On the Run (Wine of the Gods Book 28)

by Pam Uphoff

  "I'll bet." Mirk bit his lip. Should I try leading questions or not? I don't want them to know that I'm from a different world. "Where did they come from?"

  "They said another world . . . I told them we were a colony of Earth's . . . that bothered them. They asked hundreds of questions, but it's just history, to us. They said that this world was now their colony, and they'd use us however they wished. There was this big one . . ." Felix's brow furrowed and he winced, right hand going to his forehead. Then carefully touching the brassy cylinder of the eyepiece.

  He took his hand away and swallowed. "Mirk? What are we going to do?"

  "We'll start by finding out more about them. There seem to be three kinds of them. The big guy, Von Cratz, the normal cyborgs, and that . . . Mentalist Sokalov."

  "There's more. Some of the regular cyborgs are better than others. I think . . . I would have been one of the others. They sneered about how we'd be needing radios. Like some of them didn't need them."

  Do some of the ordinary cyborgs have telepathy? At least a little, and the "Mentalist" a lot?

  "Could they be from Earth? Could they have rediscovered us? They speak a language the Nexus can translate."

  Felix looked blank for a moment, then blinked and his one-eyed gaze sharpened.

  "No . . . they would never use lesser people to colonize a new world."

  Did they tell you that before . . . or just now?

  "So . . . we're like the lesser people? But we're high tech, well-educated . . . "

  Felix gave an odd high pitch laugh. "You will need radios in your head, you may be a part of the Drei Mächte Bündniss, but you will never be a part of the True People."

  Mirk felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. I think that was straight from . . . Who? Von Cratz or Sokalov? Or a collective thing like the Oners have? But there isn't any "greater collective" here, so at most it would be a collective of the few True People here on Utopia. Which is going to make things difficult. Will they know when we kill one of them?

  "If you have the concept of lesser people, then are you an elite?" Are you still listening, or is it really Felix who will answer?

  "All of the homeworlders have the improvements. And we improve people as we go, world to world."

  "How many worlds?"

  "Hundreds. You are next, little man."

  Mirk contemplated his own home. Nobility. And levels of it. "I suspect you True People are not all equal. Von Cratz is higher, isn't he?"

  "Oh yes, and young and ambitious. Adding a World to the Empire, he will become powerful and influential, gain a seat in the Chamber."

  "And what of the Mentalist?"

  "And that's a different sort of power. All fear him. Even Von Cratz knows he's on a higher tier, even though he climbs a different tier of power. They breed for power, for the gestalt with electronics that enables our implants, our gates, our industry and our civilization."

  "Well, I'm sure that's fascinating." Nauseating. "But it doesn't have much to do with the local problem. What is he going to do to us?"

  Felix's lip drew back from his teeth and laughed. Even while tears leaked and his single eye grew distressed. "Anything he wants. Just you wait until we've got our first crop of mentalists. You won't be able to stop us. Ha! As if you pathetic Pacifists could stop us now!"

  Mirk backed away from the laughter, or the hysterics.

  "Well . . . right. I'd better get to work." And find out if Von Cratz and Sokalov heard that exchange. And think about these mentalists.

  ***

  Apparently not. Mirk spent the entire day organizing the site work for the barracks.

  Gravel pads, leveled and compacted. A sand layer on top. Leveled and compacted.

  Basic plumbing connections installed. "Moisture barrier" sheets of plastic unrolled atop it all. Then the cement foundation slabs being delivered.

  The sun had set before he dragged home.

  "We have to be very careful about our communications. The cyborgs apparently have some telepathic abilities. Or some of them do."

  Napalm and Halberd exchanged glances.

  Mirk sighed. "Getting into trouble?"

  "Out of trouble, actually." Halberd frowned. "The cyborgs are very vulnerable to compulsion spells. I made one forget he'd seen us, and just go away."

  "And neither Von Cratz nor Sokalov knew about it, nor about the questions I asked Felix. I wonder if their telepathy is actually very strong? Or maybe subconscious. Felix seemed to get information from somewhere, and acted snotty once." Mirk frowned. "Actually, that was rather odd. Felix seemed to pull information out of the air, and at one point I seemed like I was speaking to one of them, or a collective mind of them . . . That shouldn't work with just a radio."

  Halberd grinned. "But the Utopians don't have a record of the Exile in their histories. I'll bet some of the colonists had some genetic engineering, and didn't get rounded up and exiled."

  Mirk thought that over. "That's something I hadn't considered."

  "Maybe the workers have a connection, like worker bees, but the Queen and Drones aren't part of it." Frost grinned. "Don't look so horrified. I will not think of Von Cratz as a queen bee, and Sokalov . . . I haven't been close enough to tell how strong a magician he is. We'll need to be cautious in trying to take advantage of our strength and training. They could surprise us."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Winter 1400 px/18-2-3517

  St. Louis, Utopia

  "What are we doing anyway?" Halberd maneuvered the two chairs through the door and eyed the stairs.

  Napalm closed the door behind them and picked the little table up again. "Establishing Kid Revolt HQ. I've got something to show you, and I don't want even the Nexus to know about it. Just in case."

  Halberd backed down the stairs, trying to not bang the chairs up too much. "Oh yeah?"

  "Yeah." Napalm set the table down right under the light and started pulling small bottles out of a dimensional bubble.

  Halberd eyed the array. "Are those potions?"

  "Yep. I know you had the Joy juice. Didn't you ever sneak anything else?"

  "Of course. Everyone did . . . I sort of forgot about mine, once we were here and busy with school and friends . . ." Halberd glanced at her arm. All five bubbles, still there. "I only took out the joy juice, for emergencies, since we were in a war."

  Napalm picked up an ugly clay jar. "This is a hex. It's supposed to have everything in it, good and bad all at once." She looked over at Halberd, smug smile. "It has all the power genes in it. I just need to figure out which spells are which, then I can give it to Arthur. So I don't accidentally kill him when I advance."

  "Whoa! Because of that burst of power when a witch loses her virginity. That is a brilliant idea. I figured I'd have to use Mirk."

  "Ick! He's old!"

  "Yeah." Halberd felt her cheeks pull back into a huge grin. "We should ask all the kids if they want power. And other stuff, too."

  "We don't have enough for everyone."

  Halberd patted her arm. "I used to sit real quiet in the corner and watch Teri. She knew I was there. I think she liked to have someone to brag to. And fetch things. I have the power gene potions, too. And I can make more."

  "All right!" Napalm frowned. "Are we supposed to be in school right now?"

  "No, the Nexus shut them down for a couple of weeks." Halberd wrinkled her nose. "It said that historically, some aggressive invaders would specifically attack schools and kill children for maximum terror or something. I don't even know if any of my friends are still in the city or if they evacuated. I'll ask later, while I get the raw ingredients I need for the potions."

  Napalm snickered. "More 'ethyl alcohol for industrial purposes' to fiddle the Nexus and its silly rules?"

  "Well, we don't need to store it, so probably fruit juice will be sufficient." Halberd looked around. "But I'll bet we could make wine down here. Just in case we need it sometime."

  Halberd peeked into a couple of her bubbles . . . Oh,
not that one! I forgot how panicked I was while we were under attack. Just throwing my clothes in one bubble, grabbing all my storage bubbles . . . Even the Big Joke. That fell flat. Nobody noticed the missing horse. Oh well. I ought to find a herd of wild horses here and turn him loose.

  And here's all my clothes . . . it was so much more fun getting new local stuff from the fabs I never used any of it. And here are all of my little bottles.

  She started pulling them out and eyed the one labeled Wizard and Mage. Marco's attending University remotely from San Francisco. Drat. I wonder if Rick and Colleen are still around? And Dr. Beecher. He's too old, but I really ought to check on him. And Rick's a grad student . . . probably twenty, but he is cute . . . He's probably horrified by all this violence and hiding under his bed.

  Halberd sighed. "You're lucky you're so young. None of my friends have secret bike gangs in underground hideouts."

  Napalm snickered. "Yeah, you boring old people. Lets go get some fruit juice."

  ***

  Frost gawped at the neonatal nursery. "Sixteen babies a day! I can hardly believe it. I mean, I guess I knew that's what would be needed to maintain the population of a city, but Old Gods! That is a lot of babies. Day after day."

  Norma sniffed. "The actually daily total depends on how many of the embryos we defrost are viable. Some of them are quite old, and fail to develop."

  Frost looked over at her. "So you start that many every day, too?"

  "Yes. It's an interesting process, the embryos are defrosted in little dishes and inspected for defects as they start growing." Norma beamed at Frost, then sobered as her gaze drifted toward the cyborg doctor, Dr. Haruki, and the two cyborgs carrying cases. "When they're big enough, they go in the artificial wombs, to grow for nine months."

  Frost eyed the "artificial wombs." They looked like big translucent pink pots with tons of equipment attached. She glanced back at the cases they cyborgs had brought. "Are those the elite cyborgs' offspring?"

  "Certainly not. You lesser people can supply the ova for that."

  That's going to be a problem . . .

  "So . . . what are these? Why are they so important?"

  "These are the cloned embryos of Mentalists. With ten thousand of them, we have a near certainty of producing one who can open gates."

  Norma wrinkled her nose. "So you can invade yet another world?"

  "Yes. And having produced a gate Maker, Assimilation Leader Von Cratz will get a percentage of all the wealth from Worlds beyond this one."

  "Oh. I . . . see you True People are spreading out exponentially. That's . . . interesting." Horrifying. But maybe they'll run into the Quicksilver witch and her evil brother, Xen Wolfson. I won't know which side to cheer for. For all that Teri and Jade hated those Ash witches and Quicksilver especially, the one I remember is Wolfson, glowing with power, spells blowing through shields. Even Eldon couldn't stand up to him, barely managed shields long enough for us to get the children away. I . . . actually hope I never see him again.

  She hesitated, but had to ask. "What happens to the other nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-some children who cannot open gates?"

  Dr. Haruki shrugged. "They will be facilitators of other sorts of electronics, or serve as communication hubs. And, of course, they will be the teachers of younger mentalists. Or they will become soldiers. Von Cratz is a mentalist, after all."

  "Oh, I see." Officers, most likely.

  "But Frost!" Norma wrung her hands. "We don't have enough artificial wombs. There won't be more than two available for extra embryos when today's need to be transferred."

  "Relax, Norma. Just stop defrosting our embryos and start using these. I talked to the Nexus and it is getting some stored equipment out and tuned up. Inside of a week we'll know what we're dealing with here, in terms of these new embryos, and we can plan accordingly." Frost looked around. "Nexus? Are there enough trained personnel to operate the expanded Facilities?"

  "No, Frost Witch. I have recommended specialist classes to students nearing graduation. We will have trainees in one month."

  "Right." Frost turned to Dr. Haruki. "We will defrost two embryos today, to carefully study the process. Then when we are more confident of the correct procedures, we will start sixteen embryos a day, and then increase that number as personnel and equipment come online. Now, at what age do these baby mentalists start needing specialized instruction?"

  "At puberty. We will provide the instructors."

  "Well . . . I suppose in thirteen years you'll be back in contact. So . . . I'll leave you technical people to deal with the clinical end of things." She smiled again, and walked out.

  Mentalists. I wonder how they stack up against wizards and witches? A sinking feeling in her belly. I wonder how they stack up against poorly trained witches? I must have been twenty-one when we ran into Jade, Teri, Heso, and Zap.

  And Ricardo.

  The God of Assassins. Old Gods! The glow! Something incredibly deep. Pity I didn't have sense enough to run, to find Ash, and honest witches.

  Oh, I got a little training. But never so much that I could threaten Teri's position with the Hors. Training I really, really need, right now. The girls too. We need to get far away from the cyborgs and practice. And Halberd is Teri's granddaughter. Maybe she knows more than I do.

  Maybe we can experiment and figure stuff out.

  ***

  "Magic practice?" Halberd blinked. "Umm . . . We are three witches, aren't we. A pretty uneven triad, but who cares? That's a really good idea. Because we may need our combined strength against these guys sometime."

  "I spent today placating a cyborg doctor as we tried to figure out how to properly grow their frozen embryos. Got him chatting a bit. The embryos are all mentalists. Ten thousand of them."

  "Ten . . . wow, that's almost fifty percent of the cyborg population." Napalm frowned. "We need to figure out how strong what's-his-name's magical abilities are. And what they are. What he's trained to do. Find out how much trouble ten thousand of them are going to be."

  "Sokalov." Frost bit her lip. "I'll see what Mirk can find out. Before I find an excuse to get near him."

  Halberd nodded. "I really don't want to kill kids, so we should find out fast."

  "Halberd Arrowdaut!" The voice of the inevitable eavesdropper.

  "Sorry, Nexus. I don't actually want to kill anyone, not even these cyborgs. But we may need to sabotage—slightly—the reproduction centers so no more baby mentalists can be started. But I doubt they'll be dangerous when they're just babies. And if we raise them right, they won't be dangerous at all." Halberd sighed. "Nexus, do you think you could get us a few hundred miles out of the city, to the north away from all the cyborgs, so we could practice regularly?"

  "The cyborgs are setting up devices that I believe are in the class of anti-aircraft weapons all around the city. I do not think that leaving the city is a good idea. I can calculate the areas of the city that are the furthest from any cyborg."

  "Ooo! Good idea, but maybe, bias it toward being even further from Von Cratz and Sokalov?" Halberd grinned. "And inside would be good. If there are any empty houses or shops nearby, we could work indoors and be even less obvious."

  "I have located a vacant house that meets those specifications."

  Halberd grinned at the other two. "So let's go see what we can do together."

  It was a cute little one-person house. A half-basement, that would let them stay under cover while still strongly in contact with the Earth.

  And it was a very lumpy triad.

  Halberd shrugged. "Don't look so worried, Napalm. You grasped power early, before puberty. I heard Jade and Teri talking about things like that, and what it means is that you'll be really strong when you do finally do puberty. Teri said Quicksilver did it in reverse like that, and everyone knows that she's the strongest witch around, maybe even stronger than Answer."

  "Oh great. I get to be as nasty as Quicksilver."

  Frost sighed. "I wish I'd gotten som
e real training."

  Halberd nodded. "You're really strong, but it's like you were trying to keep it down. Were you doing it because of being with a pair of real young Crescents?"

  "Umm . . . I suppose. I mean, as a child, in Verona, I was always in trouble. Setting things on fire without . . . I mean I'd lose my temper at someone and something across the room would start smoldering. I learned to not do it . . . but the Virgins still sent me off with the military to what they called their 'School of Magic.' Ha! What a joke, they didn't know anything. When Smokey decided to run away to the West and see if we could find some real witches, well, several of us went with them."

  Napalm wrinkled her nose. "And you found Teri and Jade, didn't you?"

  "Yes. I wish, sometimes, that I'd found an Ash witch. But it's too late for me. You two? You've committed no crimes. Keep it that way, and if we ever have a gate to anywhere that will get you back home, to Comet Fall, you should take it."

  "That doesn't matter, right now. And speaking of gates, can I show you two something? Sit and meditate, while we're sort of in the triad." Halberd sat, and extended her hands.

  She didn't gather power, just sat and quieted her mind. :: See the blue? Fizzing like a soft drink? Look closer. ::

  The closer they got, the slower the bubbles moved, and the larger they looked.

  Frost managed to sound breathless, mentally. :: Are those what they use for making storage bubbles? ::

  :: Yes. And see that edge, like a crumpled up wad of paper that's almost transparent? That's another World. And there? That cone? They always talked about "catching a cone" when they talked about making gates. :: Halberd reached out, but the bubble ignored her. :: I can't touch them! ::

  Napalm's mental scowl. :: When I look by myself I can't hardly see them. I think we're seeing what you see. ::

  :: Maybe. Keep looking, I'll shield. :: Halberd pulled out of meditation, pulled her hands out of the other witches' grasp, and closed her mental shields as tightly as she could.