by David Finn
‘But I’m a long way out in front, babe, and I’m retired. I’ve got seventeen skulls on this chain. There’s others stashed around the place.’
Jackie asked, ‘Where’s hers?’
Demorn smashed the ground with her metal fist. Jackie, used to such displays, did nothing and somehow said even less. Her expression didn’t move.
‘The Bankers took her soul long ago. I couldn’t stop that. Read the comic if it’s so important to know every detail.’
Jackie Z was smooth. ‘I’m not here to torture you, Dee. I’m trying to be open and helpful. Why not give her one of the many Souls you have?’
Demorn shrugged. ‘She almost died and it’s one of the last things we have left. A lot has changed. We don’t make love, we barely talk or see each other. She clings to life, Jackie, you know that, I know that. Any anchor she knows is better than no anchor. Kate is drifting toward extinction or rebirth and it’s hard to tell the difference. She probably questions if it’s even real. Firethorn did a total number on Kate. It’s important to keep some compassion.’
Jackie gave her a slow look and picked her words with care. ‘Compassion isn’t something I associate with this business.’
Demorn replied, ‘That doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice everything. I run the Innocents, my way.’
Jackie laughed. ‘Yeah, just like your pal, Sinatra.’
Demorn laughed. ‘Don’t make me start singing. I’ve got a horrible singing voice.’
Jackie Z said, ‘How does Kate seem to you? Coherent?’
‘She’s a ghost. A part of her haunts me, probably always will. She sometimes sleeps in a dimension pocket room we set up, when things fall apart in the real world.’
Jackie arched an eyebrow. ‘That’s unusual.’
‘So is snow in Summertime, Jackie, but I’ve seen it happen. The kid’s got issues and you’re depressing me. Tell me how much money I have or don’t have, anything but more of this interrogation.’
Jackie laughter was a tinkle. ‘You’ve got plenty in the bank. The Ceron contracts and Santos have been good for your bank account.’
‘Well, that’s something. I trust you won’t lie to me like Elvis’s guys did at the end.’
Jackie gave her a half smile. ‘I won’t lie to you, Demorn, there is no point. But this connection costs us a fortune, so let’s stop crying over spilt milk and cut to the chase.’
Demorn stroked her metal fingers down the thin tent wall. Jackie Z was one savagely focused unit. ‘Sure, Jackie.’
‘The virus was traced back via Kate and you. You said the Bankers have her soul.’
Demorn nodded. ‘That, and every fallen Soul Fighter.’
‘And Kate has yours, and she’s at least half dead. We think the Bankers are linked to Triton. And we think the Bankers are using Kate and people like her to be conduits, ticking time-bombs that stretch over parallel worlds, in preparation for what we used to call Armageddon.’
Demorn snorted. ‘What? Triton, the mega-corp?’
‘You got it. They are everywhere now. Babelzon, the Firethorn dimension, and on the Grim Earth, Dee.’
‘Frank keeps warning me about them,’ Demorn said. ‘Says they are over the time-line. The hits we used to do on them haven’t dented their growth.’
Jackie nodded and chewed some gum she prized out of her sleek business suit. ‘It’s the next War, that’s for sure. Maybe the last War.’
Demorn frowned. ‘Who’s coming up with these grand plans? Is it just you in a room with a tin foil hat?’
‘Me and your brother, who has it all charted in the Spire ship, if you’d ever care to visit him.’
Demorn held her hands up in mock protest at Jackie’s sharp retort.
‘Question for you though, Mighty Princess of the Swords. Do you realise this is the chance to do more than dent Triton? Josie is fucking nuts but her insane World Bomb might work out if it explodes in the right place.’
Demorn frowned. ‘I thought I have to hit some goofy Reset Button and we somehow win.’
Jackie’s laughter tinkled in the air. ‘That’s the cover story for the kids, but we are a little more ambitious back home in reality.’
Are you, Demorn thought. Because this all sounds insane, ripped out of the pages of one of my comic books.
‘Where’s the right place to let the bomb go off?’
Jackie said, ‘Smile’s projections show that you’re headed right into the harbour of the Bankers. That’s going deep, deeper than any operative has ever gone. If Josie is going to do anything crazy, let her do it there. But if she tries to take out the Firethorn dimension, plug her in the head.’
Demorn breathed out slow. ‘I thought you were our Treasurer, Jackie. Suddenly you seem to be a lot more than Club Treasurer.’
Jackie waved her hands like a croupier. ‘I’m being honest with you, Dee. You’re the one in the shit-storm. That’s what Smile’s projections show. I want us to win. I want to have you back home with your brother.’
Demorn appreciated that, if nothing else. ‘Cool, well his slide-show should come in real handy in a gunfight. If I only had a proper gun. I lost it when Jason and his gang of thugs strung me up.’
On reflex she tapped the side of her pants where the Athena gun would normally be. The holster was empty.
Jackie Z’s face blurred, and Demorn saw an aspect of something else, a shadowy, younger face of the Goddess, come and gone so quickly she could not be sure, even though she was sure. Jackie might be the most sarcastic person she had ever met, but she was as much an Innocent as Demorn or Alex.
Jackie said, ‘We all pitched in, Dee. Those of us who truly believe. We prayed to the Goddess, Adolin Mars, we prayed for a weapon.’
Demorn was embarrassed. Never a religious person the revelation that Adolin Mars was their patron Goddess spun her out in an unusual way whenever she thought about it, which was never often or for long. It was simply too much to take in. But every true Innocent came to love the Goddess, for they understood the great sacrifice and work that came with being their Patron, blessing the activities of a desperate band of killers and thieves, guiding them in the most subtle way through the gigantic wars that plagued reality, always seeking to survive and ready to prosper.
There was a pearl-handled gun and ammo lying by Jackie’s feet. Demorn reached down and felt it come easy to her hand. Light, with a set of inscriptions the old gun hadn’t had. If it was bigger, it was only just bigger, and if it was sleeker, it was only just sleeker—but as she inspected the weapon, Demorn felt a new confidence.
‘How many believe?’ Demorn asked.
‘Almost all of us. Dee. Almost all.’
Demorn kicked at the dead crown of thorns. While they had been talking, she had forgotten that the desert waste lay all around them. The relatively cool embrace of the tent could only mask that heat so long. She shifted the gun in her hand.
‘Whose gun is this?’
‘It’s yours, Dee. Many aspects of the Goddess have blessed this weapon, and many followers wish you well.’
The voice seemed to be made of many voices, more than Jackie Z, with her sharp sarcasm and brutal humour. It was more than her brother, it was even more than the ice caverns in the past, when the Goddess had pierced her soul and heart. A surge of power fired through Demorn’s ruby heart. She looked up and for a single moment the tent was huge and filled with all her fellow brothers and sisters, their faces, both the living and the dead, urging her on, to complete this dread mission which consumed her. I won’t fail them, I won’t fail, Demorn swore. She stepped back laughing. The faces vanished back to Jackie with her eternally deadpan expression.
‘So, just to be clear, this is my gun?’
‘Sure is.’
Demorn busied herself wrapping the magazine of bullets around her leg, adjusting the gun in the holster how she liked it. She shot Jackie a smile and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. ‘I love it. Thanks for coming, Jackie, you reminded me of something important.’
‘What’s that, kid? Eat an apple with breakfast?’
‘Never give up. Straight sword, clean heart.’
Even as she said the words Jackie was gone, pulled back by whatever combination of science and magic she had pulled to materialise in the desert for this meeting. The tent was gone too, and the men had run far away into the waste, scared of the killer with the cold green eyes who spoke to walking ghosts. Demorn started walking toward the hazy pyramid in the near distance, in essence another pilgrim.
Part 6
1
* * *
Wolf remembered the first time Iverson had explained the Fracture Event to him. A bullet fragment hitting the spine of reality.
It had been in the dying days of their first campaign in the Ceron-Prussian conflict, the takeover of a minor Prussian stronghold city once filled with troops, now almost a ghost after a low yield neutron bomb had slipped through their defences after days of bombardment and sorties by the Ceron forces.
When Wolf fought hard he could remember the name of the city. Lydia. He didn’t like to fight hard to remember such things. All too easily he would recall the husks of dead bodies lining the streets, the strange feeling that Iverson and he were travelling through a frozen cemetery, untouchable, like bizarre angels of death. And in a way they were. Iverson had been younger, more cocky, his short hair not flecked with grey as it was now, barely any lines creasing his face. He and Wolf had taken a jeep in, with just a robo-drone for assistance, following the path of several tanks. Resistance from the survivors was minimal, the fight had been dragged out of them over the weeks of bombardment, and the low yield neutron explosion had wiped out any spirit left.
‘What a stupid war,’ Wolf had said, early in their tour of the dead. He remembered the alertness with which Iverson turned to look at him, with eyes of ice.
‘There aren’t too many clever wars,’ Iverson had said, and the comment had hung there, unattended for a minute or two. Wolf had been certain this mysterious Investigator would report him, to who he did not even know. The Investigators kept their own counsel and Iverson seemed to move purely on his own rhythms, constantly energised and jazzed by conflict and his almost compulsive need to push through it.
‘How much do you know about the Order?’ Iverson had asked, as they travelled at high speed through the city, in some sort of symbolic victory lap.
‘Only what you’ve said, sir. Spies in the sky. Maintain peace through manipulation and tactical use of force. Covert operatives, broad license.’
Iverson had grinned. ‘Straight out of the Order Core handbook. Good. Important to remember that.’
He pulled the jeep to a halt. ‘But that’s not everything an Investigator must remember. You’re an important asset to me, Wolf. Under my purview, I can brief you on certain topics, if I choose to believe you can handle it and not spill company secrets. Can I do that, Wolf? If not, hop off this jeep right now and go rejoin your platoon drinking partners.’
Iverson’s looseness was unnerving. They were sitting in a jeep in what was still classifiable as hostile territory, no matter how subjugated, and Iverson didn’t have a worry in the world.
‘Yessir, you can trust me. I don’t want to go back to the platoon. I want to learn, sir.’
Iverson had given him a slight grin and told Wolf about the Fracture Event, and why that partially explained why they were here, in this long, brutal war in this tormented dimension. Like a bullet fragment hitting a spine, the effects colossal, unpredictable and lasting. That’s what the Fracture Event was, Iverson had said. The Event hadn’t crippled the Primary reality, but rather shattered it, so that pieces of the world they knew were dragged into parallels, colliding with the time-line and reality of other dimensions, moving the Primary universe out of phase.
Wolf had listened, sucking on an orange flavoured ration pack, mind blown.
The Order had already existed, Iverson said, a small group of Hive Satellites circling a future earth, aware and in synch with the Mirror Worlds such as Asanti. The Fracture Event dragged the Order satellites into contact with the newly formed Grim Earth, their future world destroyed as so many were by the explosion of the Master Room in San Francisco.
And it was a planned hit. Order operatives had confirmed that early on, injected directly into the intense conflict that was fought on the streets of San Fran with Triton operatives in the aftermath of the event. But it wasn’t a localised effect. The Order quickly realised this was the new reality, birthed out of the Fracture Event. The Event marked the movement of Triton into a new, aggressive phase of destruction and conquest. In their wildest dreams, they probably hadn’t guessed at the level of damage they would inflict on the Primary. But they wouldn’t have cared. Their goal as a group was terror and disinformation. There had been plenty of that in the wake of the Fracture.
In the minutes following, those closest to the blast did remember, stoned hippies and confused office workers. Cut to an hour later, only the Order operatives who were fighting Triton forces in the streets realised what was happening, when the Primary Reality splintered. For the rest, the Fracture Event lingered as a nightmare-like sub-knowledge, tucked in the subconscious, with clutter like the ending of bad movies, awoken only at great cost or with extremely specific treatment.
Wolf had not been anywhere near the Primary Reality. He had been fighting with the grunts in a foreign conflict, humping his pack on the orders of those far above him. All the grunts were dead now. But Iverson had found him, cornered and alone, lost in the wolf form on that bad night. If he closed his eyes Wolf could still see the tracers which lit up the sky and showed Iverson’s face in the overturned railway container, contorted with pain from a blast to his side, the slick black Order leather jumpsuit he wore tainted with blood.
Iverson had offered Wolf a way out in exchange for saving his life and humping a few more miles back to his Wasp ship. Iverson had taken him out of the war-torn world, flown to the Order Satellite where they patched up Iverson and treated Wolf’s genetic abnormality. They implanted him with methods of controlling the change, extending its range. The implant answered questions and formulated endgame structures. Wolf hated it, and turned it down to the lowest level. Uneasily it all rested in Wolf’s consciousness, even with the Order implants to make him not go insane from the knowledge of the Event. His job was to prevent more World Bombs, to work with Iverson, to support him in this goal. More and more often he was playing deep cover, the dumb, attractive army jock. The dimension tagged FIRETHORN by the Order was as close to the damaged Primary reality as was possible. According to Iverson another reality World Bomb detonation there could trigger a second Fracture Event. Wolf had learnt not to question such things. He might be a rung higher up the chain, but he was still a grunt fighting somebody else’s war.
The program woke him—endorphins flooded his system.
Wolf smashed on the door, howling. A bullet fragment hitting the spine of reality.
2
* * *
Blood-stained claws pressed against a barrier. A gel-like fluid was all over him. Where was he? Wolf smashed at the door again. A coffin pod. Cracked. Wolf punched hard again into the cracks. The pod splintered and burst open. Gel spilt out as he tumbled from the pod onto the concrete floor. The pod material was soft and didn’t cut as it was torn open. Shouting from nearby. He rushed a small group, a thorn-head and two human guards in black camo. He heard one of the humans scream “FREAK!” Claws ripped through them, the backlight of the other pods making it dreamlike, an extra dimension of terror. A gun went off but missed him. The thorn-head was bashing at the door controls. The creature turned as Wolf sprang, the voice indecipherable as Wolf slashed its throat.
They were all dead. Blood was wet and sticky on Wolf’s body. He was in a darkened room, no light overhead. Naked except for his black boxers. A couple of plugs and probes were still attached to his body. He ripped them off. Green glowing canisters filled with sleeping beasts. Strange mutations. The air was
freezing. He hadn’t changed fully into his wolf form. The claws retracted slowly. One of the human guards had his throat slashed, but the clothes were in good condition. Wolf dressed, heart rate right up there, hands shaking slightly.
Wolf ran his fingers behind his right ear, looking for the implant. It was still there. Her voice cut in, calm as always.
‘The Exile has a clear run. I need you taking point.’
The Exile. Demorn. Wolf felt himself catching up to speed. He took one of the rifles the guards carried, stashed a pistol as well. The black uniform felt good, fit snugly. He had never gotten the hang of telepathic communication. It was too nuanced and he disliked the intrusion. He spoke his words back, low and careful.
‘What’s the primary?’
‘Protect the asset, she has the mission.’
‘Secondary?’
‘Make sure that your insane ex doesn’t blow up Firethorn or kill the Primary.’
He laughed as the door slid open. Josephine was hardly an ex. He stashed four bodies behind the pods, forcing himself not to look at the tormented faces inside. If this truly was the Source Core of everything, some god had a perverted sense of humour and liked to tinker with his specimens. But try as he might, Wolf couldn’t avoid looking forever. He saw a man with two fragile heads, barely alive, floating in the gel soup. There was a Triton Corp tag on the wall. The deeper we dig, Wolf thought sombrely, the worse it looks. This wasn’t the work of any random god. These were human beings through and through. He caught a reflection of himself in the coffin pod, made monstrous in the green backlight. He looked haggard and unstable. He looked unlikely to be able to protect anyone, least of all himself.
‘Run now, Wolf, I’ve got the floor plans. She’s about ten minutes away at a fast clip.’
‘Jackie, answer me! I keep getting taken. In the prison I got looped, here I got teleported into a gel tank. What’s going on?’
‘All part of the plan, don’t worry. You know you’re the legs on the ground, you’re the muscle.’
