Killers, Traitors, & Runaways

by Lucas Paynter

  As the two made their way up the path, Zaja sighed. “Back to Breth, I guess. Too bad. I could’ve spent a few weeks, easy, here. What’s this world called, anyway?”

  “Neroth,” he replied. “I doubt you’d much like it here.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Deserts often freeze at night.”

  Zaja’s mood dampened, but she said nothing.

  The duo soon reached a circular clearing above the canyon, and within a pace of entering, a rift split open like a poorly clotted wound in the air.

  Zaja took a moment to bundle back up, for the weather had been brisk when they’d left the world of Breth. While she readied herself, Flynn’s pointed ears twitched. It was a faint sound, pebbles tumbling downhill. Returning to the slope they’d just climbed, he could finally see the army’s tail fading into the distance.

  Lowering his spectacles, he surveyed the area.

  “Flynn?”

  The rift had closed when he’d stepped away and Zaja now stood waiting. With one last, dissatisfied glance, he joined her. The way opened again without ceremony, and Zaja walked to another world with acclimated ease.

  * * *

  Flynn was blindsided upon arrival. No sooner had his feet touched the ground of the Brethian train station than his arm was suddenly captured and jerked, something fabric shoved in his face. He was dragged to and forced against a nearby railing, and as he untangled the hooded coat, the first real sight he saw was the sea. Crystalline and calm, it hosted a web of pillared rails, reaching into the horizon.

  “Put it on already!”

  No one was around, but he followed the instructions all the same, zipping up and making sure to cover his head before turning to greet his assailant. Compared to him and Zaja, she’d have seemed wholly unremarkable—her brown hair was long, and coiled on her shoulders, and she was wrapped in a plain shawl with a matching skirt. But this all worked to conceal to some degree the faint blue glow emanating from her skin. Her eyes, too, glowed, and she did not keep those so readily concealed.

  “You’re finally back.”

  “I hadn’t meant to leave you waiting,” he replied. “Though before we came here, I didn’t think this pathway would be so … public.”

  One of the locals happened by, a man of uncertain age. If any part of him was still flesh and blood, it was hidden in a synthetic cage. The three stopped talking, and waited until he passed.

  “It was what it was,” Zella conceded when the man vanished from earshot. “As for the other side…?”

  “A desert canyon, going on for miles,” Flynn told her, hesitating to mention the rest.

  “There was an army, too,” Zaja added without a second thought. “We were about to hike in and take a further look, but nope. They killed that plan in a hurry.”

  “An army…?” Their companion looked at Flynn expectantly.

  “They were Reahv’li, Zella,” he replied. “Soldiers of the Living God.” Flynn studied Zella’s face, trying to discern meaning from her pensive expression.

  “I wish you’d been direct with me. This isn’t like our first meeting—you didn’t manipulate me into following. Nor would I return to them at the first opportunity.”

  “I know,” Flynn replied, and he had known, though he’d instinctually faltered. Zella was too important to risk.

  “It was frustrating,” she vented. “Waiting here so that you might return at any moment, manufacturing lies to keep passersby clear of the rift.”

  Flynn tried to lighten the mood. “We can’t all be naturals at it.”

  “No, we can’t,” Zella agreed darkly. “Even so, I’ve forgiven you. For everything.” Turning away, she added, “I’ll go get the tickets,” and left without another word.

  Flynn returned his attention to the ocean. On the farthest horizon, a dozen islands peppered the water’s edge, bridged by countless rails. Tiny machines scaled each pillar, ensuring all looked as though they had been built yesterday. The people—whose numbers behind them had increased as quickly as though Zella had never cordoned the area off—were really no different.

  “I envy them,” Zaja admitted quietly.

  The living machines were a medley of human ideals, not a one too tall or short, fat or thin, aged or flawed. Each was exactly the sort of perfect he or she wished to be.

  “They all look the same,” Flynn said. “And they … they’re difficult to read. They’re not always expressive, not unless they’re trying to be.”

  “Their bodies will never fail them, either,” she countered. “They’ll always be healthy and happy and fit. Forever.”

  Flynn had no rebuttal.

  Were he willing, he could convince her. It would take time, of course; time to find each inch in her ideals and pull her further from her core values to the ones he wanted her to adopt. Time more to realign her values to those he found preferable. Truly, almost anyone could be convinced of anything, given enough time and the right mind for the argument.

  But it was on the list of manipulations he no longer performed, however it might benefit Zaja to accept the lot of her short, remaining life.

  Concealed though Flynn and Zaja were, the locals knew their kind well. They suffered unintelligible jeers while some, parents especially, kept their half-machine children distant, as though the pair were something obscene.

  Thus far, the young were the only ones Flynn found that could be spoken with; the pity was how little could be learned from them.

  Zella returned after a time, with three holographic tickets in hand. “It’s twenty minutes until the next train to Annora. We’ll likely return home as the others do.”

  “I still should’ve gotten to go with them,” Zaja grumbled. “We had a uniform that was just my size and, come on, I’m the only one who’s actually the right age to be there!”

  “It’s not fair,” Flynn agreed. “But life seldom is.”

  * * *

  Leria brought herself to the school’s cafeteria, a place that was ever sterile and clean. It wasn’t lacking for bodies, per se, but most of them weren’t eating—or at least what they were hardly counted as food.

  While the school chef wiled away lonely hours, cooking for less than a quarter of the student body, the vending machines emptied of nutrient pastes as quickly as they’d been filled. Many of Leria’s classmates were little more than torsos with mechanical arms and legs, and some had kept not even that much. Synthetic stomachs had become all the rage a few years prior, calculating precise nutritional needs and sending that information directly to the owner’s brain. A handmade meal was too chemically unreliable for such precise instruments.

  Leria was generous with the portions when filling her plate. She didn’t want to hurt the chef’s feelings.

  Besides, she thought, he cooks better than my mom.

  Emerging with her food, Leria spied a frantic arm waving for her. “Hey there! Leria! Saved you a seat!”

  Warily, she joined a table crowded with gossiping girls, most of them a year or two younger than her.

  “Hey, Rina,” she said to the friend who’d beckoned.

  A few inches shorter than Leria, and with a skullcap of blue artificial hair, Rina beamed in greeting. Underclassmen, Leria had found, were easier to befriend—they were a little more forgiving of synthetic shortcomings. Oblivious to Leria and Rina both, the others were too caught up in gossip to even say hello.

  “…So there I was, sitting in History of Synthetics—by the way, so boring—when Paza Derrin pulls out a pair of glasses.”

  “No way!”

  “I know! Can you believe it?!”

  “Paza Derrin is so lame,” one bored girl sighed. “I’ve been saying it all along.”

  “I know, I know, but come on,” another responded. “I got new eyes when I was, like, five. I mean, who even uses glasses anymore?”

 
“You mean, besides Paza Derrin?”

  “No one, that’s who.”

  “Well, Paza’s definitely a ‘no one’ now.”

  “So…” Leria moved quietly to ask, “who’s Paza Derrin?”

  Rina just shrugged. “Don’t know. But she’s a nobody now.”

  Leria began to eat, starting with the meat on her plate. With one left arm and one right leg, she had more original parts than everyone else at the table combined, and needed to maintain all the muscle she could.

  Sometime after ranting about Paza Derrin, one of the underclassmen said, “You know who else is lame? Those new transfer students—”

  “Who?”

  “The ones who came in over a week ago,” another clarified.

  “Where’re they from, anyway?” a third asked.

  “No one knows!” Rina cut in. “The one with the spiky thing in her hair just keeps telling everyone to ‘f’ off!”

  “They’re all freaks,” the first girl huffed. “The boy is just ugly.”

  “How is anyone ugly nowadays?” a puzzled classmate asked.

  “He’s missing an eye! It’s all stitched up and gross!”

  “So why doesn’t he just get a new one?”

  “I know!” Rina laughed. “They should just ship freaks like that off to an island somewhere!”

  Leria couldn’t take it anymore. “Um … Rina? We are on an island.”

  “Some other island then, who cares?” the speaker rolled her eyes. “They’re straight skins, all three of them. I got stuck in an engineering class with the purple-haired one, and she just wouldn’t stop asking questions.”

  “You mean she was there to learn?” Rina teased. “Sounds like hell.”

  And so it went. Leria was most surprised, at this point, that she hadn’t heard of new arrivals before—least of all people like her.

  * * *

  One by one, the girls at the table drifted away until it was just Leria and Rina.

  Rina looked bored as Leria finished her meal, which had grown cold as she’d tried to keep up with the conversation. Discussions of an upcoming dance had turned against her, with teasing jeers that she should go after the blond transfer student.

  The one they all said was ugly, Leria reminded herself.

  “You’re going to need to spruce up,” Rina casually observed. “I mean, you can’t just go to the formal looking like that.”

  Leria casually brought her left arm down, hiding what she could under the table. “I’ll … get to it eventually,” she lied.

  “You know, Leria … I used to think you were cool.” Rina was reluctant to confess, and quickly turned apologetic. “Not that I don’t like you now or anything! It’s just …” Rina placed her bionic arms on the table and sighed. “Staying all flesh when the rest of us weren’t seemed pretty brave, once. But sooner or later … don’t you have to grow up?”

  Leria’s plate looked almost unused when she was done eating, and she pushed it aside to look at Rina. Her human torso was scrawny and flat, yet she was considered more woman than Leria due to her artificial arms and legs.

  Weighing her own assets in her hands, Leria sighed. “I used to think these counted for something, once.”

  “Why’s it matter?” Rina asked. “I can get bigger ones installed tomorrow … if I want.” She paused before adding, “So can you.”

  As if by deliberate timing, another of Leria’s classmates, Cetus Vellum, passed by with Zoë Hecrest in tow. Disinterested in whatever she was being dragged to see, Zoë happened to glance at Leria. Those cold, unblinking eyes met with hers momentarily, and Leria couldn’t help but feel sorry; she wondered what Zoë felt in return.

  “God…” Rina sighed dreamily, “a full synthetic body at age 17. Some people have all the luck … wish I could get in a train wreck, too.”

  “There has to be a world where that line of thinking is insane.”

  “You know she’s gonna be queen of the dance for sure,” Rina complained. “And she isn’t even that interesting!”

  Inwardly, Leria wished she only had the problems that people like Rina or Zoë faced. Graduation was imminent, and her prospects were lacking. There was still work, of course, even for someone of flesh and blood, but they were menial positions. She could never become someone important, someone that mattered.

  Rina, meanwhile, could easily outshine her. Her grades were worse and she was flighty, sure, but she would leave school with more to offer by default.

  What am I going to do? Leria asked herself in frustration.

  In welcome distraction, a voice cried out: “FIGHT!”

  Leria rose, curious about the commotion, but Rina caught her wrist and tried to pull her back.

  “We shouldn’t—” she cautioned.

  Leria wouldn’t be stopped. So far as she was concerned, it was about time someone made a scene. She didn’t even care why.

  * * *

  Their train car was practically empty.

  During their days riding the rails, Zella had noted that—given the choice—people often avoided the car they were in. While a few were merely indifferent to them, the majority of Breth’s populace shunned the unassimilated, those who hadn’t traded flesh for prosthesis. As outsiders, they couldn’t risk exposing themselves to make such a trade, even had they the desire and the means.

  Outside, the midday sky had turned dark, blanketed by a storm. Flynn watched for a time, silent, until a voice on the intercom broke that silence.

  “Sg&d d UEcS dsa#%G gdDD A& dfDFf.”

  “…unintelligible,” he muttered.

  “What do you think it was about?” Zaja asked.

  Zella, who’d appeared to have been sleeping, cracked one eye open. “Assurance that the storm won’t affect our passage,” she translated.

  Flynn from Earth; Zaja DeSarah from Oma; Zella Renivar from Boqui. Nothing was lost in translation between them, and yet here, on the world of Breth, they’d have been aimless had Zella not come this way before, thirty years past, and learned the Brethian tongue along the way.

  Surveying Zella, Flynn nodded to himself. She looks amazing, considering her age. A perk of being the daughter of the Living God. He rose from his seat and peered through the windowed door of the train car ahead, at people whose physical humanity diminished sharply with age.

  “They cleave so many parts from themselves, and retreat into realms intangible,” Zella had explained. “They speak through conduits and by those means, intention is lost. All meaning is reduced to noise.”

  Even if a human mind remained, it spoke through a mouth that was not its own, heard through ears that were likewise unnatural. It was why Flynn and the others could understand the children, or those few adults who had not cut themselves entirely away.

  “Why do you think it is, though?” Zaja asked, “I mean, that we can understand everyone else, even each other?”

  “We’ve passed between worlds,” Flynn replied, remembering what he’d been told by a fallen goddess. “We’ve learned what’s beyond and connected to it and become connected in turn. We’ve met Mystiks—humans who’ve become gods.”

  Flynn turned and looked at the opposite car, dark and unoccupied. Part of his head throbbed.

  “Flynn?” Zaja asked as he walked past.

  “I need a few minutes to myself,” he replied, moving into the vacant car.

  * * *

  A lone bulb came alive at Flynn’s entry, lighting the otherwise dark rail car. He stopped a few steps from the door. The rainfall was more noticeable in this better silence, and the isolation gave space to think. It was also a place to speak without appearing insane.

  Flynn sorted through a crowd of people in his mind. He sought to know his enemy, whose rebellion had upset the divine pantheon that he was now the sole remaining member of. With a blink, Flynn met the visage of T
aryl Renivar, the Living God whose power—if unshackled—would sunder the existence of old to create one new and unspoiled.

  This memory of Taryl Renivar was not bound to the earth, dragged to bow like in reality—there was no point in binding a mirage. Rather, he stood tall and lordly. As a human, he had lived more than half a century; as an immortal, he had witnessed a millennium. His black hair, though fading, had held its color since his ascension. Nonetheless, he was old by any measure. Old, but firm.

  The cone of light from the ceiling marked the distance between them, and he spoke. “You look to me for answers. You understand so little. Though you know what I seek to do, you do not grasp my methods or manners.”

  “I need to organize the chaos,” Flynn replied. “Much of what I have are accounts and secondhand encounters. Your soldiers, your self-proclaimed ‘right hand’—”

  “I am deeply less than the Living God,” the facsimile told him. “A memory, piecemealed from a fleeting encounter? I cannot impress upon you anything you do not already know. I am not a font of knowledge, only a fogged lens of perspective.”

  Flynn approached Renivar, his arm tensing in recollection. He’d attempted to slay the genuine article, and it was an empty motion that had meant nothing; attacking this facsimile would mean even less.

  “Your most noted lieutenant is vicious and arrogant,” Flynn accused. “Zella, your own daughter, was poised to sacrifice her life to unbind you. Your people…” Flynn growled, “…are going to hunt mine.”

  “I steward millions … perhaps more,” Taryl replied. “You are seven. I am prepared to sacrifice far more than that to ensure the safety of those I serve.”

  Flynn wasn’t sure if that was Renivar’s perspective or his own. Many Reahv’li soldiers had died for their god when Flynn and his allies had been cornered, but Renivar had been pained by their deaths.

  “They are treasured to me,” Renivar explained, reflecting Flynn’s thoughts. “Just as your friends are valued to you. Even those you have not known very long.”

  “Zella and Zaja,” Flynn acknowledged. “Jean and Mack. Chariska … and Poe.”

  “A band of killers, traitors, and runaways,” Taryl observed. “Not a one more than blades of grass to the wind. Even the last of you, my assassin-intended … until he becomes my equal, at least.”