Queen's Gambit (Lilith's Shadow Book 6)

by Benjamin Medrano

  “Circe’s doing most of the work. I could put together the frame easily enough, but I’ll bet you that it’d take me, oh… two or three days to work out the full dimensions and the programming for the 3D printers,” Lilith demurred, attaching the arm of the suit to its mount, the last of the limbs that needed to be put into place. The armor was going to be right around fourteen and a half inches tall. Circe was being far more precise than Lilith would have been, which made her smile. She looked up after it was in place, adding. “Speaking of the 3D printers…”

  “I’ve got your pieces right here, Ms. Carpenter!” Ronald McKenzie said, hurrying up to her with a small bucket filled with shining plastic pieces.

  The man had been pleasant to them so far, excited even, and Lilith appreciated his help. He was solidly built and wore a pair of round glasses that seemed to magnify his brown eyes, as well as having a curly mop of brown hair atop his head. Ronald was the manager of the makerspace that day, and he seemed fascinated by their project. He’d also proven a lifesaver when it came to shooing off fans and other attendees who were getting too close.

  “Thank you, Ron,” Lilith said, smiling broadly at him. “That helps a lot.”

  “Not a problem! Do you want help trimming the sprues? I’m sure we’d have plenty of volunteers if you want them, though Ms. Orchid probably can do the job better than most of them,” Ron said, pausing before he added. “Are you sure you don’t mind if we keep the files on-hand? It must’ve taken a while for you to prep them…”

  “Ask Circe, not me,” Lilith said, nodding toward the android with a grin. “She’s the one who created the files, so she’s the only one whose opinion counts.”

  “I disagree. The designs are based on your armor, so your opinion certainly counts,” Circe replied calmly, placing the circuit board in place and mounting it properly. “However, no sensitive information has been included in the files, as the armor design is intended to convey the proper external appearance, not the internals, so I have no concerns about it spreading. If you were to scale it up to fit a human, it would be far too bulky for use.”

  “Err, alright?” Ron said, blinking a couple of times as he handed the tray to Claire. The heroine picked up a craft knife, sheathing it in her power, and began quickly and precisely severing the sprues, then cleaning off the stubs left behind. Her ability made her so much more suited for the job than Lilith was. Lilith generally took three to four times as long, and even then she ended up trimming off a little too much.

  “I’d take that as yes, we’re sure you can keep the files,” Lilith said, grinning slightly. “Just make sure you keep a record of where they came from, hm?”

  “I can do that, and—Ed, what do you think you’re doing? One minute, I’ll be back,” Ron said, quickly moving toward a man who was futzing with a 3D printer. Lilith couldn’t be sure what he was doing from this distance, but based on Ron’s reaction, it couldn’t be something good.

  “Alright, what do you want me to do next?” Lilith asked Circe, rubbing her hands together and stretching her fingers. The soldering was fine detail work, and while her fingers didn’t cramp easily, she wanted to keep them from getting to that point.

  “Nothing until the armor plates are prepared. While I know you are capable of doing so as well, Claire is more suited to the preparation. She is incredibly precise,” Circe said calmly, looking up at Claire and giving a small smile as she added, “for a human.”

  “Yeah, well, plastic is a lot more forgiving than the human body,” Claire said, continuing to work quickly. “Plus, I’ve noticed that ever since we got the changes that he made to me undone, my hands are even steadier than they were before. I think that we cleared up a few problems that I didn’t even realize were there.”

  “If you say so,” Lilith said, shrugging as she let out a soft sigh. “I’m not very good with biology. You’d think that I’d look into it more, with how I was created, but I didn’t have the patience for it. Living creatures are just so… variable. At least with something like this I feel like I have solid numbers to work off of.”

  She tapped the frame of the armor as she spoke, with the tiny servos and motors inside it. It looked so fragile, but she knew looks could be deceiving. It’d probably survive being dropped to the floor, though she wouldn’t want to put that to the test.

  “Mm, I think it’s a subject you’d enjoy, eventually. But at least your emphasis on engineering allows you to supplement your powers, right?” Claire said, smiling at Lilith, her eyes glittering. “Mine just helps me figure out where to cut that won’t kill someone, and how to patch them up if I miss.”

  Lilith shook her head, smiling. She didn’t speak immediately, though, instead taking the first pieces of the plastic armor and starting to attach them to the robot’s feet, impressed at how easily they snapped into place.

  “I think you’re understating that,” Lilith said after a couple of seconds, her voice soft. “You’re able to heal people. Sure, I can do that a little under specific circumstances, but you can do it through skill. That’s something I admire.”

  “Well, thank you,” Claire replied, blushing slightly.

  Circe clearing her throat caused Lilith to twitch slightly, and the android interjected calmly. “If you are done flirting, I believe that we’ve almost completed the project.”

  “I wasn’t flirting!” Lilith protested, her face heating. “I don’t need to make my personal relationships more complex!”

  “I know you weren’t,” Circe said simply, and Lilith froze for a moment, seeing how Claire quickly looked away. She started to piece together the logic chain, which just made her more confused, and Lilith inhaled.

  Then Ron came back over, and she didn’t dare ask more questions.

  “We’re being watched,” Claire said quietly as they finished packing the robot into the car.

  “Oh?” Lilith asked, raising an eyebrow curiously. “I mean, I’d think so, after all the autographs we were asked to sign before we could leave.”

  “This is different,” Claire said, glancing around casually. “The fans tend to watch us with admiration, lust, and that sort of thing. This is… cold. Malevolent.”

  “I find the intuition that some humans possess fascinating. They can tell how a viewer is regarding them without even seeing the other party,” Circe commented, immediately turning away from the car and scanning the area slowly.

  “As you said, some humans,” Lilith said, a sense of anxiety ratcheting up inside her, and a hand went to the butt of her narc pistol, which was a comforting weight at her side. “I didn’t notice a thing.”

  The parking garage was dark, with few of the lights on, but even if they’d been up on street level they’d have had a hard time seeing, as the sun had set a good hour before. That made it harder for Lilith to pick out anything unusual even with her enhanced vision, though there was a gaggle of other people who’d been in the makerspace hanging out in the parking lot, talking loudly amongst themselves.

  “You’ll get there. It just takes a few years before you start developing a sense for these sort of things,” Claire said calmly, still on guard. After a second, she closed the trunk. “Anyway, we probably should just—”

  The next second everything went quiet, despite the fact Lilith could see her lips moving. And it wasn’t the usual sort of silence Lilith was used to, this was absolute silence. Normally there were tiny, near-imperceptible sounds that she heard, from her ears popping to how her teeth scraped together, but that had vanished as well.

  Then, from the corner of her eye, Lilith saw a flicker of darkness come out of the shadows behind her, and she didn’t have time to dodge as a dagger whipped toward her.

  Chapter 14

  Sunday, November 23rd, 2031

  Guardian Compound, Paragon City

  “To what do I owe this pleasure, Archon? You have unusual company, too… mm, that looks like an orgy waiting to happen,” Daemonia said, eyeing them with a particularly bright gleam in her eyes, one w
hich made Emily shift from one foot to another nervously. She didn’t like that look, and she felt the heat rising in her cheeks. She tried to stop it but couldn’t.

  The demonic heroine was visible on the monitor and looked like she’d just rolled out of bed. Well, out of the covers, as she was in little more than lingerie, and was lying face-down on the bed, with her head propped up on her elbows. Emily was sure that the cleavage her arms framed was being shown very deliberately.

  “Pull your mind out of the gutter, Daemonia,” Emily snapped at her. Daemonia laughed, grinning broadly.

  “Oh, Spark… that would require my mind to be somewhere other than the gutter from time to time, wouldn’t it? No, I think that I’ll have to decline your request. Unless you want to have a little race, and the loser does whatever the victor says?” Daemonia said, grinning so broadly that it was unnerving. It also brought up another reason Emily didn’t like Daemonia, since she knew the contest wasn’t a fair one. As much as she loathed admitting it, she’d lose.

  “Daemonia… please?” Morgan asked plaintively.

  “Oh, alright, I’ll stop teasing quite as much. Though given the four of you, I have a pretty good idea of why you’re contacting me, and I don’t approve,” Daemonia said, her smile fading as she gave all of them a hard look. “Maybe I should come out there and properly romance Lilith for a change.”

  “It isn’t that, Daemonia,” Archon said, looking surprisingly unsettled to Spark, and she smoothed her skirt as she considered for a couple of seconds, then continued. “We had a recent discussion with Lilith, and it was… how would you put it, Warden?”

  “Revelatory? It told us a lot about how Lilith has changed over the last couple of months, and it was…” Warden frowned, looking at Spark for a second, then admitted. “She tore a strip off us for competing for her attention, even if Archon wasn’t really competing, and said she was on the verge of going to visit you.”

  “Really?” Daemonia asked, her eyebrows rising as she grinned again, obviously pleased. “She grew a proper spine? I knew she could do it if she tried! I’m glad that my advice was useful in some regards. Yet this doesn’t explain why you’re calling me. If you’re wanting to know what I told her, you can pull your heads out of your asses and ask her.”

  “I told you this was a bad idea,” Emily muttered, her cheeks feeling like they were on fire.

  “We weren’t getting anywhere talking to one another,” Archon said, reaching up to rub her forehead as she inhaled, obviously thinking, then asked more delicately. “As much as it pains me to admit this, you are the only person I know that’s close to being an expert on relationships, Daemonia. I humbly request your advice on what we should do regarding Lilith. Even if my own strategy is simply to wait for her to make a decision one way or another.”

  For a moment no one spoke, looking at Archon in surprise. Even Daemonia seemed to be startled, though the amusement dancing in her eyes unsettled Emily.

  “I believe I understand. How many of you have been in relationships before deciding to court Lilith?” Daemonia asked, her tail flicking back and forth in the background as she idly kicked her raised feet.

  “Me,” Emily said, and nodded internally as she saw both Morgan and Warden murmur their agreement.

  “Ah, and how extensive were they? How serious?” Daemonia asked, her eyebrows rising.

  “Um… not very? I mean, I was in high school, then I accidentally hospitalized him due to this,” Emily said in embarrassment, arcing some electricity between her fingers.

  “Um…” Warden hesitated, then shrugged sheepishly. “Not that serious? I broke them off before they got to that point, since I had superpowers and didn’t want anyone to get targeted.”

  “I didn’t date as much as Gina, but I’m about the same, I think,” Morgan said, frowning a little. “I had one that came close, but then it just… fell apart.”

  “Lovely, so we have one sheltered hothouse flower, and three flowers inexperienced with matters of the heart. Why am I not surprised?” Daemonia said, looking up at the ceiling for a moment as her tail stilled, then she nodded. “Though it does explain why you handled Lilith so poorly on the whole. It doesn’t excuse it, but it’s an explanation.”

  “What do you mean by handling her poorly?” Emily asked, scowling as her anger grew again.

  “Simple. None of you thought to ask her what her experience with relationships was like, or what she knew about them. You took a woman who Shadowmind created from nothing and imbued knowledge into, then took six months going through training programs, and tossed her into a relationship without thinking about what that really meant to her,” Daemonia said, her smile fading again. “You never discussed what each of you expected out of the relationship. You never thought about how young and impressionable she was. You know what makes me angriest about this, though?”

  “Ah…” Archon began, but Daemonia waved her off.

  “No, no, this isn’t your fault, Archon. You’re not quite as ignorant as Lilith, but you’re close. No, what makes me the most upset is regarding Morgan and Warden. Did the two of you know that she was looking at rings before you left? That she ‘wanted to do things right’? Can you even imagine how deeply you wounded her?” Daemonia asked, her voice practically crackling with anger at this point, and even Emily flinched, as she watched Morgan and Warden wince, shrinking backward.

  “I… I had no idea,” Warden said, looking stricken, the blood drained from her face.

  “Shit,” Morgan murmured, reaching up to rub her forehead. “I… oh, shit…”

  “I see you have the slightest inkling of responsibility. Good,” Daemonia said, letting out a heavy sigh as she shook her head. “That’s why I didn’t seduce her, you know. Lilith was simply too injured, too unsteady, and too impressionable for it. It would have been too easy to destroy her entirely. Yes, Spark’s company after you left helped her recover, but at the same time she grew a little too reliant on that company. So, I shook her up, gave her a few lessons, and let her go. Oh, she’s almost certainly going to get hurt again, possibly even worse than before, but that’s life. Life is filled with joys and sorrows, and she needs the chance to experience them all. Only then will she have a proper sense of perspective.

  “Which is what brings us back to you,” Daemonia said, looking at them carefully, her eyes oddly piercing, then she nodded. “I’m not going to tell you to leave her alone. That would be counterproductive in the extreme. What I am going to do is tell you that you two, as well as Spark, need to pump the damned brakes and give her time and space. Lilith needs a chance to live in the world before making a life-changing decision as huge as finding a beloved to spend her life with. Or several, or none, for that matter. Archon, if you keep being passive and waiting for her, you’re going to lose her as she takes one hesitant step at a time forward and she leaves you behind. Take some initiative, woman! Yes, you can try to be that steady rock that’s always there for her, but that requires you to be there. Now, then. Since I just saw a tiny bit about her on the news, I think you’d better get off your lovely derrieres and help her.”

  “Wait, what?” Emily demanded, her eyes going huge.

  Paragon Central Makerspace, Paragon City

  An instant before the dagger could reach her, Lilith was suddenly jerked forward, a grip like an iron clamp holding her shirt, and several buttons popped free from the force of it. Circe’s expression was calm as could be as she pulled Lilith out of the way, her other arm rising.

  At almost the same moment Lilith saw Claire half-crouch, her hand going to the hilt of her sword, and she was… frustrated, really. Once again, she was in danger, and that was infuriating. She was tired of having to be rescued all the time. So as Circe let go of her, Lilith spun, drawing her narc gun.

  The second that she spun, a dagger hit Circe’s extended arm, cutting through the artificial skin and revealing the gleam of metal as it knocked her arm to the side, causing a bolt of energy to go wide, slamming into a sign proclaimin
g the parking area as being for the makerspace. Or more accurately, putting a dent in the sign that almost punctured it, as apparently Circe wasn’t trying to kill, unlike her opponent.

  The opponent was odd, as Lilith couldn’t quite see… him? Her? She wasn’t sure, as they were semi-translucent. She could tell that they were wearing close-fitting clothing, a leather duster, and had a hood up. The two daggers in their hands were visible, but they were black, almost vanishing into the darkness. The absolute silence around her made the entire appearance even eerier, and Lilith shivered, then focused, her lips moving as she tried to speak to the others. She couldn’t even feel the words being spoken.

  Lilith took aim and pulled the trigger, prompting the attacker to dodge, but the second she did, Lilith realized that she’d made a mistake. She cursed internally, moving to holster her pistol. The narc gun used sonic waves to knock out the target, and if she couldn’t hear anything, it was likely useless.

  While she was doing that, the other two engaged the assailant. Claire’s superior speed and strength when compared to Lilith was on display, as her sword flashed with pink energy, lashing out at the figure, who dodged rather than trying to block the sword. From everything Lilith had heard about Claire’s power, that was probably because the daggers wouldn’t survive a clash, but the attacker seemed to sway and flow around the attacks.

  Circe fell back, both arms rising, but the figure didn’t seem to want to let her back up, following her while dodging Claire’s attacks. Lilith realized that he was trying to keep Circe from being able to shoot him easily, and Claire had to adjust her attacks to keep from hitting Circe. It was frustrating, and Lilith decided that she should’ve gone for a laser pistol after all. Though with the seeming invisibility, who knew if that would work.

  Then the figure lunged toward Lilith again, and she didn’t have time to think about what she should have done. They were faster than she was, and she had no idea how strong, but they weren’t that much faster than she was. Maybe her lessons from Daemonia would work better this time.