Emergent, Book One : Isobel

by Virginia Nikolaou

  Isobel liked to think that she feared very little, but even the thought of the fierce ghost nation nomads stirred the beginnings of dread in her gut. She'd seen them often enough on the canopy over Landgraevan, their heinous acts of brutality often making the daily news broadcast.

  The Admiral had robbed the nomads of any moral fiber. Unlike the mythic creatures he conjured from his imagination, she knew that these nomads were real, and, alone in the dim tunnels, his tall tales of nonsense and monsters played heavy on her weary brain.

  Isobel's uneasy thoughts traveled with her until she came to one of the large junctions that connected the Pythean territories. She was relieved to find it well lit, the wide rails that emerged from each of the four cardinal tunnels crossing at the center of the junction clearly visible and continuing far past her line of sight.

  Air gusted through the tunnels from deep in the Pythean range, where vast, bottomless pits had formed after the storms. The gusting wind escaped into the junction, sounding like forlorn demons howling, the eerie noise louder than she recalled from her childhood, the last time she'd walked the tunnels. The wide platforms surrounding the junction had buckled onto the tracks, caved in like most of the walls, the displaced iron rails rendering them useless.

  Isobel stepped over chunks of concrete and crumbled mortar as she entered the junction, the steady drip of water a constant, lazy, ambient echo. The hub was even larger than she remembered, and a sense of vulnerability crept up her spine unsolicited. A massive light hung from the domed ceiling at the center of the hub, glowing like an indulgent fat moon. Even as a child she'd wondered how that large light burned so brightly, and in her young, imaginative mind she'd thought that perhaps it was the sun, for the sun was barely visible in the sky over Landgraevan, burning faintly behind the thick perpetual gray tule haze of Bucky's emissions.

  A loud shuffle sounded to her left and her senses immediately heightened. She paused to listen, the usual tunnel noises competing with her wild heartbeat, and gingerly took a step forward, too afraid to turn. She continued over a small mound of rubble, heading toward the north tunnel, as if conscious ignorance would will the sound away, when she heard another shuffle. She started walking faster, now nearly breathless from fear, and when she was close to the north tunnel entrance she allowed herself a quick glance over her shoulder.

  Her breath caught in her chest.

  An albino beast stood at the entrance of the east tunnel, quivering crimson eyes locked onto her. The thickset creature sniffed the air, nose twitching spastically like that of a rat. He hissed abruptly, his long, black tongue snaking through yellowed teeth as he dropped to all fours and charged. His muscled legs propelled him across the large junction in mere seconds, carrying him over the rubble in quick, powerful strides.

  Isobel faltered, tripping over herself in her haste to escape. The beast rapidly gained on her and she knew that she didn't stand a chance of outrunning him. She hit the ground just past the tunnel entrance and, in desperation, swung the flashlight with both hands just as he pounced, hitting the creature upside the head.

  He rolled into a crouched position a few yards away, swiping a trickle of blood at his temple into the white, twisted mess of silver braids coiled around his head. He was at once excitedly depraved and sad, primed to attack. He approached her on all fours, the sleek, silver fur that covered his body catching the low light.

  "How many of you are there?" he hissed.

  "Don't. Don't come any closer," Isobel warned, raising the flashlight over her head. If Admiral Vin's tall tales were true, the beast circling her was a not-so-mythical tunnel rat.

  The tunnel rat paced back and forth, swinging his head. "I asked how many of you are there?" he hissed again.

  "W-what are you talking about. It's me. I'm only me," she replied, flashlight at the ready.

  "You lie! I can smell the mystic stench following you, coming this way," he said, taking another step in her direction as the lights in the tunnel surged to a weak, murky glow.

  Isobel fumbled with the flashlight in clumsy haste, but the beast knocked it from her hand and swung her into the wall. She grunted on impact and hit the ground as he lunged, pinning her down with a knee on her chest. The beast was so heavy that she struggled to breathe, and, just as she felt darkness overwhelming her, his head darted up, black tongue flicking to sense the air, his eyes alight with ill-contained fury.

  "How many others have you brought with you? Speak!" he growled, words assailing her in sprays of cold spittle.

  She stared at the furious creature dumbly, an act that seemed to infuriate him more. He rose to his feet and struck her again. Isobel wheezed to catch her breath. She turned her head and coughed blood.

  He sniffed the air again. "There are more of your filthy brood coming. The Queen will have my braids for this!" he gurgled in rage, wringing his hands. "I hate the nasty taste of mystic meat, otherwise I'd eat you, heart first, and be done with it."

  Isobel curled into a fetal position and waited for the end; there wasn't one part of her that didn't hurt. The next strike from him would surely be the last.

  "How many mystics follow? Are you their leader?" he wheezed, the beads woven into his braids clinking as he leaned in closer.

  Isobel nodded her head absently, uncomprehending. She stared at the branding across his forehead, a scarified design, and wondered in her dazed state if he'd been imprinted too.

  He huffed in frustration, grabbing her by the arm, and dragged her across the rails. "How many more are coming? Tell me who leads the invasion! Tell me!" he bellowed, slamming her onto the ground.

  Isobel gladly fell into unconsciousness, but only briefly. She faded in and out of the dark abyss, reluctantly resurfacing at the creature's demand. The words that burst out of her mouth, in no particular order, made little sense. Lights danced around her peripheral vision. "It's me and huge army orbitals imprinting Bucky down cameras surveillance many, many, many," she mumbled in a jumbled mess of nonsense.

  The tunnel rat, however, seemed to make perfect sense of it. "Then a war you shall have," he said. "How many is many?"

  His was a stark countenance, close to the bone, as cold and impenetrable as his fierce anger. Isobel lingered on the raised sunburst pattern on his forehead, and tried to think of how many surveillance cameras she'd taken down. "Many. Many. Many. See? I have one too," she said, waving a limp hand around her forehead.

  "Many. How many is many?" he asked again, obviously indifferent to her imprinting.

  "On every avenue, on every corner, all over the territories. Tens of thousands," she croaked, thinking of the screens in Bucky's surveillance room.

  The tunnel rat stood back, visualizing armies of mystics headed their way, taking up entire avenues no less. He looked from Isobel to the junction and back again, wringing his hands, an expression of dire uncertainty on his face. He kneeled by her side again and spoke in a dangerously low voice. "Take this message back to your leader; You will not displace us again. Your armies may be strong, but ours have grown just as strong. For what you have done to mine will be done to yours. You will not escape the burden of your ancestors deeds."

  Isobel shook her head, groaning. "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't understand. My kind. What is my kind?"

  "Your blood doesn't lie. It is the very same as that serving the black hearts of those who came here and murdered my people." He grabbed her arm, yanking it away from her forehead, and, bending close, traced the imprinting with a black claw. "This imprinting is fresh, done just this night. This is why you travel alone, separated from your pack. They track you now, looking for you. But they will find you like this, nothing but an imprinted fool." He stepped away with a wry smiled and took off for the junction on all fours, continuing into the tunnel from which he'd emerged.