Deleted

by Phoenix Ward

  45

  Faithless

  King Hum was falling. He no longer had any control over his flight. Instead, he plummeted straight down into the valley he was just peacefully drifting above. He tried to alter his course, but nothing he did had any impact. He was powerless.

  The young monarch wanted to scream out for help, to raise his arms and shield his face from the approaching ground, but he could do nothing. Nothing but watch. Before long, he crashed into the earth below, a cloud of dust rising up to the heavens around him.

  With strain, he tried to sit up, but he couldn’t move. It was like he was wearing a suit made of dark matter, impossibly heavy. He could still feel everything, but he was powerless to do anything with it.

  He felt a presence return above him. It was the redheaded man, appearing in the sky again.

  “We’re trying to get you out of the simulation now, Hum — ”

  “King Hum,” the young monarch interrupted.

  “Right, King Hum,” Gauge corrected himself. “I have some bad news, though.”

  “As long as it gets me out of here, I’ll hear it.”

  Gauge took in a deep breath before continuing. “Your body is dead,” he said.

  King Hum waited for a moment, expecting the redheaded giant to elaborate. After a minute, Hum asked, “It’s dead?”

  “That’s right,” Gauge replied. “Nidus and the Council, they — they installed your brain onto a computer and destroyed your body. We can bring it out of the simpod, but at this point, it’s just a corpse.”

  “I don’t understand,” King Hum said. A tinge on panic worked its way through his veins.

  “You’re an installed intelligence now,” Gauge said. “They tricked you into shedding your body. Now you’re like me and my friend Tera.”

  King Hum didn’t reply. The world felt like it suddenly shrunk around him, like it was a plastic bag being pulled over his face. He needed to breathe but didn’t feel like he could. Like he had no mouth to take air in through, no nostrils. He felt the terror grip every part of his body — or rather, his consciousness. Being unable to stand up only made it worse.

  Everything went dark.

  Vision returned to King Hum’s eyes. The colors and forms around him were so different from the valley and the giant redhead he had just been surrounded by. It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the lighting. It appeared that he was inside a windowless room, or deep underground.

  “Where am I?” he asked.

  “You’re in the Furnace,” a familiar voice said. Turning, the young king saw a robotic man, but the voice was indistinguishable. It was Gauge. “Welcome to the headquarters of the People’s Union.”

  King Hum looked at the ceiling, which towered so high above their heads that he half expected there to be clouds between them and it. Lowering his gaze, he recognized Ethan and Tera, who watched him with concerned expressions. There was another woman there he didn’t recognize. She was a bit older than the others and had a strange device embedded into the side of her head. He eyed her with such fascination that he almost missed Adviser Orram standing in the corner of the room.

  “Not the welcoming party I was expecting,” he said. “I must have missed a lot.”

  As he spoke, something caught his attention from the corner of his vision. At first, he thought it was another bodyshell standing behind him that he hadn’t noticed, about to wrap its arms around him. Then, with an icy drop of his heart, he realized the motion came from himself. Looking down, he didn’t see the Opesian clothes he was used to wearing, nor his own naked flesh. Instead, he saw a machine. A bodyshell. His bodyshell.

  With an expression of horror, he looked up at the others. None of them seemed surprised by his predicament, but they seemed pained by it — especially Adviser Orram.

  “What’s become of me?” he asked.

  “Like we were saying,” Gauge said after a moment of solemn silence, “we weren’t able to save your body. But that doesn’t mean you won’t still be able to use one.”

  King Hum lifted his mechanical hand and stared at it. He observed the little wires, the interlocking metal pieces, the rubber and polymer that separated the joints. His face was cold — his emotions impossible to decrypt. Everyone watched him, not daring to interrupt the moment.

  “I’m a fool,” King Hum said, lowering his arm. “I should have seen through the illusion.” He looked over at Adviser Orram. “I’m not fit to be a king anymore.”

  “Nonsense, your grace,” the older man said. “You were chosen by God and the spirit of the Earth.”

  “And I was just tricked by them, too,” King Hum said, his voice louder than Ethan or Tera had ever heard it. “Please, Orram — leave me. And do not allow any of our people to see me. Not like this.”

  “As you wish,” Adviser Orram replied, bowing slightly. “However, I will continue to serve you. I have no plans of — ”

  “I said leave me,” the young king ordered once more. He turned his gaze away from the others. On the other side of the room, he saw two containers. One was empty, the lights extinguished, but the other was still filled with green goo. He could see a form floating in the middle of it.

  He took a step toward the simpod, leaning forward to see the face inside. He already knew what he would see but it still took him by surprise.

  “So this is it,” he said aloud, gazing at his own face through the glass of the simpod. “This is what death looks like.”

  “I’m sorry, King Hum,” Gauge said. The others remained silent.

  He turned back to them. “I’d like to have it put to rest, if I may,” he said.

  “Of course,” Betsy said, nodding her augmented head. “Whatever you need.”

  “Good,” King Hum replied. “I’m going to need all the help I can get to destroy Reverend Nidus and the Council.”

  46

  Scheming

  King Hum was the last to join the table, a timid look across his artificial features as he took his seat. His chair scraped across the metal floor, causing Ethan to cringe in response. The others waited patiently for the young monarch to get comfortable. He frowned as he did so.

  A giant map of Shell City was spread out over the table. The Clevingers stood at one end, Betsy balancing herself up on her arms as she leaned against the surface.

  “That’s everyone, right?” Martin said through his wife’s speaker. “Okay, good. We can get started. Gauge?”

  The I.I. rebel seemed caught off guard for a moment before rising to his feet and looking around at the table with a serious expression.

  “Our plan is to take the Pavilion in a full frontal assault,” Gauge started, scanning the faces surrounding him. “The first step to doing that is to create a diversion at the city gates.”

  “What kind of diversion?” King Hum asked.

  “A secondary attack on all of the routes in and out of the city,” Gauge answered. “It’s just for show. Hopefully we can divide their forces and make it easier for our guys to take the Council’s storage unit.”

  “Then allow me to offer my troops for the distraction,” the young monarch said. His optical lights stared at Gauge without blinking.

  “How do we move our people to the Pavilion without giving away our hand?” Tera asked. “I’m sure seeing hundreds of rebels storming their memory banks will give away our deception. Not to mention how likely it is we’ll be stopped before ever getting to the Pavilion.”

  “That’s why we’re going to take them by surprise through the geothermal ducts,” Gauge explained. “There are a couple of routes that run from the Furnace to the Pavilion; enough to sneak an entire army up there without the Council being any the wiser.”

  “What will keep the soldiers away from the Pavilion once we take them by surprise?” Adviser Orram said. “They’ll surely disengage our people at the gate when you play your hand.”

  “By then it’ll be too late,” Gauge explained. “But we do have a plan to delay their response.”

&n
bsp; Betsy took over. “Martin and I are channeling the last of our wealth into weapons for the citizens of Shell City,” she started. “We want to arm as many people as possible; especially if they’re sympathetic to our cause. That means putting a gun in the hands of every slum dweller we can. That way the Council troops will have an entire city of angry, armed citizens between them and the Pavilion.”

  “Maybe we can push it further and start a riot,” Ethan said. “Shouldn’t be hard to do. It’s practically a powder keg down there. We just need to strike a match, so to speak.”

  “If we place a few actors in the right place, a riot is all but certain,” Tera commented. “The slum dwellers are itching for a reason to fight against the cops. I can show you where they will be the most effective.”

  “Perfect,” Martin said, his voice buzzing a little in his wife’s skull speaker. “That should cover the diversion.”

  “Won’t you be a little thin on the Pavilion without my army?” King Hum asked. “Even with a distraction, there should be plenty of resistance there.”

  “The repairs on the gunships are almost done,” Gauge started. “They’ll be ready to provide some air support once we start storming the Pavilion. If we can take care of any anti-aircraft defenses when we first start the attack, they can rain fire upon the enemies.”

  The table fell silent. Every pair of eyes turned down to the map of Shell City before them. King Hum nodded for a moment before breaking the silence.

  “It sounds like we have a plan,” he said matter-of-factly. If he felt any joy over that, no one could tell. “We can win this.”

  There was a bit of scattered applause and cheering, made weak by the small number of attendants. Confident gazes met each other as they considered the task before them.

  Betsy opened her mouth to speak, but was stopped by a low rumbling and a slight vibration in the Furnace’s metal floor. Everyone turned toward the sound, which came from the southern part of the chamber.

  “What was that?” Ethan asked.

  No one answered. They listened as a deafening boom split open the man-made cavern.

  Bits of stone and debris scattered out onto the floor, clattering as they fell over the room and everyone in attendance. A few people were thrown from their chairs while others leaped from them instinctively. Ethan was knocked down and a fist-sized chunk of earth slammed into his eye. Tera ducked under the table. The concussions of debris pounding the table above her threatened to blow out her auditory receivers.

  Dust hung over the room once the percussion of destruction ceased. Ethan groaned a little as he felt the wound on his face. He heard several others making similar sounds, most of them outside the meeting room.

  Tera remained under the table for a moment after the debris stopped falling, waiting and listening. The rebels all stayed still, anticipating what might come next while trying to see through the solid cloud of dust. When the silence went on for too long and Tera considered standing up, a loud pop ripped through the room, followed by several others. It took a few seconds for the I.I. woman to realize they were gunshots. She covered her head and stayed low.

  Ethan’s uninjured eye went wide as he saw a couple of tracer rounds crash into the wall behind him. He shielded himself with his arm as he felt stone chips blown over his face. The gunfire filled his ears and caused his temples to throb like a bass drum.

  Screams broke out, melding with the gunshots to create a melody of terror. Hundreds of footsteps surrounded the meeting room, coming from both the sundered wall and farther into the Furnace.

  Ethan dared to look up and saw the attackers emerge from the hole in the wall, parting the dust as they marched forward. Most of them were bodyshells, white and pristine like a platoon of Stormtroopers. They advanced with almost robotic precision, their weapons raised and opening fire, despite being unable to see through the dust.

  “They’ve found us!” Gauge shouted from somewhere among the chaos. “Fall back! Fall back!”

  Tera scrambled from under the table, darting ahead of a pair of Council bodyshells before they could spot her. She tried to follow Gauge’s voice, who seemed to be moving away from the breach and deeper into the cavern. As she started to move, she spotted some familiar forms weaving between the Council soldiers.

  Shedders, she realized.

  Just as she recognized the cultists and spotted the guns they carried, a loud pounding sound came from the breach in the wall. She stopped for a moment when she caught the source of the commotion through the dust haze. Her jaw dropped as the form became clearer.

  It was shaped like a human — at least, the top half was. The bottom half of the creature was composed of eight spider-like legs made of jet black metal. Each step made a terrible clacking sound on the Furnace’s floor.

  Though it took the form of a man, it was at least four times larger. It seemed to be composed of a few different humans, its flesh made of different shades of pale, sewn together like some grotesque Frankenstein’s monster. It towered a good twelve feet above the other soldiers, it’s huge mouth locked in a permanent open-mouthed grin. A sickly purple tongue hung below a noseless face. Its eyes were solid black, like two pieces of charcoal.

  It let out a guttural roar unlike anything Tera had heard a man make. With a heave of its enormous muscles, it swung its arm above the troops. At least, Tera thought it was an arm. As the creature swung a second time, a third time, winding its arm up like a baseball pitcher, Tera could see it was actually a gargantuan sword. It was wide, thick, and the point was flat like an executioner’s blade.

  As the dust cleared to just a thin film, Tera saw another form emerge from the wall breach, its long robe flowing behind it. It was Reverend Nidus. He gazed over the scene with sick delight.

  “Kill them all!” he barked to the attackers.

  47

  Raid

  In the matter of an instant, the air within the Furnace erupted with gunfire, screams, and crashing metal and stone. A number of rebel soldiers flooded into the sundered conference room and started escorting those within out. Ethan stumbled a little, clutching onto his eye as a female bodyshell led the way. They passed Tera, but the rebel escort didn’t stop for a moment. Tera saw them in the corner of her vision. Turning away from Reverend Nidus and the cloud of death between them, she followed Ethan’s flight. In the blink of an eye, she was running beside him and their rebel escort, their feet pounding over the metal grate that was made up the floor.

  Gunshots exploded all around them as the rebel soldiers who weren’t escorting someone opened fire on the attackers. Ethan dared a glance back and saw a white Council bodyshell collapse in a spurt of sparks. He wanted to cheer, but the appearance of the sword-armed behemoth stole any motivation to do so. Before he could look away, Ethan saw the monstrosity cut down two rebels in a single swing. Blood sprayed from one as his torso was freed from his waist, his entrails tangling with the wires of another felled rebel.

  Tera pulled the E.M.P. blaster from its holster on her hip and aimed at the madness behind her. There was a flurry of white polymer and black metal, but she couldn’t get a good shot on the intruders. With her luck, she would hit one of the rebel bodyshells trying to protect her. With a curse, she turned back and focused on their escape.

  They darted from the conference room into the main atrium of the Furnace, but the attackers had already beaten them there. There must have been a second entry broken into the rebel’s headquarters somewhere, Tera thought. Judging by the number of white bodyshells and frantic cultists locked into combat with the soldiers of the People’s Union and Opes, they had stormed multiple points at once. This was an orchestrated attack, Tera realized.

  Two of the Council soldiers looked up from a fresh kill and spotted Tera and Ethan. They raised their rifles, but the two female rebels had a bead on them first. Tera and their escort opened fire, the bodyshell on the right tearing open as bullets hit it while the one on the left dropped dead as the life was snatched from it. Ethan trembled a littl
e as he watched the white machines fall to the floor. He couldn’t help but feel helpless.

  A familiar voice cried out from their right, but something exploded in the belly of the atrium at the same moment, so neither Tera or Ethan could make out what it said. Their escort shouted something in response. Then, the form she was addressing became clear. Betsy Clevinger ran toward them, ducking as bullets zipped over their heads. A bit of blood streamed from a small wound on her forehead. The speaker embedded in her skull seemed a little crumpled.

  “There you are!” Betsy cried. “We have to get everyone out of here! Now!”

  “We’ve got to fight!” Tera replied. “They’re attacking our home.”

  “And they’re going to take it,” Martin Clevinger interrupted. “There’s no sense in dying for this place. We need to evacuate everyone if we can; get them all to the gunships. Load everyone on that we can.”

  “Where’s Gauge?” Betsy asked, looking around at the immediate faces around her.

  “Right here, Ma’am,” the rebel’s familiar voice said as he appeared on their side. “Let’s get moving!”

  Like a pack of wolves, they started to move in unison through the chaos. The rebels outnumbered the attackers three to one out in the atrium, but that ratio was shifting by the second as more cultists and soldiers poured in through the tunnels.

  “Gauge,” Betsy said to the rebel, reaching out to stop him. “We have to save whatever equipment we can.”

  “It’s not worth it, ma’am,” Gauge replied. “We don’t have the manpower nor the space to bring them with.”

  The old woman almost stopped to protest but was interrupted by a loud crash from behind. The group collectively turned to see the doorway to the makeshift conference room explode outward as the monster’s enormous sword broke through it. The wall around it came crumbling down, burying a pair of rebel soldiers in close-quarters combat with a cultist. With a booming roar, the cyborg behemoth pushed through the debris and used the backswing of its blade to decapitate one of the Union bodyshells.