by Brian Trent
Celeste gave a sharp hiss. It was pure Wastelander whisper, a ventriloquist trick that threw her voice without an ounce of tech behind it.
In the mist ahead of them, a row of mounted horsespiders emerged in efficient, ruthless unison.
Keiko and Jack instantly crouched and took aim at the interlopers. Then Keiko saw a bead of ruby light crawling on her hand. It drew itself up her forearm, kissed her eye, and stopped on her forehead.
“Guns down,” Celeste snapped. “We’re caught.”
“By who?” Keiko demanded.
The horsespider line approached. They were massive animals, biogengineered from Clydesdale stock centuries ago as speedy six-legged warhorses. Their riders were small atop such muscular steeds; black-haired men and women with caramel-dark skin and copper-colored uniforms. No green-and-silver livery of Prometheus. No smoky blue-and-gold of the IPC. And no patchwork marauder rags.
“Throw your weapons down,” a mustachioed rider told them. “You will not be harmed if you cooperate.”
Keiko tossed aside her rifle. “I’m Internal Affairs Officer Yamanaka of—”
“Prometheus Industries, yes, we know. And Babylon Security Chief Jack Saylor, and IPC agent Gethin Bryce are with you. From the airship crash, yes?” The man touched his ear, reporting to his superiors. He didn’t look at them again as he wheeled his mount around. “We are taking you into the custody of—”
Gethin nodded. “Cappadocia.”
The security forces had brought spare mounts with them; the airship survivors were made to saddle up, safety restraints across their thighs and midsections. Horsespiders had been used as armored warhorses in the Century, but their greatest strength was speed. A healthy specimen could outpace a cheetah. The extra set of legs looked ungainly, protruding wide from their flanks. But the addition made a difference. When the security chief gave the word, the herd broke into a breakneck gallop.
An hour later, the clouds were sleeting, tinkling against their clothes like shards of glass, and continued until they reached the borders of mysterious Cappadocia.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Folk
“Prometheus will send an extraction team for us,” Keiko was saying between sips of hot Turkish coffee. “We’ll be off your hands as soon as I can get a message to them.”
Two dark security officers sat at the desk across from her in the spacious security office of Derinkuyu. Icy rain pelted the windows. Other than the mint-green glow of holopanels, the room was sunk in rich, comforting shadows.
Both officers, a man and woman, were mocha-skinned and of roughly the same build. The woman boasted a crescent-shaped scar down her face. It was almost too perfectly stylized; Gethin wondered if it was cosmetic, or some form of dermally advertised rank, given the way her peer deferred to her.
“Send a message?” the scarred woman said. “Yes, well, the premier’s office will have to authorize that.”
Keiko blinked. “I need the premier’s permission to make a phone call?” She didn’t sound angry; it could have been tact, or the comfort she was drawing from being out of Haventown. Gethin, Jack, and Celeste sat on a couch of black leather behind her, watching the exchange.
The scarred officer hesitated. “Ordinarily, no. During your time in the Wastes, a lot has happened. I have been authorized to grant the four of you sanctuary in Derinkuyu until it passes.”
“Until what passes?” she asked.
The officer tapped her desk display; the green holo reversed so the new arrivals could read it where they sat. A series of time-stamped headlines, all less than an hour old, burned against the black. Keiko felt her stomach push into her throat.
THIRTY-TWO KILLED BY PROMETHEAN ATTACKER
Click for more
MONSTER ON THE MOON?
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PROMETHEUS UNHINGED
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IPC TROOPS SEIZE CONTROL OF PROMETHEUS TERRITORIES IN EUROPE
Click for more
IPCS ALEXANDER, NOBUNAGA THREATEN PI GRAYWORLD FACILITIES
Click for more
“Cappadocia maintains steadfast neutrality in matters of this kind,” the woman explained. “What hasn’t hit the news yet is this: the IPC has commandeered the airship crash site. A Promethean Enforcer arrived a short time later and attempted to land, I presume to conduct their own inquiry, or extract their missing employees, or both. Whatever the case, their presence wasn’t welcomed. There was a firefight.”
“What?” Jack cried, leaping to his feet.
The woman fingered her scar, looking apprehensive. “The IPC vessels shot first. Strafed the Enforcer, took out a wing rotor. The vessel fired back. People were killed on both sides.”
Keiko felt the muscles in her body turning to lead. “And?”
“The Enforcer tried to withdraw, but was shot down. We don’t believe there were any survivors.”
Silence thickened in the room like a cancerous weed. The officer killed the holopanel. “I can grant you temporary sanctuary until your request is processed. But you see now why communications must be handled carefully.”
And so ends the Pax Apollonia, Gethin thought uneasily.
They took a tram down into the underground city.
* * *
Gethin knew the mountaintop metropolis was just for show; the real Cappadocia bustled in the ancient clay caves below. He had often hoped the IPC would send him to investigate it, just for the otherworldly joy of exploring its forbidden passages. The community of the so-called ‘Folk’ dwelt in a hive of carved mazes of volcanic ejecta. Wooden doors punctuated the tortuous, forlorn length of halls. Algae-lanterns glowed like constellations in the murk.
It was a place that conjured both the oldest and most modern modalities of human habitation. Was true change even possible? Gethin wondered, feeling a bout of weighty fatalism. How much of history is part of an ever-revolving wheel, turning and creaking? Here we are again in the caves. And once again there are hostile tribes and gods and monsters…dragons prowling the wilderness and archangels splitting the heavens asunder.
“No satellite can penetrate these caves,” Keiko said, drawing up beside him. “And see the picosurvs everywhere?” She indicated the dark green boxes set between the wall and ceiling of each archway they passed through.
“Yes.”
“These people survived the Warlord Century here.”
He nodded, pretending to scratch his neck while he wondered whether or not to fire up his sensorium. In the Outlands, the energy signature would have been detected instantly. Here he should be safe…as long as he stayed off the web, kept his uplinks dark, and maintained a low profile. There were certain advantages in letting the IPC think he was dead.
He pressed the dermal button.
Gethin glanced sidelong at Celeste. She appeared strangely comforted by the corridors and doorways; people watched them without lechery or menace as they passed. One silver-haired lady was sweeping her porch step, spotted them, and stared without expression.
*Impressive security, Gethin.* Id’s voice was almost conversational. *Picosystems appear to be a match for all known intrusion techniques.*
Gethin breathed the menthol-like quality of the air. “We may need it,” he muttered, thinking of the thus-far-unreported firefight between the universe’s two grand powers. Holy fuck. What had been the sequence of events? The IPC would have claimed jurisdictional rights. Prometheus should have known that, but Gethin could hardly blame them for wanting to pull their own people out of the area and, even likelier, wanting to see up close what the devil was going on. It wouldn’t be just curiosity, either; they would have
justified the invasion of temporary IPC airspace under probable cause, considering the Stillness bodies visibly strewn about the wreckage.
Or had the imposter of Colonel Tanner given the order to fire? More kindling for the blaze?
As if reading his thoughts, Keiko said, “Gethin? We have to decide what to do now.”
“What do you mean?”
“War has begun.”
He shook his head. “One incident.”
“You don’t believe that. The IPC is bringing their battleships into orbit. How do you think my superiors will respond?”
They were coming to the end of the corridor, where a commercial zone materialized in hazy dens of indigo lights. A café was first on the left and locals sat, craning their necks to view overhead viewscreens of ticker-tape headlines and live footage.
Gethin stepped into the café and said, “Your superiors will bring out their own fleet. But you’ll lose in the end, Keiko. You have to believe me.”
“You don’t know our abilities.”
“I know causalities. You’ll make a good show and kill a lot of people, but the IPC will eventually destroy you. I’m not rooting for teams here. I’m telling you it won’t work.”
“Jack and I need to know where you stand in this.”
“Depends.”
The old glare burned in her eyes. “On what?”
“Neither one of you has told me what you discovered about Kenneth Cavor.”
Her righteous wrath died instantly. She averted her eyes and exchanged an anxious glance with Jack.
Gethin grunted in satisfaction. “If he was innocent you would have brandished that fact by now. He isn’t innocent. Your people were supposed to look into it. What did you find?”
Keiko stiffened, breathed deep, and said, “Cavor was a Stillness agent.”
Jack’s eyes bulged. “You…why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Fincher ordered me to silence, even from you,” she professed. “Besides, it only came to light a couple days ago. Fincher called me in Athens to say they had dug through Cavor’s personal records and discovered he had been falsifying his whereabouts on numerous occasions. Fincher then let a hard query team go at him. They conducted a full scan, synapse by synapse. Turns out that Cavor is a terrorist sympathizer. More than that, he’s an active agent. He was reporting every stage of Base 59’s research into exotic matter to a Stillness High Priest named Father Apophis.”
Celeste rounded on her. “Apophis is the name of the creature on the moon right now!”
Keiko swallowed. “I don’t know what that thing is, I swear it.” She looked stricken. “Gethin, you said yourself we’re dealing with a new order of intelligence here. They want war between us!”
Jack paced through the café, looking exasperated. “You could have told me, Keiko.”
“I was ordered not to tell anyone!” she pleaded. “Jack! I had no choice.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gethin said. “Our enemies have wormed their way into both the IPC and PI, playing on our fears and biases.”
The conversation was attracting the attention of the café crowd. Discreetly, the group slipped out of earshot. The market was relatively deserted at this late hour. Fiberoptic cables were secured against the walls and ceiling like biomechanical ivy. Above, a trellis hung, on which pale plants glowed to provide dim, shadowless light. A newsbox stood at the corner of an intersection, displaying a new breaking report: two IPC satellites had been shot down by Promethean land-based lasers.
They were passing the newsbox when a small voice snaked out from its speakers.
“Mr. Bryce? Miss Yamanaka?”
They both whirled around, staring in surprise at the newsbox.
The voice piped up once more: “Gethin Bryce and Keiko Yamanaka?”
Gethin noticed that the holo was suddenly displaying their faces. “Who is this?” he demanded.
“I think I can prevent the war,” the voice said softly. It was harmonically distorted, although Gethin thought it sounded very young and weak. “Would you both please come to room G7128? I have much to tell you.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Exile
Jack and Celeste elected to stay behind in the marketplace, for their own reasons and for the fact that neither had been included in the mysterious invite. Room G7128 was on the seventh floor, residential district, accessible by lift and Ego’s helpful map overlay.
Gethin knocked, and the wooden residential door swung wide. A pleasant-faced woman stood revealed, wearing an apron, her hands splattered with flour.
Gethin felt his prepared introduction dry up. “Um. My name is Gethin Bryce. I received a message—”
“Oh yes!” the woman said. “Jonas gets so few friends who arrive in person. My name is Bahara.” She stared with brief concern at them, noting their battered apparel and wounds, clearly wondering what kind of ruffians her son had granted an audience to. “This really…is a treat. Please come in.”
Bahara drew aside. In the doorway of the next room, a wheelchair rolled into view. It held a small boy. A black breathing mask was strapped over his face. The boy was emaciated and pale, no muscles of any worth were visible through his T-shirt. He wore a silken eye patch.
The boy seemed to smile. The breathing patch made it impossible to tell, though his blue eyes crinkled merrily. “Gethin Bryce and Keiko Yamanaka in my mother’s house!”
Gethin approached the boy. “You have me at a disadvantage.”
“Impossible.”
They beheld each other in silence. Gethin stared past the boy into an adjacent bedroom with VR rigs and computer support equipment.
Gethin no longer participated in the addictions of Arcadia, having weaned himself off following the end of his marriage to Keiko. During his tenure as a university professor, he had occasionally indulged in online raids, battles, and explorations with what remained of his gamer clan, using new avatars that didn’t link with his famous days. Mostly, though, he stayed out of the events himself.
Nonetheless, he kept current on the new stars of Arcadia. Therefore, the Turkish boy in front of him looked mighty familiar: the breathing mask, the retro design to his wheelchair.
Gethin said, “The Exile?”
Jonas gave a short, delighted chuckle. It sounded like a crackle of static through his breathing apparatus.
Keiko came to Gethin’s side. “Who?”
“You mean to tell me you’ve never picked up an Arcadium newsletter in the last couple years?”
She was going to retort that she had been too busy in the real world, making real achievements and progress to the future. One look at Jonas stayed her tongue.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I…haven’t really followed the games since our glory days.”
The boy brightened. “No apologies necessary.” His voice was squeaky, like a chinchilla given the power of speech. “Mother? Today we are hosting two of Arcadia’s brightest stars. Gethin Bryce and Keiko Yamanaka.”
The last threads of concern faded from Bahara’s face. She shook their hands, apologizing for not having recognized them (neither Gethin nor Keiko mentioned that avatars were used instead of real photos, so recognition was impossible) and then insisted they stay for dinner.
“May I get you something to drink?” she offered. “We have excellent sodas here.”
“No, thank you.”
“I’ll leave you to talk, then.” She departed, and something about the movement inspired sorrow and hope in Gethin’s heart.
He stepped fully into the boy’s bedroom. To his bewilderment, the walls were papered by hard-copy photos – not of fictional online worlds – but o
f the far shores. He recognized the plateaus of Osiris, the tidally locked world of Epona, the richly forested vistas of Midsummer Dreams, and the stormy skies of Tempest. Worlds that were many light-years away.
“Ah,” Gethin said, peering close to one frame of gray forest that appeared to have coalesced from enormous cobwebs. “Osiris, right? Latest images?”
Jonas swiveled in his wheelchair to track Gethin. “A magnification of the forests, yes, hugging the Jormungand shoreline. A single ocean wraps around the planet like a blue belt. An exotic ecosystem. The probe has detected large shapes moving beneath the sea.”
“Probably not the best choice for colonization,” Keiko said.
“Must we colonize everywhere we go?” the boy inquired.
Gethin turned away from the photos. “You wanted to see us. You said you can stop the war. How?”
Jonas swallowed. “May I ask you to sit? The story is long…” His breathing mask shifted awkwardly around his sudden smile. “But I think you will enjoy it!”
* * *
“Someone wanted us to think the AIs were responsible for the Lunar incident,” Gethin explained. “Probably because of the airship crash and all the inconvenient press it’s getting, they seem to have abandoned that lie, and are now openly pushing for war between our respective powers.”
Bahara had brought them a plate of sigara borek, hot and crispy from the oven, with dipping sauces and lentil soup, and now she sat on the corner of Jonas’s bed to listen. The visitors were hungry; their rapid march from Haventown had been made on an empty stomach.
“I agree,” Jonas replied. He so desperately wanted to detach his breathing mask, but since his last collapse the doctors said that could be fatal. Even his food was being fed intravenously.
“What do you know?” Keiko prompted.
Jonas made no movement or reaction. He looked like an alien Buddha, Keiko thought uncomfortably. There was something dreadfully fascinating in the look of that gaunt face merging into black plastic, the tube hanging down and curling into the guts of Maximilian.
Suddenly Jonas extended a skeletal arm to his virtuboard, activating his VR rig’s projector function. A viewscreen splashed onto the bedroom wall.
