by Lee Bond
***
"Is you aware," Chezzik said as he strolled into the noisy ... chamber full of ... things that defied explanation and honestly begged not to be looked at for overlong, "that the whole of this place is really quite disturbing on a visual and emotional level?"
Baron Samiel, long accustomed to being alone in the endless caverns and catacombs that comprised the place he called home, nearly lurched out his chair, narrowly saving himself from accidentally pulling himself to pieces by remembering how bound down he was.
Still, as Samiel sat there, the tautness of the leather and wires holding him as together as he could, many of the machines to which he was linked trembled and vibrated in place, swallowing his stark anger and translating it away into the ether.
"How did you get here?" The master of Time demanded, incongruous-power turning his voice incandescent.
Chez ran a finger atop one of the many monitors Baron Samiel had arrayed around what was best described as a very bondage-serious wooden chair, complete with metal rings designed for easier knot-tying and all of that sincere freakishness. The assassin looked at the streaks of dust on his white gloves, preening happily when the dust simply shed from his digits.
"Walked. Weren't far." Chez rubbed thumb and forefinger together thoughtfully, then turned his attention to the monitors.
Baron Samiel, all considerable bulk of him, bound up in the tight embrace of leather clothes and moored -for it had not gone amiss that mighty Baron Samiel was more out of the chair than in it, almost as if something were pulling him towards the ceiling- to the chair, squirmed with considerable anger.
"Walked." Samiel ran through the access logs and found nothing. The last known moment Chezzik Elteren had been anywhere near Ziggurat had been the moment the white-clad assassin had knocked rather desultorily on the front door. After that, nothing at all. The cybernetic madman had literally disappeared from the screens, leaving Samiel to believe -and not without false reason- that Chezzik had changed his mind.
Apparently ... obviously ... that wasn't the case. Samiel struggled in his binds, sought to find some reasonable measure of calm, finally managing to only find solace when he accepted the fact that out of all the people in the 25st century, Chezzik Elteren was perhaps the only one who might be able to contain Garth Nickels sufficiently enough to allow manipulation of The Lines to continue.
"Walked." Samiel repeated, listlessly, eyeballing Chezzik as he strolled around a control room that had seen no other being save Samiel in over fifteen thousand existential years. "Through my security defenses. And offenses. Walked."
Chez rubbed glove fingernails across a lapel. "Yeah.’s the most interesting thing about me, Baron, is that when I am on the job, my life becomes very clear. I can see where I need to be and what I need to do. I just follow..."
"The Lines." Baron Samiel breathed the words through his over-wide mouth. "You see The Lines."
"Nah." Chez shook his head, then thought better of it. "Sort of, I suppose. Can't see anything at all in the way of Lines, only I am most definitely pulled one way over another." He waved his hands around enthusiastically. "But I will admit that the effort you put in to keeping people away from getting on the inside, making their way here, to your sanctum sanctorum, that absolutely makes sense. If I were the sort of person to find difficulty in being confronted with my inner demons or being locked into odd hallways with refracting dimensions that can have you wandering around for eternity, yeah, I can definitely see how you're surprised to see me."
Baron Samiel tapped commands into the screen nearest him and waited for the incongruity's computer systems to finish their scans of the assassin who was still wandering around the workshop as if he owned the place. Chezzik's arrogance was without parallel, bordering on the kind of narcissism you found only in History books.
The results were -unsurprisingly, given the rumors that'd reached his ears down through the centuries- inconclusive. Chezzik Elteren was many things, and most of those things were hidden from the most powerful sensors the solar system had ever seen.
Very well. Time to try the more direct route. "How human are you?"
Chez raised an offended brow at the blatant question. "'s a bit rude, don't you think? Asking me something like that? If you'll notice, I made no mention of nor asked any questions concerning your…" The assassin blatantly stared at Samiel's ... condition, "choice in chairs, or clothes. Nor did I mention that in a certiain light, at a certain angle, your face is stretched wide as a froggy’s. Just because we is proper villains, you and I, does not mean we can bandy about willy-nilly with impolite questions and/or observations. Decorum is still a thing, far as I'm concerned. "
The dull gray machines surrounding Samiel on all sides shifted in place, their monochromatic finishes stuttering with sweeps of polychromatic hash, and somehow, Samiel found himself maintaining calm.
"I ask because the job I have, the job that requires your particular talents and you specifically, and your ability to complete the task, hinges upon your humanity." Samiel felt -as did many of him throughout The Line, both up and down- that going with an outside force that was so plainly chaotic was perhaps a terrible mistake, yet he -and they- had no choice in the matter. Ultimate Samiel, thousands of years up The Line and so far away from them all in what it meant to be alive, demanded Chezzik Elteren's assistance.
The moment Second-to-Last Samiel had barely even considered Chezzik had been the moment that the lumbering monstrosity they were destined to become had reared up out of the darkness, finally and permanently proving Samiel's worst nightmares; there was a final, Ultimate Samiel, out there in the absolute depths of the Temporal Line.
And 'He' wanted Chezzik. And was willing to unspool the whole of everything if the cracked assassin wasn't sent down The Line.
"In what sort of way?" Chez honestly didn't know where fat, odious and misshapen Baron Samiel was headed with this line of questioning, but he did know if they didn't arrive at somewhere interesting in the next few seconds, he'd likely make some interesting shit happen.
Didn't know what that might be, or in which direction the shit would be flung, but he decidedly loathed having his personal time wasted.
"And be clear, squire. I am not one of your flunkies who goes all gaga when you start talking in code, or portents. I deal in straight talk only, mate. But … before we is begin, there is one question I should like to ask, if you don’t mind."
The Lord of The Line grumbled low in his belly as he considered Chezzik’s innocent-seeming pose, inherently disbelieving that the assassin even knew what innocent was these days. Samiel wanted nothing more than to dismiss the buffoon’s interests out of hand, but knew that, realistically speaking, if he wanted to have any kind of chance at limiting Nickels’ influence in the 21st, some latitude had to be given.
“Ask away, Chezzik Elteren. But … do not try my patience.”
Chezzik grinned ear to ear and all the way back around again. He were having a wonderful time. This were all so new and shiny and different than anything he’d been expecting to encounter. Why, he hadn’t felt this invigorated in centuries.
Grin still on his lips, Chez spun his finger around in a circle, sort of … indicating everything in eyesight. “Wot’s wiv … erm, begging your pardon and all, wot’s wiv all this shite, hey? Like, we is in the 25th century, yeah, and you is a time traveler, right, so … why is everyfing so … old lookin’. I is see you is got fings made out of stone and, like, bronze and all that instead of proper, future materials. Like, you could of made your entire command station there roughly …” Chez performed some on-the-fly calculations, “one-third the size if you’d used tinfoil and bubble-gum instead of … wot is that, leather, brick, copper, bronze and plastic?”
Samiel ground teeth as big as dinner plates in a mouth wide enough to swallow a basketball. He supposed he should consider it refreshing that there was a being in the Universe that showed him no fear, but it was precisely the opposite. He was the only power in the world.
The only power.
Incandescent purple lightning began playing across his broad face. So easy, here, inside Ziggurat, to test the limit of Chezzik Elteren’s alleged immortality. Here, inside the vast stone monolith carved by hand, by the survivors of a world still yet to come, in patience and diligent worship of the being they knew was a God, time was unbound.
So easy.
Chez shifted a bit, the tiny wee hairs on the back of his neck stirring in a breeze that shouldn’t be in the room warning him that he’d about pushed his prospective employer’s mood to the limit. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, only that he couldn’t stop razzing the stretched-out freak that was actually hovering in the room, moored to a chair to keep him from batting against the roof.
If he’d miscalculated, if he’d somehow let his rampant emotions get the better of him and Baron Samiel was going to act irresponsibly, well. Chez promised that if he survived, he’d swing by old Bombatom’s leafy green palace high in the canopy of the Basin and issue a formal apology for being thick enough to ignore a heartfelt warning.
Again, Samiel considered letting Chezzik’s irritating and smug inquiry fall on deaf ears, and again, he opted for discretion. What harm could the answer cause? “The power in the heart of this domain … does not like most manmade materials, Chezzik Elteren. The glorious gift it bestows upon me erodes composite materials, destroys lightweight metals, and disintegrates the … unnatural.”
Chez riffed a single, curt nod and resumed his merry trek through the endless-seeming rows of … stuff. “’s what I thought, only I is like to be certain of some things.”
Samiel watched Chezzik idly wander, felt the assassin’s senses on him in return. “Enough.” The master of Time finally ground the word out. “Enough.” He said again, to make the point to himself and to Chezzik.
There was no one else he could use, and that was presupposing Chezzik’s body fell into the parameters required by the incongruity’s mechanical processes of shuttling people up and down The Line; the Baron wasn’t about to send any of his precious soldiers down, not when they were being held in reserve should efforts with Bishop prove successful, and all his other temporal assets were already in play in the 21st and locked into place by Nickels’ far too cunning usage of the time phone.
And … there certainly wasn’t anyone else of use, not in the 25th and definitely not further up. No one else could fit into the ‘wondrous’ world of the 21st. Not with any level of convincing behavior.
When Chezzik spun on a booted heel, a single elegant eyebrow quirked, all signs of idle assholery gone from his aristocratic countenance, Samiel took it to mean that the assassin was finally done playing games and they could get down to business.
Samiel began to talk, reminding himself that unlike his slaves, Chezzik was a free agent. He wasn’t about to merely accept a command to go somewhere and do something without hesitation, and that if the mission was going to be accepted, it’d be on his terms. Which called for absolute transparency.
“I ask about the level of your humanity because where I would like to send you requires either a very particular set of augments or a dwindling amount of actual flesh.” Samiel scrutinized Chezzik’s reaction. Nothing. The man was stone. “The … transmission effects are … unkind to large amounts of organic matter, Chezzik. It would do neither one of us good if you were to accept the offer I have for you, only to arrive a lump of steaming guts and random bits of metal.”
“Intriguing.” Chez let his eyes wander. He honestly couldn’t look at the Baron. Such a gross caricature, he was, that his life didn’t bear consideration. For a proper gentleman, encountering a man so swollen, so stretched and transformed by the powers he held at his command, it was devilishly sorrowful. The dark-haired assassin in the immaculate EverKleen Suit swore to himself then and there, right on the spot, that if the unique assemblage that made him who he was these days even hinted at transubstantiation into anything other than the wonderful being he was, he’d find the nearest radioactive crater and climb on in. “Please, tell me more.”
Samiel drew in a slow, laborious breath, lungs wheezing, the external motors bracketed across his chest chattering with the effort of aiding the giant windbags. “I presume you know things about me that most of the world does not? You consort with Wayfarers, after all, and as the only being on the planet that doesn’t fear a rede, I would imagine they are … chatty.”
“Point of order, your honor.” Chezzik fiddled with his lapels for a moment. “I do not consort with Wayfarers. They consort with me. Every time a new one of them bastards wandering the ‘load catches wind of my lovely scent, they decide to swing on by to see what the fuss is about. I,” here, he put a hand over his heart, “certainly want as little to do as possible with those creatures. Bad for business, you see. Whilst I am trying to interrogate someone for a location and one arrives, everyone has a tendency to clam up.”
“Be that as it may…”
Chez let out an insufferable sigh. “Aye, yes. From time to time, they talk. About the things they see, the way of the world for them. About you. So if you is wondering whether or not I am aware of your … extracurricular activities, aye, I know. Know, and don’t care, because if the world has changed around me without my knowledge, what does it matter? I live in the moment, and if in the next moment, my suit changes from black to white or something equally microscopic, Chezzik Elteren will continue onward. Your job then, involves a lengthy journey?”
“Yes.” Baron Samiel nodded minutely, a mere twitch of the head. “And the further back you go, the more dangerous it is. The more organic you there is, the more certain you’ll suffer incredible agony.”
“Well then.” Chezzik performed one of his lovely court bows. “For the nonce, assume I am not taking the job, as we’ve not yet discussed payment, but consider your travel arrangements easy enough.” A frown crossed his face. “Ah … perhaps not, now I think on it. When you say organic, do you mean human organic?”
“How do you mean?” Samiel took another look at Chezzik’s scans. Still as nebulous as ever.
Chez looked slyly about the room. It were one thing for a Wayfarer to know most of his tricks and secrets, it was another thing entirely for someone like Baron Samiel to be in the know. The … man –Chezzik supposed the blobby thing were still mostly a man, if only in context- looking to hire him was definitely the sort to use freshly gained Intelligence to his own advantage further on in the story, as it were.
And yet … the premise of traveling through time overrode a fellow’s normal sense of caution, didn’t it just? To be free from the odious nature of the present, to see motor cars again, planes in the sky, to smell freshly made coffee … Chez knew any assignation to the past would by no means be permanent, knew that no matter how much he disliked slogging through a Wasteload in search of his next target or victim, he’d been missing the fucking place.
“Well, there were the time I et a Wayfarer’s head.” Chez admitted, almost guiltily. “That were a few hundred years ago. It were not polite. The complex protein re-scriptors in my blood and body had a well difficult time unspooling and rewiring the genetic code of a Wayfarer into something I could use. Sort of …" Chezzik wiggled his fingers, “Branched through everything, hey? My liver, for instance, is almost entirely Wayfarer, but there are a load of ganglions and such in the old noggin as is are functionally different. Reckon that’s where some of me skills come from these days, hey? So, is that count as organic?”
“Fascinating.” Samiel could find no other word. “And no … I don’t believe so. I’ve never been presented with an opportunity to examine a Wayfarer. They avoid the Ziggurat and most of my forces in any time. Wayfarers fall outside the norm in every way, making the vessels of their power warped and twisted enough to avoid the rigors of time travel. This is …”
Chez held up a hand so silence the Baron. “’old on, lad, ‘old on. There’s a bit more to me than just cybernetics and Wayfarer DNA, isn’t there? I’ve got summat else to
share, since we’re being honest.”
“Go on.”
Chez ogled Samiel, as if he were trying to determine whether or not he was going to say what had to be said when he knew damned well he was going to, if for no other reason than to see the expression on that mile wide face. “Were about … eighty years ago. Wanderin’ through the Detroit Wasteload, hey, just sort of muckin’ about, came across a rather large fellow thrashing his way through a ‘loader encampment as if they’d all told ‘im to fuck off. It was impressive. Took all sorts of shots without breaking stride, didn’t he just? Now me, I stood off, as there’s every chance I’d’ve ended up doing the same and I didn’t like the look of the man taking them all to task. ‘loaders aren’t civil at the best of times, and, as I said, this were Detroit. People from that neck of the planet are somehow less well-behaved than other delusional morons. I blame the educational services made available here in the 25th century myself.
Well, our lad Mister Muscles, he took care of the entire encampment and I suppose I might’ve twigged him to my presence because of my standing ovation for a job well done, but wouldn’t you know it, he took exception to my presence and admiration instead of pleasure and charged me full on. Lad moved well quick. Knocked one of me arms off first go ‘round. I remember being quite unhappy about that, as it'd been my, er, favorite arm, if you catch my drift, and so I did for him. Then I needed to eat a bit, you know, to get the arm back on. It was quite a bit of a shock, I tell you. Took months for the scales to go away, and I still have the urge to sniff the air like, well. You know what I’m talking about.”
It had been a long time since he’d been surprised. The situation with Nickels no longer counted as surprising only because in the grand scheme of things, all of him had been dealing with the interloper for many thousands of personal years, whereas this was the first time in any of his Lines that he’d ever interacted with Chezzik Elteren.
Baron Samiel shifted uncomfortably in his rig. “You … consumed and adopted the characteristics of … of one my … soldiers.”
