by JM Guillen
It’s complicated. I glanced through the door, even as Anya pulled it closed. That thing can tear right through the wood, you know.
Probably. Wyatt favored me with a rebel’s grin. His tangler already whirred, a high-pitched keen of impatient destruction. Here’s to hoping that the Rook knew a little bit about a little bit.
He fired a spike behind the door, and it blossomed into a silvery-reflective dome of a stasis field. It hummed with an irrefutable power, holding the door closed.
Won’t she just anchor the axioms around it and ruin the field? I asked as I looked around the room for the first time.
The fancy, expensive décor continued here with tastefully patterned carpet, coordinating arm chairs, and a wrap-around bar. It might be the foyer to an individual’s office, an individual important enough to have a liquor cabinet for any guest who might be awaiting their time.
I considered cracking a bottle open.
She might eventually anchor it. Wyatt grinned, stepping toward the door to the office interior. But that spike reinitiates at full strength every five seconds. He winked at me. It’s this little thing I worked out. Uses gravity as a power source. Lil’ somthin’ I picked up.
Gravity, huh? I grinned at his pride while I followed Anya, plucking out her telemetry as she walked. Teasingly, I added, I thought gravity qualified more as a fundamental force?
The next room also qualified as “sumptuous.” The plush carpet squished underfoot, and the walls had been covered in art that looked as if it belonged in a museum. A bookcase took up an entire wall, and a second wall had been entirely sculpted of glass, letting in golden sunlight framed with shining metal. A large desk sat in front of the window.
Behind me, the aberration screamed and clawed at the door.
The stasis field is within parameters. Anya smiled with satisfaction and gave Wyatt the scantest touch of a nod. Such a thing is very well made.
Had I ever heard Anya pay someone a compliment before? I regarded my barbarian friend. Wyatt didn’t seem to notice.
Thing is, he linked, I think gravity may be a fundamental force we’re about to get cozy with. He peered at the window for a long moment and then looked from me to Anya.
Oh, no. I took a step away from the window, even as the room shuddered from the aberration’s strikes. I don’t like the way that sounds.
If I can get a good shot out the window, I can set spikes that offset angular momentum and alter our mass. He shrugged. It’s not tough. Raptor-class Assets do it all the time.
I ground my teeth at the memory.
Anya brushed a thin strand of blonde hair from her face and glanced toward me. You indicated your concerns regarding our methods of descent through the building. This could be a solution to that quandary.
I don’t think these windows open. I walked over to them, doing my very best to remain aloof. We should probably explore other options.
Behind us, the sounds of the aberration rending the door commanded my attention. If anything, they had gotten louder.
Your disruptor will easily provide our Artisan egress. Anya blinked at me, confusion in her sky-blue eyes.
You don’t get it, Anya. Wyatt held back a guffaw. Our pretty boy here is afraid of heights.
Afraid? I gave Wyatt a look of utter disbelief. That’s just stupid. The Facility would wipe a phobia from my mind. I paused, gesturing toward Anya’s belt. A neural lacuna is a powerful thing, my friend.
The stasis field is still holding. Anya sent calmly.
Then the pounding stopped.
We have a moment to think. I drew a deep breath.
No sooner had I sent the link than one of the lavishly paneled walls of the outer room shuddered.
Wyatt turned grim. No, we don’t, Hoss.
“Fine.” I frowned. “But I want to go on record.” I aimed my disruptor toward the window. “Officially.”
On record? Anya looked confused.
“This is a very bad idea,” I declared.
19
Stand back. I dialed the disruptor to the diameter of a wrecking ball and the force of a passenger train at two hundred kilometers per hour. That should do.
Anya and Wyatt stepped well clear.
I fired, and the glass shattered thunderously, tiny shards flying everywhere. An entire pane of it, nearly twice the height of a man, burst from its mooring and tumbled to the ground below.
Good work. Wyatt gave me a wide grin and a nod. We’ve got this.
We’ll see.
Oh. Anya gazed at her hand, which had been coated in sweet, singing crimson. She turned to look at us, and I saw where a flying piece of glass had cut her temple, a little close to the eye for comfort.
I stood, momentarily stunned.
Anya’s crimson warmth sang with the rhyme and meter of every beautiful ballad as it dripped down her fair skin. I wanted to step to her, to taste it. My heart pounded in my chest, and I realized the primal shape of her, the curve and sweetness of her body. She looked at me, ice-blue eyes wide—
Now you match. Wyatt’s link held an odd chuckle. But Anya shouldn’t go for a scar.
Nor would I. Anya’s tone remained calm, but something about the way she looked at me told me she saw something that disturbed her. Her left hand twitched just a touch.
I turned back to the window.
The wind this high up howled, terrific in its force. It pummeled into the room with a whistling roar, whipping fiercely against us.
This’ll be easy .Wyatt stepped to the edge of the sill, using the business end of the tangler to make certain no stray bits of glass still clung to the metallic window housing. Casually, he gripped the edge and leaned over, surveying the building’s side.
Just watching him do it made me ill.
Is Asset Guthrie correct? The concern in Anya’s link tickled over me. If you suffer from agoraphobia, Michael, I’m certain that our assigned Caduceus could assist.
No. I shot Anya a frustrated glance. No, I am not afraid of heights. Also, if I were afraid of heights, Rachel is the last person I would want to tell.
After a brief pause, she continued. Is the opinion of Asset Gardener somehow significant to the dossier, Michael?
If Rachel thought there was something else that she could pick at me over, I’d never get anything done. I gave Anya a soft smile.
Was she asking if Rachel were… more than a friend? I cocked my head at her, thinking.
Anya’s eyes were thoughtful, as guileless as the sky.
Got it. Wyatt had turned around just as the wall shuddered with another strike from the aberration. If that thing gets through, just keep it at bay for a sec.
Riiight.
The creature continued to punch its way through the solid wood paneling. I had no doubt that it would be through any moment now.
I figger I can buy you about a minute. I neglected to link, ‘Before it slaughters me.’
That’ll do. Here, I’ll help. Wyatt turned and shot another spike just in front of the spot where the creature tore away at the wall. The moment after he fired, he patched an overlay on my vision, showing a yellow circle around the spike, indicating its trigger area.
Stasis field. Don’t set it off. He leaned far out of the window again, holding on with one hand as he aimed the tangler down.
WHUF. WHUF. Wyatt fired twice more, but the specifics of his work didn’t exactly hold my focus in the moment.
That seemingly unkillable aberration had my full attention.
She tore away enough of the wall that she could stuff one of her arms and much of her torso through. Her single eye shone with wrathful fury.
“We’ll discuss it later. Perhaps after we get out of this alive,” I muttered to Anya as I watched the creature carve through the wall.
My legs burned where the aberration had sliced at me. It occurred to me that I needed to check in with Rachel and make certain that my viral mecha didn’t read anything unusual.
As the creature tore her way through, I readied mys
elf. I flipped the mental switch that powered up the Adept. I trusted Wyatt’s stasis field, but I preferred to back up my trust with weapons of my own.
The right side of the abomination’s face looked a bloody ruin where I had impaled her eye with my katana. Offhandedly, I thought it interesting that it didn’t seem as if she had healed that wound, even though no trace of cuts from the razor wire marred her skin.
“I’ll take your other eye if you come through.” I growled at the creature and cocked my head to look like a badass. “Don’t think I won’t.”
She screeched and gurgled as she tore her way through the wood, throwing shards and splinters everywhere. Then words of some forsaken vernacular no man could ever know without being slaughtered by his own nightmares poured from her lips.
WHUF. WHUF.
That will do it. We’re good. Wyatt turned and gazed at us, a question glinting behind the blue lens of his left eye.
I don’t know why you’re looking at me. I turned back toward the aberration, my weapons in hand. I already told you. Bad idea.
I’m willing to go first, Hoss. I felt the confidence behind his link. We’ll gain a few floors by goin’ out that window. He paused. Thing is, I don’t know what’s on that particular floor. It could be just as bad as here.
I somewhat doubt that. Anya turned from Wyatt to me. I am willing to take point in this endeavor to provide telemetry. She looked to the window, her eyes distant as her fingers pulled at invisible cords. After gauging her readings a moment, she continued. It appears that Asset Guthrie has his spikes set properly, and therefore there is no fear of falling. She eyed me as she said that last bit.
Fine. I scowled at both of them. We might as well get this done.
Anya nodded once and then stepped gracefully to the window. She glanced down, and I knew that her interface showed her far more than what I saw. She could probably pinpoint the exact locations where Wyatt had bent reality.
She turned, her back to the window, gazed squarely at both of us, and took one step out over the edge.
She fell silently.
My heart dropped with her, and I fought nausea.
Damn. I couldn’t help the sentiment.
From behind, a scream of victory pealed as the aberration worked her shoulders through the hole she’d created.
20
With a final burst of horrifying strength, the aberration shimmied into the room.
Oh. Hey, Wyatt? I gulped.
With a single step, she crossed Wyatt’s barrier, and the silvery stasis field WHOOMP-ed into existence.
I grinned broadly at the genius Alabamian.
He beamed back proudly, but an instantly later his expression dropped.
What the fuck? Alarmed, Wyatt glanced down at his crescent-shaped keyboard. Hoss, she’s trying to anchor that thing from inside the field!
That’s impossible. The very definition of a stasis field means the thing inside is in stasis. Trapped in space-time, right?
I don’t get how she’s doing it, but I’m tellin’ you, she’s trying to bust it up from the inside out.
I had only seen one creature ever break loose from one of Wyatt’s fields, and that had been a Greater Aberration in Dhire Lith.
Fuck.
Copy that. I glanced at the window. Are you going first or am I?
Just go. Wyatt paused, and the blue lens over his eye swam with mathematical figures. I think I can hold her for a moment.
He hadn’t even finished linking before a grumbling, grinding sound vibrated through the floor, and a small yellow light began flashing on the side of Wyatt’s pneumatic spike-firing mechanism.
I glanced at the trap. Dark rivulets of ruddy color bled through the silvery hemisphere of the stasis field.
Um, what’s that?
Nothing. Nothing is what that is. Wyatt’s link felt terse, and he tapped his keys so fiercely that I thought he might damage his keyboard. It’s not a matter of who’s going first. It’s that we’re both going. Right fucking now!
Wyatt grabbed my wrist as he turned, giving up entirely on inputting axiomatic algorithms. He dragged me toward the shattered window, jerking me so quickly that I stumbled, thrown off balance.
“Wyatt? I—”
RIIIIIIIIpppp!
I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder at the loud sound that again vibrated the entire floor. Wild coruscations of sullen red light zig-zagged over the stasis field, a delicate silver egg hatching an inhuman abomination.
On the count of three.
Accustomed to the howling wind, it took me a moment to realize that we stood on the edge of the precipitous drop. From here, I could see the entire city of Tokyo, brilliantly lit as the sun set on the horizon.
Fuck your count of three. I tried to pull loose from Wyatt. I don’t need you to help me jump!
I’m not playing, Hoss. His grip tightened while his other hand began inputting commands, tapping tersely.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen him enter commands so quickly.
Neither am I. I pulled again. Nothing. I’m not afraid of heights, Wyatt! I pulled a third time, and when he didn’t let go, a positively wicked idea occurred to me.
I engaged the Spectre, and his fingers drifted through me.
Hoss! Real fear bled through his link.
Kraaaaaa-BOOM! An enormous roar that must have been anchored to the center of the world echoed and thundered through my body as the stasis field shattered.
Many things happened then, all at once.
The fundamental forces of physics were seen as simple tools for the Facility. We toyed with these things every day. Because of that, it was sometimes easy to take for granted the rare and wonderful nature of our technology.
A good example: Wyatt’s stasis field. It literally halted space-time within a certain area of physicality. Not only that, but the Artisan packet accounted for the motion of the Earth as well. In this way, the stasis field moved with the ground instead of being anchored in the inky blackness of space as the planet hurtled away from it.
That took a remarkable amount of energy.
The moment the field sundered, that energy released into an explosion that sheared away everything in that room, hurling pieces of furniture, windows, and expensive bottles of liquor out into the darkening twilight.
Oh, and Wyatt Guthrie.
Wyatt! I sent as I watched him fall, horrified.
The tremendous amount of concussive force blew through my incorporeal form so strongly that things zipped past the usual chilly sensation and barreled straight into fucking freezing.
Immediately, I felt pins-and-needles tear into my mind as the Spectre frantically tried to deal with the sheer amount of matter and energy rampaging through me.
I leapt out the window.
I saw no other choice. Either I went on my own or the Spectre would fail and make the choice for me.
The moment I flung wildly out of the blast zone, I disengaged my packet and fell straight at Anya. She crouched against the sheer side of the building, no doubt held there by the gravity of Wyatt’s spike.
Michael! Anya’s link screamed franticly as she watched me hurtle toward her. What happened?
I slid to a stop next to her like a major league baseball player and tried to focus.
Rachel? I sent, ignoring Anya but including her in the link. Wyatt is falling from the building.
WHAT? Rachel’s link held anger, frustration, and sheer panic.
What happened, Michael? Gideon’s link immediately cut into my mind.
A Greater Aberration shattered one of his stasis fields. I peered out into the violet twilight, searching for my friend. The energy shoved him—
I cut my link off as Anya and I suddenly plummeted downward, falling toward pavement that glittered with broken glass.
Michael! Anya’s panic at the sudden fall coursed through me, her shock adding to my adrenaline. The world spun by, and I didn’t even have time to lace two thoughts together.
WHUF.
Another of Wyatt’s spikes loomed suddenly large in my vision, about ten meters below us. The steel spike jutted out of the side of the building racing up to meet us.
Not two meters from it, we began to slow. Obviously, it had been set to alter angular momentum and ease our fall.
Another half-meter and we came to a halt.
WHUF.
The sound of metal tearing into metal came from somewhere in the deepening darkness below us.
Incoming. Wyatt’s link came tight and terse. Prepare for some shifting.
Anya and I started hovering.
Wyatt?
Then we began to float down.
With gradually increasing speed we slid down the building. Anya stared at the spike with a puzzled expression as it went by.
Wyatt!? In a panic, I scrabbled at the side of the building but to no avail. The spikes bending gravity gave way slowly, as if their basic force had been eroded by an unseen, turbulent river.
Axiomatic weavings, approximately twenty-six meters below us, Michael! I felt the panic in Anya’s link, even though her tone still sounded somewhat sterile.
What? Her words had no meaning as I felt the force of Wyatt’s spike slip further. In less than a second, we had gone from slowly drifting down to oh-fuck-I’m-about-to-be-part-of-the-pavement.
Then, all semblance of calm concern left as the spikes let go, and Rational physics held sway. Animal passion took over as we plummeted downward.
I’m pretty sure someone screamed like a little girl. Probably Anya.
Cool yer jets, folks. Wyatt’s tone sounded almost jovial.
No sooner did I get the link than I felt my fall slow.
Ol’ Wyatt’s gotcha.
Ol’ Wyatt’s gonna get my foot in his ass! My link bled with a furious mix of elation and terror. As I slowed further, I looked down and realized my fall drifted slightly to the left, where Wyatt hung onto the side of the building, no doubt assisted by one of his spikes.
Unlikely, at this angle of descent. Unbelievably, Anya’s link contained a touch of wry humor. She turned to me as our fall slowed even more, almost to the rate of a drifting leaf. Her brow creased. Come now, Michael. The man saved our lives.
