Flawed Fracture

by Katie Vack

  "Not really." He let her feel the slightest edge of his shadows, just enough to tingle, then let her go.

  She stepped backwards, rubbing her throat. "Bloody standoffs. What kept you, anyway? Karolus isn't happy."

  "He never is. And anyway, I spent a lot of that time in a prison cell. It's not like I could help it."

  She raised an eyebrow. "A prison cell?"

  Grayson set off walking again. "I've been through a lot. Don't ask."

  "You've been healed, though." She fell in beside him. "You couldn't use your hands before."

  "And you haven't. It wasn't particularly smart to start a fight in your state."

  "It wasn't a fight. I was just going to stab you."

  After all the time he'd been around her, this response honestly didn't surprise him. "In a forest like this, you must hear thousands of voices. You could track me down wherever I went; presumably how you found me now. If you really wanted to kill me you could have just waited and then shot me."

  She smirked down at him infuriatingly. "Who said anything about killing you? This was just a bit of fun."

  "Playing with sharp objects?"

  "Exactly."

  He shook his head in despair. "Brilliant. Just brilliant." The silvan bounded alongside him with an off putting kind of childish excitement, already giving him a headache. He honestly wasn't sure at this stage which was worse out of her good moods and bad. "Did Karolus station you here to wait for me?"

  "Something like that."

  "And is anyone else actually up yet?"

  "The doctor is, but then he doesn't actually seem to sleep. Aside from him, I seem to be the only one that gets up at this time."

  "There's probably a reason for that."

  "Whatever. I think it's nice like this, when the world's asleep and there's nobody else around. Calm. Peaceful. What exactly did you do to get yourself locked in a prison cell?"

  "Surprising as it may be, I actually didn't do anything. It was just a case of wrong case, wrong time."

  "How the hell did you manage that?"

  "I'll tell you later. It's a long story, and I don't feel like telling it twice." They walked together into the hospital. "I'll skip breakfast, so wake me when it's lunchtime."

  She didn't reply, but he heard a snort of amusement. He didn't suppose she'd actually do it, but you could always ask. Sometimes, you had to pick your battles.

  Plan of Attack

  "Wake up." Someone kicked his bed, and Grayson groggily opened his eyes to look up at a frustrated looking angel.

  "What time is it?"

  "Eight in the morning."

  "Early morning?" He shut his eyes again, rolling onto his side. "Let me sleep."

  Karolus kicked his bed again and Grayson squeezed his eyes tighter, fighting an urge to hit him. He really just wanted to sleep right now. Why couldn't they just leave him be?

  "Get up."

  "Make me."

  It didn't occur to him, in his half-waking thoughts, that he probably shouldn't be saying that to someone who might be more than happy to do so. Invisible hands plucked him roughly from the mattress, dropping him callously onto the cold, hard floor. Grayson thrust a hand out to catch himself and rolled to absorb the impact, a manoeuvre which was more than enough to bring him into full awareness.

  "Damnit Karolus, I didn't actually mean for you to make me!"

  "Then perhaps you shouldn't have challenged me on it. And I've already told you to call me Tans."

  "Yeah, sure," Grayson flicked back up to his feet, "like I'd listen to you just like that. And you," he directed pointedly towards Sora, who appeared to be lurking by the doorway, "I thought I told you not to wake me until lunchtime."

  She shrugged carelessly. "I didn't wake you; he did."

  Karolus didn't glance back at her. "We need to talk, boy."

  "I'm not a boy."

  "No, but you act like one. So until that changes, it's what I'm going to call you."

  "And until we join the military, which is never, I have no intention of calling you by your second name."

  "Whatever you wish. But remember that I am the one in charge of you, and you do what I tell you."

  "As though I could forget that, the way you keep rubbing it in all our faces."

  Karolus paused, as though wondering whether to press the point. "Come," he demanded at length. He led the way into the room where they had spoken yesterday, Grayson following and Sora bringing up the rear. The rest of the group were already there, waiting upon their arrival. Grayson nodded to Thief, who made another strange greeting sign.

  He sank down into a beaten and battered armchair, and Karolus set himself down opposite. "Why didn't you come back last night?"

  Straight to the point, then. "I don't see why I'd have to do that. I'm not your child."

  "No, but you are under my command and I need to know exactly where you are."

  "You're taking this command thing far too seriously. Honestly, you don't need to know every little aspect of my life."

  "Where were you?"

  Grayson sighed. "It's pretty complicated."

  "Then simplify it for me."

  "Fine." He sighed again, just to make his thoughts clear. "I went for a walk in the woods, and after a few hours I turned up at the gates of Median. I spent a while wandering around, and then I decided to go and get something to eat. Problem was, while I was there my restaurant was attacked by rebels and I was captured. I spent a while in a cell, and then they told me that if I fought for them they'd set me free. So I fought for them, and they set me free, then I walked back here, Sora found me, and I went to sleep. Is that brief enough?"

  Karolus was staring at him. "You... went for a walk and ended up fifteen miles away in Median. You were eating, and out of the blue you were attacked. You then got locked up for a period of time, fought in a rebellion against the Alliance, and made it back here before morning. What the hell kind of person does that!?"

  "I do."

  "How in the names of the gods did you manage to get yourself into a situation like that?"

  "Partly bad luck, partly coincidence."

  "You... you..." Karolus sank his head into his hands, "seven hells, this is the kind of subordinate I have to put up with."

  "It's not really that bad. I mean, I'm healed now."

  "Yeah," the doctor practically spat as he cut in, "great. Take the easy route. Take the shortcut. Take the path which is going to trap us a hundred years into the past."

  Grayson glanced over to him, confused. "What?"

  "I despise lumin healing, and I hate it more when people go to them for help."

  "Because you don't like your patients going elsewhere?"

  "Because it's a flawed and overrated art. Lumin magic forces your body to heal itself at an exceptional rate, but the magic does nothing more in itself. Sure it's fast, if speed is what you want, but it's incredibly limited. It does nothing but increase the rate of your body's natural mending, and yet people view it as something to be relied upon above all else.

  "It was science that taught us how to reattach missing limbs, not magic. It was science that created synthetic life, science which pioneered the search for true resurrection. Science has done all of this for us, and we've barely even scratched the surface, but if people continue to look instead to the easier alternative we're never going to advance. Your lumin healers make a mockery of all that I have dedicated my life to achieving. That is why I hate them."

  "Well," Grayson tried to figure out how to respond, "if it makes you feel any better I didn't do it out of choice."

  "What do you mean you didn't?"

  "I had to fight in a battle, and you know what kind of state I was in at the time. It was either let them heal me, or end up being captured or killed."

  "I see. In that case, I do feel slightly better about it."

  "But then I got them to heal me again afterwards."

  "Freak!"

  Grayson laughed. For or because of his strangeness, ge
tting a reaction out of Stein was just child's play. And the reactions seemed always to be amusing.

  Karolus turned to him. "Grayson, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to take me seriously. This is important. What exactly happened in this battle? Did they see your face?"

  "Well, yes. It's not like I fight with a mask on. Who even does that?"

  "So they saw your face. You picked a fight with the Peacekeepers, and they saw your face. You're telling me that for all we know they may already be hunting for you. That you're on the wanted list of one of the most powerful forces in the universe."

  "That's not an issue. I'm pretty sure that the rebels will have cleaned up after us- after all, they had just as much to lose as me and besides, it their leaders happen to be some old friends of mine."

  "Old friends?"

  "Well, I use the words liberally. When I say old, I really mean new, and when I say friends, I really mean acquaintances. But otherwise, yes."

  "And you trust these people?"

  "More or less. They did help me out a little while back when I wasn't in a great state. They're decent enough people."

  "Decent enough people that forced you to fight for them in a war which doesn't involve you. More, or less?"

  "Probably more."

  "I hope you're right. Because the only reason I can see them getting someone else to do their dirty work is to minimise their own casualties and have someone to pin the blame on."

  Actually, Grayson had considered that possibility, but then he'd disregarded it soon after. Mahi and Aurel weren't like that, and his capture had been a complete coincidence. "Either way, there's not much we can do about it now. It's just one of those things."

  "Yeah," Sora sniped, "because everybody ends up siding with rebels every once in a while."

  "Is there actually any reason I'm here?" Grayson shot her a venomous glance, speaking to Karolus. "It just seems like you've brought me here to interrogate me."

  "Unsurprisingly, yes, there is a reason that you're here. Do you remember when I told you to be back here for a briefing? Well guess what; that's exactly what we're doing."

  "Sorry, it slipped my mind when you woke me up before midday."

  Karolus scowled. "Then allow me to remind you. We are here because we have a new assignment."

  "How long do we have?"

  "Including today, and including travel, exactly one week."

  "And what are we doing?"

  "We're going to do some hijacking." A few eyebrows were raised, but there were no interruptions. "We're going to Luminacht Primary for this one, and if I'm not mistaken this will be the lumin's first time off planet. Correct?"

  "Yep."

  "And you've never travelled by rift before?"

  "I once punched a shakai through one. Otherwise, no."

  Karolus obviously decided it was better not to ask. "Then I'll have to explain how this works. Inter-planet travel is free and open for all UA shards and planets, of which Luminacht is one. However, the rifts tend to be dangerously unstable between broken planets, which means that the only safe method of travel is to take a rift to Earth, the only planet that remained whole, and then from Earth to Primary. Which means-"

  "I'm going to a new planet."

  Karolus frowned at being cut off. "Yes."

  "Cool."

  "Not really. Hub cities tend to be the same wherever you go. For this trip we're headed through London, but in all honesty the only difference between it and Median is the size."

  "How much smaller?"

  "More than a hundred times bigger."

  Grayson choked as he temporarily forgot how to breathe. "You what?"

  "Over three billion people, and that's not even close to some of the most populated hubs. No offence, but Luminacht is just some backwater ant compared to the major UA players."

  "None taken, I guess."

  "Good. Anyway, we go to the main rift in Median, take it to London, then take that to the main Primary hub. Rift travel is instant, but I've factored in another few hours for waiting times. It's pretty simple.

  "After that we have the rest of the day to get to our objective. It's a canyon out in the middle of nowhere, and the only defining feature is the maglev freight train which passes through it. Apparently in a week that train will be carrying a supply of stolen armaments to the terrorists. Our task is to hit that train, derail it, and then either hold the weapons until support arrives or, if we can't handle that, blow them to hell.

  "We've got a lot more intel this time, because this apparently used to be a common freight route until its use declined. Let's just say, however we go about this, it isn't going to be easy.

  "Three hundred metres in length, five tall, four wide, two thousand and twenty-nine tonnes, all travelling at about five hundred and two miles an hour. There's another three hundred and thirty-four tonnes of stolen weaponry on board. So, as I said, this will be anything but a walk in the park.

  "There are about twenty-five guards on the train, sentry robots of about rank three, and since they'll be spread out across the length of the train they shouldn't pose us a problem."

  A three dimensional map flickered into life, displaying a dried out and wasted series of canyons, ravines, and plateaus through which a little line snaked like a metallic river. The map homed in on a particular stretch, and the line made itself out to be a set of metal bars suspended in the air, presumably the track for the maglev.

  "This," Karolus pointed out, "is where I intend to hit it. It's the longest straight stretch of track, so it's the easiest place for a hijacking, but we'll still have next to no margin for error. Thirty and a half kilometres straight, followed by a canyon five hundred metres in width and twice that in depth. It sounds like a lot, but that train will eat up that thirty kilometres in two minutes and sixteen seconds. In two minutes we're going to have to get that two-point-three-six thousand tonne train out of the air and bring it to a stop. So you can see exactly what kind of task we're faced with here.

  "Our last attempt really didn't work out, and I'm not the kind of man to ignore his mistakes. As much as I hate to accept it, it was an error on my part to create a plan for the last battle without any of your input. So you're here now, and my question is this; what are we going to do?"

  None of them spoke. Grayson managed to hide his surprise at this turn of events- for Karolus to swallow his pride and ask the five of them for assistance was a big deal, and for him to show amusement at that wouldn't exactly be sensitive. Grayson might not always be a pleasant person to be around, but he wasn't going to spite this attempt at reparations.

  "The train," Crayton droned mechanically, "runs on third generation magnetic levitation technology. There will be two enormous batteries on the train from which the electromagnetic waves will be projected. The battery at the front of the train is used to accelerate the first car. The second battery, located in the rearmost car, will be used to decelerate the train to a minor degree, thereby retaining the tension between the front and rear ends and maintaining smooth running.

  "Third generation technology is flawed and outdated, severely inferior to our current ninth generation hardware. It was intended entirely for speed, and as such reliability and safety were barely considered in its development. There will be a triple rail system surrounding the train, which the electromagnetic waves will be directed at to drag it along, the idea being that operation of the train can be locally controlled locally. At each station the used batteries will be removed to be recharged, swapped out for fresh ones. The idea was cheap, simple, and easy to maintain but still effective. However, it is an incredibly problematic system, which is why it was quickly replaced."

  "And," Karolus frowned in consternation, "you know all of that off the top of your head?"

  "I needed to look up the generation of the technology, but I have the technical details stored."

  "Then, since that went over most of our heads, what exactly are you trying to say?"

  "He's saying," Stein e
xplained, "that if you can somehow interfere with the electricity you can force the train off its rails. Think of it like this: you are exerting force upon a coin from three opposite directions. When you are exerting force equally, you can hold it up in the air, but when you apply less force to one side it will move towards that side. That's what will happen to the train- the opposite poles will repel and it will be forced out of the surrounding tracks. Once that happens it will fall right out of the air."