The Metropolis

by Skyler Grant

  “And what would you train them to do?” I asked.

  “Fight, kill. I could sugarcoat it, but you wouldn’t actually appreciate it. Murder is what I’m good at and strength is what matters in this world, and what you need,” Sylax said.

  I didn’t much like that truth so harshly delivered. It seemed to me that if I’d wanted these youths to die in combat I could have left them where they were.

  I couldn’t discount the reality of what she said. It was a hard world out there and whether they put their powers to use for me or someone else, it was likely to be the only road to a worthwhile future any of them would have.

  “This still doesn’t seem big enough to warrant getting my permission,” I said to Crystal.

  “How many more do you think we’re likely to find if we continue pressing outward? The Dust are considered a blight all across the Scholarium,” Crystal said.

  That would explain it. Crystal wasn’t asking my permission to hand Sylax a dozen future soldiers, she was asking my permission to hand her an army.

  “Why would I trust you with this kind of responsibility?” I asked Sylax.

  “You see me, Emma. More clearly than most. You’ve even been inside my head. Have I ever been disloyal?”

  “You were loyal to King Boreas, even when we all wished you would do otherwise. I worry that you are still loyal to him.”

  Sylax frowned at that. “Of course I am. This is why, whenever opportunity presents itself, I argue that you need not be enemies. But to survive I have had to swear my loyalty to you and your Anna as well, and I honor my commitments, machine. So will those I train.”

  “I don’t like this,” I said.

  Crystal folded her hands on the table. “I didn’t think you would. When you turned Sylax back over to me it was because you trusted my judgment. I ask that you continue to do so.”

  I really didn’t like it. Perhaps Mechos was right and all Powered had their madness. I worried that Crystal’s might be in trusting those that shouldn’t be trusted.

  I needed Crystal though. And if I could depend on Sylax, I even needed her and whatever army she might raise.

  Our straits were too desperate for me not to take chances.

  “I agree,” I said.

  The mood in the room eased and everyone was satisfied for the moment.

  Then, suddenly my world became a narrow focus. Normally I run parts of me in the background constantly, but I mostly keep my thoughts running at human speed in various instances.

  I couldn’t do that now.

  A bomb had just appeared in the middle of the Central District. Massive, and detonating. Three milliseconds had already passed since its arrival. I couldn’t afford to be thinking at human speed.

  10

  I could think quickly, but it wasn’t for free. Kicking my awareness up to this degree burned power, more than my Bioreactors could produce. To solve this problem I’d have to draw upon the limited supply of fuel for the city’s main reactor.

  First of all, how did that bomb get into the middle of the district? If I could figure out how it got in then perhaps I could use the same method to get it out.

  I pulled all the relevant sensor logs. No teleportation traces, no warp gate activity, no sign that it was dropped from any ship.

  The first vision that any of my cameras captured, it was already lying on the ground and detonating.

  All twelve of my District Lords were in residence in the city. I’d been worried about a mole, but if there was one, they were not well-regarded enough to be saved by King Boreas—and this did have to be him. Again.

  I’d been wondering if he had gotten some sort of enhancement to his power set and this was my answer. This bomb had appeared from out of nowhere. Based on his power set it was reasonable to assume it had come from a future.

  He had warped a ship in—he must have Aefwal’s coordinates after all—dropped a city-busting bomb and somehow rewound time to a point when he thought I’d be powerless to stop anything.

  Getting it out the same way it came in wasn’t feasible. I didn’t have the ability to fling objects through time.

  The city’s teleportation gates would serve if it were only a few milliseconds earlier. Pre-detonation it would have been easy to get the bomb away, but caught in mid-explosion it would destabilize the gate field.

  Could I use a jump drive with the bomb itself? I did have an airship above the city right now, but I wouldn’t be able to get it close enough to the bomb in time for it to extend the jump field. I also didn’t have time to string two jumps together.

  If I could get Blank to the bomb she could probably neutralize it. Whatever the source of the explosion, if it was big enough to take out this city, it likely involved power crystals. Sadly Blank also neutralized any teleportation ability. I lacked the means to get her there.

  Could I bury the bomb? There I had more reasonable chance of success. If I teleported every agent I had with teleportation to the bomb and through the ground below it taking the bomb with them, that would be enough to bury the device. However, based on the thing’s energy yield, that wouldn’t stop it.

  Hot Stuff might be able to steal some of the fire away from the bomb, if teleported onto it. Had she possessed a freezing ability I might have tried it. Instead I was afraid she would only make the bomb stronger with her presence.

  This was a lot of thought cycles burned with no solution so far—and a bomb continuing to explode.

  Ratticus and his energy manipulation might be able to dampen the explosion, but the blast seemed too powerful for him to stop completely. Jade might fling it from the city, except it was too late for that now.

  What about the city’s energy shields? They were mostly turned off to conserve resources, but they had protected Aefwal from everything for a very long time. Their energy consumption was frightful, far more than even the teleportation gates, but I had enough power to engage them briefly. They were also energy-absorptive. If I could get them around the bomb they could actually feed from the very blast they were defending against.

  The shield systems weren’t really designed for that. I spent another few precious milliseconds running through the possibilities to make it work.

  They would definitely be able to dampen the explosion, but I just couldn’t focus enough of the shielding power to completely contain the blast. Burying the bomb would help more, Ratticus could help more—everything would help more. But even putting all my tools into play it just wouldn’t be enough.

  This bomb was overkill. It was needlessly strong to get rid of us, especially taking us by surprise too.

  I had to rethink the problem. If I couldn’t neutralize the bomb, what were my other options? Could I get people away?

  I could, a series of teleports to the airship and triggering the jump drive would do the trick. I should even have time to evacuate my consciousness to the ship.

  I could save everyone and run away.

  Good, I could avoid complete loss, but I needed to do better.

  Doing better meant saving the city. Could the city run away?

  The city was built to be mobile using engines deep underground. Flying wouldn’t help here though. I wouldn’t be soaring away from the bomb even if they were operational. It was too slow.

  Could I jump away?

  I’d brought an entire fleet to this city once by extending a jump field well beyond sensible limits and utilizing the power of a volcano to amplify it.

  I couldn’t use the power of the bomb exactly the same way, but the very thing that made the teleportation gates fail as a solution helped here. The jump field wouldn’t like the high levels of energy the bomb was putting out. The explosion would be rejected.

  If I utilized the city’s shields to curve the jump field around it, the explosion wouldn’t be allowed to jump. In theory I would take the city away and leave the exploding bomb behind.

  I even had a set of coordinates I wanted to try again. For Vattier’s satellite.

  I s
till lacked whatever passcode it was looking for, but what I did have was a Crash. I could teleport him into the city’s main communications hub and his powers of subverting and controlling complex systems would be transmitting outward ahead of our jump. Crash could hack the satellite’s passcode. He might melt a little, but I could add Ophelia. With her healing aura in close proximity any part of him that dripped off should pop back soon after.

  There were safer options, saner options, but perhaps this was my insanity from my crystal? I loved the gamble and I loved the big show.

  I teleported Crash and Ophelia into the communications core, set it to full power, triggered the shields and engaged the jump.

  Time elapsed since the detection of the bomb—twenty-three milliseconds.

  11

  Things did not go as planned.

  At least, the city did not blow up. The first part of the plan succeeded and we went into the jump leaving the bomb and its explosion behind. We also hadn’t been thrown clear into a wrong dimension, not to mention into the side of any canyon, like the shuttle. Instead we seemed to be frozen mid-jump.

  The sky was a shimmering rainbow of colors.

  I opened a city-wide comm. “We came under attack and I had to devise a rather novel method of saving our lives. All the good little mammals can stop peeing on the floor and get to their duty stations.”

  That might work for the rank and file, but the District Lords would want to know more. I conferenced them together as the lines came in and added Anna and Mechos.

  “Where are we?” Jade asked.

  “We’re in warp, obviously. Why are we still in warp?” Anna asked.

  “You used the satellite coordinates and something went wrong,” Mechos said.

  Crash and Ophelia at least weren’t capable of conversation. They were still in the middle of the main comm hub and being blasted apart by intense radiation.

  “I did. I wired Crash into the comms to broadcast his ability and added Ophelia so he’d live. Unfortunately they seem to be as useless together as they are individually,” I said.

  “Could being in a state of near-death be causing his power to not function?” Anna asked.

  “If his power weren’t functioning the satellite would have kicked us aside at best, or self-destructed at worst,” Mechos said.

  I agreed.

  “For us to be stuck the satellite must have tried to carry out its primary purpose. Our originally jump was overridden in preparation for the next stage, but now we’re in a state of flux,” I said.

  “Could it be a power issue?” Blank asked.

  Of course, it had to be. Transitioning a city like this into a jump took a lot of energy which I’d been able to harness by drawing on the main reactor and the explosion of the bomb.

  The satellite was trying to propel us into a second jump, but its power supplies were far more limited. The device may have only ever been meant to send along a single vessel, not something as large as an entire city.

  “You prove useful for being something besides the one woman to power down Mechos’ libido,” I said.

  Anna said, “Do you know that is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, and it’s still an insult to someone else?”

  “While I appreciate the silly banter, it isn’t nearly as entertaining when Anna isn’t the one being insulted. Is there a fix for our dilemma?” Zora asked.

  “We’re in jump space. Can we interact with real space?” Mechos asked.

  That was a very good question. Within the confines of a jump bubble it was a bit like being inside a self-contained dimension all our own. In a sense the satellite was just outside the city limits. At the same time, practically, it was unreachable.

  “You should know better than that,” I said.

  “In phase not rest can I?” Flicker asked.

  As always, it was difficult to talk with Flicker. The words didn’t come through. Her district of the city was out of phase with the city, and out of phase with the rest of the jump bubble. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in tune with normal space either, so this didn’t help us.

  “You’re not the sort of out-of-alignment we need,” Mechos said. Perhaps the man was trying to redeem himself.

  “Can we use the jump bubble itself? Isn’t it serving as a sort of tether between us and the satellite right now?” Anna asked.

  Surprisingly, it was the smartest thing anyone had said yet.

  The jump field surrounded us and it was also interacting with the satellite, which was currently sustaining it. Maintaining a field required far less power than initiating one. The satellite might be able to hold us like this for a number of days and never be able to execute the next part of its programming.

  “We’d need to transfer a large supply of energy directly into the field itself. Slap the cookie out of Anna’s hand hard enough and she’ll feel it in her arm,” I said.

  “That’s better,” Zora said.

  “I’m checking power levels. You drained the city’s reactors to initiate this jump,” Mechos said.

  I had, and the requirements were going to be enormous. I thought I had a solution though. One bomb had got us into this mess and another could get us out.

  The airship overhead had initiated this jump bubble and its engine was still one end of it. A large enough explosion there would distribute the energy through the field. Focusing it would be a challenge, but Ratticus and his lieutenants should be able to help there.

  The explosion itself would be a bit of an issue, but I had the foundation of what was needed. I’d built bombs before reliant on Biomatter.

  Transferring most of the contents of the growth vats would provide ample Biomatter to fuel the explosion.

  The District Lords were less than thrilled with the idea when I shared it.

  “That is our only airship right now,” Anna said.

  “We have another, and the Graven. Stop being greedy,” I said.

  Mechos said, “You have no guarantee the others will be able to reach us wherever we are going. I estimate we have days until the jump bubble collapses. We can engineer a better solution.”

  I didn’t like it when the humans started thinking they were intelligent, I particularly didn’t like it when they were actually making good sense.

  We did have days to engineer a better solution. Blowing up an airship would be easy and effective, but for the moment it was unnecessary.

  “I’ll work with you and Ratticus on plans. We begin construction in twelve hours,” I said.

  “I’ll have my people ready,” Jade said.

  It was time to engineer a fix.

  12

  Two days later, the fix was a beam weapon. I had designs that allowed me to use a Powered individual as a focus to determine the type of beam. With Ratticus at the controls I could utilize that for energy transformation.

  Of course, before we jumped I had preparations to make. We didn’t know what would be waiting for us on the other side. I needed ground forces armed and ready, and science drones fueled up and ready to fly.

  The cannon were fueled with four Bioreactor bombs channeling their blasts towards a central core. All four chambers fired and an arcing blaze of energy erupted to hit the jump bubble. There was no buildup of energy—one instant the city was surrounded by the rainbow aura and the next, harsh sunlight was streaming down.

  The city had materialized on top of a large hill with a view overlooking rolling plains. Below a large river wound its way through the landscape and into the distance.

  It was an idyllic place, and far less broken than most I’d seen. That made me instantly wary. The last paradise I’d seen had been when the Powerhungry crash-landed into a jungle. A jungle filled with beasts of exceptional power that Crystal had turned into an army.

  Aefwal was in rough shape. The jump had drained the last of the reactor power and the teleportation gates, and internal communications network were completely down.

  I’d prepared for that, distributing Bioreactor-powered comms th
roughout the districts, but communications were limited to the city. Nothing beyond.

  I sent off the science drones. So far nothing was leaping up the hill to kill us.

  Our position was perfectly centered, the hill just the right size for the city. Had the satellite had some sort of intelligence aboard to help it pick a perfect arrival destination?

  Given that Crash’s ability was effectively Compulsion, it may have forced something like that to see us safe and in the perfect location even after being hacked.

  Oh, yes—Crash. I teleported him and Ophelia to a Medbay and joined them.

  Crash would be awhile fully regenerating. Ophelia was back to herself in under fifteen seconds.

  “What the fuck. You cooked me for days,” Ophelia said, staggering to her feet. “Get me some damned clothes.”

  I had a drone bring in something for her to wear, and some clothes for Crash as well for when he stopped being a pile of roasted meat.

  “It was an emergency. You’re fine,” I said.

  “Is that Crash? You left me naked in a room with Crash for days? Do you know how creepy that is?”.

  “Not as if you were ever going to find yourself in that situation any other way. Some people would be grateful for me setting them up. Now do shut up and stay in the room until he’s healed. The adults have things to do,” I said.

  I sealed her in the Medbay just to be safe.

  It was time for the non-whiners to make some decisions. I needed to figure out where we were.

  I broadcast camera feeds throughout the city of what my science drones were detecting and opened up a conference-comm session.

  “Pretty,” Anna said.

  Sylax said, “Which means something probably wants to kill us. I don’t recognize it. Crystal?”

  “Do you have readings for any fauna?” Crystal asked.

  I had picked up a few. Squirrels and foxes, nothing that seemed abnormal, but I sent the data over.

  “Band one one seven,” Crystal said after a moment of study. “Sealed by order of the Scholarium. I don’t have any more information. Blank?”