made his way down the stairs.
Samuel showed him down to the bridge of the ship, which housed several complicated looking mechanical contraptions and at the center of the room, a steering wheel. The room opened out to a windowed wall, allowing for a view forward. Along the back wall was a large map outline of the ship, detailing all the areas of the vessel.
Samuel pointed Germ’s attention to the map and said, “I’ll need you to go here.” He pointed a finger to the engine room, which was situated in the center of the ship.
He then turned back toward the wheel to grab a tubular pipe jutting out of the ground with a bronze cone at its tip. “There will be one of these devices in there along the wall, which will allow us to communicate. Get there and I’ll tell you what you need to do.”
“Yes, sir,” Germ stated.
Germ looked again at the map on the wall and walked toward where he understood the room to be located. Entering it, the rat saw several large metal devices and as Samuel had said, the communication device was indeed hanging on the wall to his side.
Picking it up Germ asked warily, “Master Stilts?”
“Alright,” a voice came echoing back to him. “You’ll need to get the furnace going. There should be a pile of extra wood down there. Just throw that in, close the door, and flick the lighter switch at the side.”
“Umm, very well,” Germ said hesitantly.
He looked around for something that looked like a furnace until he found a tall metal tube with doors that opened outward. He pulled out the set of doors to find partially burned scraps of wood lying in a heap inside. Nearby was a fresh pile of wood planks, so he picked up several and tossed them into the device.
Closing it shut, he flicked the switch along the outside. Several clicking sounds emanated from inside the metal tube before a roar of a fire started.
He turned back to the communication device and said into it, “It’s lit, Master Stilts.”
A moment passed before Samuel’s voice returned, “Good. I see that. Head back here.”
Germ placed the instrument back on the wall and left the engine room. He returned to the bridge, where Samuel was fiddling with several levers and staring at the dials as they rotated back and forth.
Noting Germ’s return, Samuel pointed at a dial, saying, “Watch this. When it is full; shout out that window. I’m going to go fill the ship up on water and open the hangar ceiling.”
Before waiting for a confirmation or response of any kind, Samuel left Germ and the bridge behind him. Germ walked to the dial that Samuel had indicated and noted it being roughly a quarter of the way full. He walked over to the window, pushing it open and peering out below.
Samuel was down on the factory floor, a long hose trailing behind him as he walked to the side of the skyship. The mechanic shoved the tip of the hose into a hole near the bottom of the vessel. He looked up to find Germ still peering out the window at him.
“Go watch the dial!” he shouted to the rat, as he pulled a lever at the end of the hose.
Germ slunk back inside, running over to the dial. It slowly incremented as the water rushed inside the hull of the ship. When it began to near the full marker on the dial, Germ ran to the window.
“It’s full,” he shouted down to Samuel.
Samuel pulled back on the lever again, and the water’s flow ended. He whipped the hose toward him, as he walked to the wall of the room and wound the hose up on a hanger.
The mechanic then walked to a contraption with levers protruding from it that hung on the wall. He called out for someone, and another mechanic came. The man nodded as Samuel instructed him on something, and when their conversation had finished he flipped one of the levers.
Germ could hear gears turning and grinding above him. Looking up he saw the ceiling parting ways, as the early morning sky presented itself to them.
A few minutes passed before Samuel returned to the bridge with Germ. He moved to the levers, dials, and other assorted mechanical devices. He pushed down on a series of switches and pulled back a lever causing the ship to make an abrupt vibration.
“Hirim wanted to go to Chrome City first, right?” Samuel confirmed with Germ.
“That is correct, sir,” the rat stated.
“Why don’t you go down and let them know we’ll be there in an hour,” Samuel suggested. “Make sure that the observatory is going to work as their lab. Also send Hirim up here when he’s ready.”
Germ nodded to the pilot and took his leave of the bridge. He wandered about for some time before eventually finding Hirim helping Rowland prepare his lab, however Eva was nowhere to be seen. They had placed a large table against a wall that had an open duct that he presumed exited to the exhaust system.
Along the table were various empty beakers and the typical assortment of laboratory supplies that Rowland employed. Hirim noted the rat’s entrance and turned to face him.
“I assume the liftoff went well enough?” he asked.
“So it seems, Master Burgan,” Germ replied. “Master Stilts asked me to inform you that we are c
urrently on schedule to arrive in Chrome City within the hour.”
“Sounds good, Germ,” Hirim said.
“He also asked that you join him in the bridge when you have a moment, sir,” Germ continued.
“Hmm, might as well go now, then,” he said, “I suspect you can help the professor better than I anyway.”
Hirim left the observatory, and Germ took his place at Rowland’s side. The professor didn’t appear to notice either the coming of Germ or the going of Hirim, and he continued to work.
“Hand me that bag,” Rowland requested pointing to a large, black bag that they had carried on board the skyship.
It was full of medical supplies that they had been able to find in Pendulum Falls. They wouldn’t be enough to cure the plague, from what Germ understood, but they would be a necessary ingredient in the concoction that the professor would ultimately manufacture. The rat picked up the heavy bag and heaved it on top of the sturdy, wooden table.
Rowland began picking through the contents and laying them out among the other supplies. After the bag had been emptied, Germ picked the bag up again and placed it neatly under the table. The professor poured a few of the chemicals together and set them aside. He lit a flame on a small burner, and once the flame was at an appropriate size, placed the mixture above the flame.
The professor turned and in surprise, noted, “Germ? When did you get here?”
“I’ve been here for a few minutes, sir,” he responded.
“Well, if you say so. When are we going to leave Pendulum Falls?” he asked.
“We already have, sir,” Germ said and pointed to the passing sky in the windows of the observatory. “We’ll be in Chrome City soon. Is there anything else you need to do here, sir?”
“I will need the medical supplies from the train before I can do anything else,” Rowland explained. “Once these chemicals are properly heated, that will be all for now.”
“Sir,” Germ began. “I know I’m no scientific mind, but if you’re converting your concoction to steam, wouldn’t it rise rather than sink to the cities, as we pass them?”
