by Isaac Hooke
Via the sweat collection ducts in the heels of his boots, he vented the toxic fluid that by then had reached to his lower calves. The stuff formed green crystals as it evacuated beside him. While that was ongoing, he retrieved the suit repair kit from the cargo pocket of his leg assembly and sealed all three perforations. His skin throbbed painfully in those areas where it had been severely pinched and exposed.
He waited for the last of the fluid to vent, then he wiggled his toes, just to assure himself that they hadn’t been burned away. While his feet burned almost as badly as the pinched areas of his skin, everything seemed intact.
Tanner retrieved the signal boosting briefcase and contacted Stanson. “Jeremy has been dealt with.”
He expected a congratulations, or some other praise, but instead Stanson returned: “Craig and Lana stopped responding a while back. I sent men to relieve them. What they found wasn’t pretty.”
Tanner felt dread forming in the pit of his being. “What did they find?”
“The brutally stabbed bodies of Craig and Lana. There was someone else, too. The woman you found with Kade. Apparently she’d taken some kind of blaster wound.”
“Kade and the others?” Tanner asked.
“Gone.”
“He’s back on the Inside,” Tanner said.
“That’s the likeliest possibility, especially considering that violent deaths on the Inside have spiked again, centered on Kismet. We’ve already lost two other Children who acted as Keepers there.”
Tanner plugged the wireless access port that was part of the signal booster into the provided slot on the abdomen area of his spacesuit. The corresponding connection within the suit telescoped into his belly button.
“I need Ari’s position,” Tanner sent.
“She’s still in Kismet,” Stanson returned. “But we can’t teleport you directly to her tracker. There’s some sort of shield in place.”
Tanner tried to access the Inside via the wireless access port. It didn’t work. A message flashed on his aReal.
Bandwidth requirements not met.
He had to get back to the Hercules ship.
Tanner disconnected the access port, leaped onto the dead body of the Satori, and hauled himself through the portal. He bounded across the hull of the flyer and onto the slippery surface of the moon beyond.
Each step hurt his tender feet, but he didn’t care. Ari’s safety overrode any discomfort he felt.
I’m coming, Ari.
twelve
Ari held her arm very still, panting. Any movement pained her. After Brute had finished skinning her arm, Amoch had returned to check on the creature’s progress. He had released his freeze on her avatar, and they had tied her to a stunted tree nearby instead.
Amoch had instructed Brute to resume the flaying, and then returned to the bottom of the hill to continue his assault on the city. Occasionally a Keeper approached with reinforcements, but Amoch defeated them within moments.
Brute had not resumed the torture immediately, apparently wanting to drag out her suffering for as long as possible. Instead the beast merely stared at her. It had been doing so for the past ten minutes, at least.
“Just finish it,” Ari begged. She wished Amoch hadn’t disabled her ability to block pain, because the agony was unbearable.
“Don’t listen to her,” Gemma told the creature. “Let the gol suffer. Nine must pay for the wrongs she has done against us all.”
“I’ve never wronged you,” Ari gasped.
Gemma lifted the dragon mask to look at her with her own eyes. “But you have, gol. How does it feel to be on the receiving end of everlasting pain?”
Ari looked away. “Your brother is alive...” But she knew it was useless. The woman was unreachable. Why bother to even try? Gemma had seen her brother die. To her, the current reality was all there was, her brother’s death completely real.
Brute approached Ari again at last. The beast took the skinning knife to her lower leg that time, cutting a circle around her ankle just below the cords that bound her so that the creature could carve away the skin of her foot.
Ari gritted her teeth at the pain as Brute worked. She struggled against her binds but the movements only caused further pain.
She forced herself to look at Gemma. There was no pity in those eyes. She saw hatred, defiance, and barely concealed disgust, the latter no doubt for the grisly mess that Brute was making of her body.
She’s the only one who can save me now, Ari thought. I have to try to get through to her. I have to.
“We’re on a starship right now,” Ari told her through the agony. Talking helped the pain somewhat, by distracting the mind. “A Hercules class. A generation ship. Meant for colonization. We escaped Earth during an alien invasion. The alien mothership hunted us down and we crashed on Ganymede. We managed to destroy that mothership with the help of a sympathetic member of their kind. But another mothership has come. It’s attacking us right now, from orbit. Your brother is helping us. He’s piloting a shuttle that’s carrying a very powerful bomb. He’s bringing it to the mothership. He’s going to save us all.”
“Perhaps I should cut out your tongue,” Gemma said. “It won’t kill you, but at least it would stop the lies. Then again, if you choked on your own blood, I’d never forgive myself for shortening your suffering.”
“Nor would I,” Brute told Gemma.
“You pretend to be strong, but it’s an act,” Ari told her. “I can see right through it. You’ve lifted the mask over your face, but not from your soul. Deep down you’re still a little girl hiding from the world. Someone who’s lost without her brother.”
Gemma’s face darkened. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the katana that protruded above her right shoulder, where it was sheathed on her back. Her knuckles whitened, but then she abruptly released her hold.
“I know what you’re doing,” Gemma told her.
“What am I doing?” Ari flinched, because Brute had finished with her foot and had moved on to sawing away the skin along her calf.
“You’re trying to make me kill you,” Gemma said. “You want me to grant you release from your suffering. But I refuse.”
Ari sighed. She was never going to get through to the girl. It was hopeless. Nor would she escape Brute. There came a time when one simply had to give up and accept one’s fate.
And then she remembered something.
“Woolly,” Ari said.
Gemma stared at her. “Excuse me?”
“Woolly,” Ari repeated. “That’s what your brother nicknamed you. A long time ago.”
Gemma stared at her. Was that a hint of recognition Ari saw in her eyes, or was she imagining it?
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten that name,” Ari continued. “But your brother hasn’t. You see, he told me about the time the two of you were picking the pockets of nobles along Grassylane.” Ari watched Gemma’s face closely as she spoke, looking for signs that she was getting through. “He said a town guard caught him, and promptly led Zak toward the nearest jail. But you broke into a cattlemonger’s pen and freed the woolly mammoths to distract the guard. You and Zak got away in the confusion that followed. He nicknamed you Woolly that day.”
Gemma tried hard to hide her emotions: she simply stared at Ari, her face an impassive mask. But her eyes, they had definitely changed. The disgust was still there, as was the defiance, but the hatred seemed gone, replaced by confusion.
Come on, Gemma. Realize the truth. For all our sakes.
GEMMA COULDN’T BELIEVE the story she had just heard. There was no way Nine could know those things about her brother. And yet, when it came to it, Nine was still a gol. Perhaps it had somehow drained her brother’s memory before killing him.
And that was the crux of the matter. Nine had killed him, along with the other gol, Ten. Nothing could change that.
And yet, what if the gol was speaking the truth? What if Zak was alive and well in the so-called “real world” that Nine spoke of? The same wo
rld Amoch claimed existed atop their own? If Nine was speaking the truth, then Gemma was losing the only opportunity she had to reunite with Zak. Then again, Nine had told her earlier that it was against the rules to bring Gemma to her brother, so even if she saved the gol, there was no guarantee that Nine would help her in return.
Glancing at the gol’s face, Gemma felt a moment of compassion when those features twisted in obvious agony from the work that Brute was doing. No creature should have to suffer as Nine did.
But the gol killed my brother.
And what if Nine did not?
The suffering swayed Gemma, and she decided that if there was even a small chance that she could be reunited with Zak, she must take it.
She resolved to strike a bargain with Nine: the gol’s life in exchange for the opportunity to rejoin Zak. Nine would have to go against the so-called rules that prevented Gemma from seeing her brother, and if the gol did not, or was otherwise lying, it would die.
BRUTE FINISHED SKINNING her entire right leg and stepped back to observe its handiwork. It grunted in delight.
“You fainted again,” the beast said.
Ari hardly heard. Spreadeagled there on the tree, she had given up on Gemma, and had allowed her head to bow. She didn’t have the strength to hold her chin up, not anymore.
And then she heard a sickening sound that reminded her of a blade violently parting flesh. She gathered her reserves and forced herself to look up.
The square edge of a katana protruded from Brute’s midsection.
The creature glanced down in puzzlement. “How?”
The blade retreated into that torso, and the four-armed creature spun around, discarding the skinning knife to draw the four scimitars from its belt. Yes, four: the creature had replaced the weapon it had broken earlier, apparently.
Brute bore down on Gemma, who had lowered her dragon mask.
Ari smiled very slightly.
So I finally got through to her.
She was vaguely aware as the two fought. It was obvious that Gemma was losing, though so far her impenetrable armor had prevented Brute from skewering her. Brute plunged all four blades into her torso at the same time, onto nearly the same spot, likely trying to perforate the breastplate, but the creature succeeded only in flinging her body backward across the ground.
And then Tanner rushed in from the side and joined the fight.
Tanner.
Wanting to join the fray, Ari involuntarily pulled at her binds. The resultant pain made her black out.
She came to in time to watch Tanner and Gemma defeat Brute. It was on its knees before them. Gemma’s katana protruded from its chest. Together he and Gemma had broken its four blades. Several gashes lined its torso. Both of its right arms were blackened and smoking, as was half its chest.
Tanner brought his fiery blade out to the side and swept it down, separating Brute’s head from its shoulders. The creature toppled.
Tanner rushed to Ari’s side.
“You’re a... sight... for sore thighs,” Ari quipped.
“You’ve still got your sense of humor,” Tanner said. “That’s a good sign. Here, drink this.” He offered her a flask. She took a sip and felt slightly reenergized.
“How did you do it?” Ari asked him.
“I had the Children edit Brute’s invulnerability flags earlier. Looks like Kade forgot to reset them when he came back in. Also, the Children finally found the code that traps you here. We’ve fixed your avatar. You can return, once we get out from under the shield Kade raised here.”
He applied five healing shards, distributing them between her damaged arm and leg, and unleashed lightning into the starfish-like creatures from his rings. When the cold subsided, her skin was healed.
Tanner reached up to cut through her binds. Ari noticed that Gemma stood behind him. She no longer wore her mask.
Tanner removed the cord that bound her right wrist, but before he could free her other arm, a blade slid in front of his larynx.
A katana.
“Before you set her free, Ten,” Gemma said. “Take me to the Outside. I want to meet my brother.”
“Gemma,” Tanner said. “We can’t take you anywhere until we deal with Amoch. We—”
She pressed the blade closer. “Take me to my brother!”
Ari’s gaze was drawn by movement behind Gemma. “Watch out!”
Gemma glanced over her shoulder but it was too late.
A broken blade sliced into the side of her head. The coif Gemma wore deflected some of the impact, but her unarmored face bore the brunt of the blow. Gemma toppled under the impact like a rag doll.
Tanner spun to defend Ari from the headless body of Brute, which had arisen to fight on. Tanner easily defeated the range of those broken scimitars, and in moments had reduced the creature to a pile of burning, dismembered limbs.
Tanner cut the three remaining cords that bound Ari, allowing her to go to Gemma. The right side of the young woman’s face was a gory mess.
“Do you have any more shards?” she asked Tanner.
He shook his head. “I could try to run outside the teleportation shield, disbelieve, and then come back...”
“She’ll be dead by then.” Ari gripped Gemma’s hand. “It looks like you get your wish after all, young one. You’re going back to the real world.” Gemma blinked vacantly, and then her breathing ceased.
Ari retrieved Gemma’s katana, since she herself had been disarmed, and stood. She gazed down the hill to the city below. She couldn’t see Amoch, though she had a general idea where he was from the screams. A building collapsed at the end of a long line of burnt-out houses.
“Like Brute, Amoch is no longer invulnerable,” Tanner said.
“He froze me back there,” Ari told him.
“The Children fixed that, too, before I came in,” Tanner said. “He won’t be freezing us anymore.”
“What about his minions?”
“He only has three left that I know of,” Tanner told her. “Brown and Pots, and an older man.”
“They’re on the Inside with him?”
Tanner nodded. “Probably. Though I’m sure he’s left at least one of them on the Outside, watching them. Let’s go to Severest, interrogate the Dwarf, and get the sub-AI to track down Kade’s new location.”
“And allow Kismet to be destroyed in the meantime?”
“The Children are making deck by deck sweeps,” Tanner said. “And are enlisting some of the robots to help. They might very well find him before we reach the Dwarf. Kismet can endure until then.”
“Well at least the robots haven’t turned on us again. Yet.” Ari watched another building crumble; three burning individuals raced into the street only to drop a moment later. “Kismet can endure, you say? Finding Kade on the Outside could take anywhere between ten minutes to two hours. Time passes so much faster here. By the time we get him, Kismet will be lost. No, I say we take him now.”
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” Tanner asked. “After what you’ve gone through?”
“I am. But give me some more of that energizing drink first.”
Tanner offered her the flask and she drank deeply.
She wiped her lips. “All right then.”
Tanner nodded toward the opposite side of the hill. “Let’s make an ammo stop, first.”
He led her down the far side of the hill, pausing behind a boulder where he had stowed two bows and quivers, along with a fresh fire sword for Ari.
Ari and Tanner secured the quivers to their belts and hefted the bows over their shoulders. She exchanged the katana for the fire sword and sheathed it.
They left the hill behind and proceeded into the city. They followed the sounds of terror and paused when a building imploded almost right in front of them. They retreated to a rooftop position on an adjacent street.
From their hiding place, Ari and Tanner spotted Amoch in his robes. Two men were at his side, dressed as Keepers: likely the avatars of Brown and Pots, or the t
hird man Tanner mentioned.
Oblivious to their watchers, the trio walked forward casually, destroying everything in sight. The three were located far enough away from each other that Ari and Tanner’s exploding arrows would affect only the targeted men.
“I’ll take Amoch.” Ari loaded an arrow and aimed her bow.
“I’ll take the man on his left.” Tanner likewise prepared an arrow.
“Ready?” she asked.
In response Tanner fired.
Shit.
She released her arrow.
The first man beside Amoch exploded.
The second man rushed toward Amoch and leaped in front of him. The arrow struck his body and he disintegrated in a spray of body parts, sending Amoch flying backward.
Ari quickly loaded another arrow and aimed into the street, but Amoch was gone.
“I never said to fire!” Ari scolded him.
“Sorry,” Tanner replied sheepishly.
“I was going to count to three—”
She paused. Her body felt different, somehow. She tried to move, but found that she was glued in place. She could breathe, and move her lips and tongue, but that was it.
“Uh, Tanner?” she said. “I can’t move.”
“Neither can I.”
“I thought you said the Children fixed that,” Ari complained.
“They had,” Tanner replied. “The man Kade left on the Outside reverted that change, I’m guessing.”
“Wonderful.”
Several tense moments passed. Her gaze was locked toward the street, in the direction she was looking before her body froze.
Finally Ari heard what sounded like someone clambering onto the rooftop behind her, followed by the repeated clank of a staff’s ferrule against the tiles. The noise grew in volume, occurring in regular intervals like the ticking of some clock of death.
And then it ceased.
A black robe lurked beside her.
“Ari,” Amoch said. “Though I do not want to, it seems I have to kill you myself. Everyone else who hates you is dead.”
He vanished from view, walking behind her. Ari expected the killing blow to come any second.
