Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

Dom banged an elbow into the thick door they’d parked themselves in front of. A hollow clank echoed up the Stairs. “Like I says, I hain’t know for cert what’s on t’other side of the door here. For definite, my ex-brother is out there, and two slatterns of fiendishly corrupted flesh too, but I feel in my bones that there’s like as not other things waiting as well. This machine mind as runs the Outside … Trinity? This whole escapade has the stink of manipulation about it, and as one who used to deal with chattering Nannies and their unsubtle ways on a regular basis, I know I is not wrong.”

  “Enforcers.” This, from the back again. “Be Enforcers out there, bloody one. For sure, for sure. Men in armor. Men with guns to turn stars into dust. Unstoppable, they are. They go where Itself tells ‘em to go, and wherever their boots land, people and even worlds die.”

  Dom digested the news. Enforcers. Had the ring of Gearmen about it. And if Trinity Itself used individuals in armor in the same way as Barnabas Blake the One and Only had used lads in long clicking cloaks, then welladay, he were looking at quite the confrontation, weren’t he just?

  The majority of the crew lost some of their edge as they considered the threat of Enforcers being on t’other side of the door, causing the ex-Gearman to be both upset and pleased by the revelation; upset because he were relying very heavily on the presence of a small army of idiots and dolts to be a distraction whilst he nipped ‘round the far side of the confrontation to lay hand on Book, and pleased for he now had a definite enemy to prepare for. Still, if it came down to it, there were one lesson Dom had learned from decades of dealing with oil-stinking gearheads.

  The threat of distant enemies barely registered when confronted with a threat that were right there in the room wi’ you. The strongest man in the room provided the clearest awareness on immediate and in many cases, terminal, harm. His Crew may not particularly enjoy the thought of going anywhere near an Enforcer, but they damned certainly didn’t want to provoke his ire right there on the spot, now did they?

  “I’ll tell you what.” Dom said charitably. “And there hain’t no lies or prevarications or nowt like it. ‘pon my honor as a Gearman.” No sense in telling them he were perhaps the most fallen of all Gearmen since the post had been invented, hey? They didn’t even properly know what the term meant, and learning he’d veered from those principles and into darkness might only serve to alienate them further, and damn his eyes, he did need distractions.

  “We all go out there, some of us are going to die. But that’s life, hey? We’re born dying. E’en before we pop out of mammie’s womb as a wee little babby, we is dying. Them little bits as make us up are set with little clocks inside, aren’t they just? And from the moment we is ready to be a life, they is start ticking down. Hain’t no escape from them springs once they’ve wound down. No sir. No ma’am. No … thing. We is have a certain amount of sweeps o’ the clock, and that is a fact. What matters ‘tween first tick and last tock though, is how them tick-tick-ticks are spent, hey? Aye, you can stay here in Stairwell, for there is more ups and downs here than you’re like to find in a whore’s bedroom, and wi’ the lot of you more or less allied wi’ one another, you could venture forth outwards into other, brighter places easily enough, I suppose.

  That’s one way. But you’re only prolonging the gap ‘tween blissful first and penultimate last, says I, and now we all been through hell and back, fighting the loons on 20 and them sadsacks on 18, what point in that? Think you any of the other Stairwells will provide entertainment or challenge after this? ‘sides all that, e’en though I think it’d be a poor second choice in comparison to what I offer you, there is no guarantee any or all of you will come out of those new battles over fresh territory alive, whole, or e’en well. Death is the only guarantee in this life, lads and lassies. Them tickety-thumpers beating away wi’ every breath, they’ve already seen the end, and if we could but look inside and see when that might be, we might then step up and plan for our lives in a better way, but that hain’t goin’ to happen here in this dank, rank and wee bit whiff level o’ stairs, now is it?”

  Dom turned his voice well quiet, for his soothing words were leeching the obstinacy right out of their heads and hearts with each passing syllable. He took a pause to admire the efficiency of the moment, knowing that this weren’t his gift of gab as was doing the trick, but summat from Nickels his own self, hey? How else could a bruiser and lout like that gain the confidence of others so swiftly, especially when the devil with dark hair were inviting all in sight to join his dance towards damnation?

  Were like them tales of old, wherein musicians or others of a loquacious nature wove an unbreakable tapestry of lies that pulled the listeners along on the most interesting of journeys. Granted, in most of them tales, the only thing waiting at th’ end of the road were death in the most awful of ways, usually wi’ lads and lassies in the pit for a bit of barbecuing before supper was put on the table.

  Dom saw the spell were losing efficacy in the shuffling of feet and the twitching of eyes, so he hurried along. “So what I is offering is this. Glory. The beauty of battle ‘gainst a powerful foe. The song of victory for them as walk out t’other side.” The ex-Gearman whistled with excitement. “I is not able to tell you wot that feels like, lads and lassies, save that triumph of this kind, it does linger in your bosom for days and weeks. Lights are brighter. Colors are richer. Food is better and sex? Welladay and all that, the sweet tremors of the little death that comes from either the thrust of the sword or sheathing of the same? Nowt like it ‘pon the earth, ‘neath the crust, or high above, lookin’ down ‘pon us. You will all of you be reborn, rechristened into a fresh new world, where you each can be like I is now, looking at your peers as if from a great vantage. They will see you different. And you will be different, won’t you just? All we needs must do is step through the door and out into the waning light of 17.”

  Dom felt his eyes shining inside his skull. They were bright beacons of hope and glory, and they were casting a spell over his Crew. They each nodded. Not listlessly, not wi’out hope, but wi’ their own fervor shining back out at him.

  They were ready. Some –probably all, if Enforcers were anything at all like vicious Gearmen when confronted with the unwashed masses of stinking, ‘sblood-rich nutters- were definitely slated to hear the final tick inside their skulls, but Dominic Breton, late of Arcadia and soon-to-be Warlord of the Outside didn’t care one whit.

  For he knew the truth. And the truth were that the Outside were full of people like the ones before him. And where one crew left off, another one could be picked up.

  Into the silence, Dom asked one final question. “How say you? Yay or nay?”

  Mouths split wide to roar ‘yay’ until the sound reverberated up and down the Stairwell. If there were any Settlements down below, where the world were darker still, Dom liked to imagine they trembled in fear at the rude beast above their heads.

  He banged the door open and let his Crew stream past, making sure to smile as wide as Cheshire, slapping the backs of them as they passed, winking to those who risked eye contact, and muttering nonsensical words of encouragement to those who dallied just a wee bit too long on the wrong side of the door.

  “Let the battle be joined, hey?” Dom hurried out…

  ***

  “Can’t I just shoot them through the structure?” Slizzer didn’t even want to deal with the veritable fucking horde of fuckers loitering in the Stairwell. She’d done some audio sampling of their longwinded conversation and the guy doing most of the talking was a certifiable psychopath.

  When you could understand the words coming out of his mouth. How anyone could articulate anything beyond basic desires when every other word was shortened or otherwise mangled so it fit into the oddly lyrical weave was beyond her.

  “That’s a main Stairwell.” Clint replied over comms calmly. “Anything you might launch at them will go up and down. The Stack might be compromised and everyone in the Stack will probably need cleansing, but the structure
itself is still over eighty percent viable. Trinity …”

  “Trinity blah blah blah.” Slizz looked at Shuman’s display and snickered as his target’s car turned into so much fire. “See? Look! Shuman gets to turn his Arcadian into barbecue! Have you been listening to this fucking guy’s fucking pep rally speech? He’s deranged!”

  Still cool as ice, Clint countered, “Shuman gets to turn his Arcadian into slag because she was stupid enough to drive a car into a battlefield. Your guy is in a critical location.”

  Slizz fired up her MountainBuster Cannons, sweet little things that deployed medium-sized energy ‘missiles’ that consumed matter en route to the designated target; the further away the target, the larger the eventual payload delivered. Technically speaking, each ‘shell’ deployed was actually a ‘BAM without a physical shell, but since she’d used them to blow up actual mountain ranges once, that what she called them.

  From where she was, the payload should be just enough to vaporize the landing where ‘Dom’ and his ‘Crew’ loitered like a pack of inbred morons. Suit ran her intended method of termination through the usual procedures.

  Clint’s voice was unapologetic. “See? Even your own Suit advises against using your MissileBAM.”

  “MountainBuster Cannons.” Slizz replied automatically, switching to boring old Gatling mortar. Standardized explosive munitions. On a miniaturized scale, but as with everything provided by Trinity, smaller didn’t necessarily mean weaker. Suit replied with a negative. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Like I said, Slizzer.” Clint’s frustration was evident. “There is absolutely no way you are going to take them out remote. They need to be out, in the open. Then you can do whatever the hell you wan… ah, shit.”

  “What’s the matter?” Slizzer looked through at her comrades’ video feeds. Terrex and Abercoign were flitting around their assigned areas, amusing themselves how boys generally amused themselves; the former was using high-grade lasers and matter-eaters to level out his playing field while the later was knocking down the tomb-like buildings in his zone with his fists.

  Shuman, on the other hand, wasn’t having so much fun.

  “Hm.” Slizzer bit her lip indecisively. Ordinary people didn’t survive having their vehicles turned into smoldering plasma. “Given this information, I feel it is imperative that I blow the fuck out of that Stairwell and apologize to Trinity later.”

  But Clint was gone, yammering over the comms and into Shuman’s ears.

  Good. Their ‘leader’ was preoccupied.

  Slizzer primed the MountainBuster.

  ***

  Dom prudently waited for a goodly handful of lads and lassies to evacuate the Stairwell, then waited a wee bit longer to make certain that when he rolled on out, the Enforcer's attention was diverted to those fools instead of himself.

  Weren't no point in dying in the first sortie, hey, not when them indicators pointing to where Agnethea, Mirabelle and that arsehole Chevril Pointillier screamed clear and loud that they were also ready for war.

  It were a bollocking mess, all four of 'em being here at the same time, but as the ex-Gearman prepared himself to rush out into the mix his own self, he supposed that there weren't really any other way this could've played out; if Book were as changed as he were -and therefore them other Arcadians as well- then it did strike him as undoubtedly true that Book were responsible for the unfortunate timing.

  Dom rushed out, blood singing, heart hammering, eyes wide.

  Rushed out, right into the maws of Hell it's very own self.

  ***

  Slizzer felt like applauding when the first handful of idiots calling themselves Stairdwellers or whatever fucking flavor of the week they'd picked exploded in a messy haze of expended energy, blood, guts and slivers of bone, but held off; Suit's scanners were informing her that the man she was truly here to kill was still lingering in the background.

  There could be no joy until the primary target was down in the dirt with the rest of the corpses.

  She launched a few more MountainBuster because why not? It wasn't as if there were energy constraints or anything, right? Leaving Suit to control trajectory and placement of the next assault, Slizz paused to take stock of how preparation for combat was treating her compatriots when suddenly, an inordinately large explosion on one of the outer, fortified walls ripped through the enclosed Stack-level, kicking up dust and debris and all kinds of crap.

  "Abercoign, you all right?" Slizzer's demand fell right on the heels of Clint's shaky request and it was a long second before their fellow Enforcer responded.

  "Fucking hell. They blew three-quarters of the fucking wall right out of the goddamn foundation! Christ Almighty! Where the fuck did they get fucking quadrex?"

  Slizz, paying only half a mind to her group of idiots -those that'd managed to avoid the first barrage of MB bombs on their way out had spread in all directions and were currently taking pot-shots at her with quite probably the most antique weapons seen this side of the Milky Way- focused the moment the second salvo launched.

  "There you are, you prick." Slizzer jetted in closer, her intention to get the one called Dominic Breton on full, vibrant high definition video feed for later playback. High overhead, the MountainBuster charges grew brighter and brighter as they absorbed random bits of matter for fuel.

  The more matter eaten, the longer the shadows grew, and Dom Breton, looking furtively this way and that, shielded his eyes against the illumination, face grim and determined when confronted with the carnage left behind.

  Slizzer felt a bit disappointed with her Arcadian; from what she'd read about their various escapes from wherever they'd made their bids for individual freedom in the most impressive -and in Dom's particular case, needlessly and viciously violent- manner, but this fool with the blonde hair and the bloody face and hands didn't seem …

  Down below, the very Arcadian she'd been dismissive of looked up, took instant stock of his situation, leaped thirty feet sideways with a genuinely surprising amount of agility. The leap took him well out of the blast range of the next round of MB blasts where he then literally bounced off a broken wall as if it were something he did every day.

  Then, as if his antics weren’t already insulting enough, he started running at a ridiculous speed around the epicenters of both blasts. Suit predicted that Dom was making a roundabout but very obvious beeline directly for her.

  "Goddamnit, Slizzer!" Clint's voice echoed in her helmet, ringing her ears like a bell. "I only just told you not to detonate those things near the fucking Stairwells! You turned that entrance into slag and now there's fires burning up and goddamn down…"

  "Clint," Slizzer replied calmly, not quite understanding what it was that Dom intended on doing once he got close to her, "Abby's Arcadian blew the side of the Stack open. Shuman created an actual lake of fire that damn near burned through to the levels below us. I am one hundred percent confident that Trinity isn't going to care what happens to the rest. Holy shit! Come on!”

  ***

  It were a scene right of Hell itself, weren’t it just, with the bulk of his Stairwell Crew blown to measly bits by them brilliant blue orbs of light, but Dom were one of them who were really quite ambivalent on the lives of men and women like them as he’d only just spoken to; when he’d first laid eyes ‘pon the various fiends and devils the Outside had to offer, he’d been more than a little disappointed that there were gearheads and wardogs all over the place, not just trapped ‘neath The Dome.

  Once he had Book, there would be a purge the likes of which no one had ever seen, wi' these Outside gearhead and wardoggies as the target, hey?

  Still and all, Dom reckoned as he considered his best move –eyes broodingly trained on the floating armored figure some twenty feet from where he were stood- there were worse ways to go, hey?

  “Bit of a soupy mess.” Away down the road, the armored figure moved in what were telegraphed gestures symbolic … ah. Yes. There. More of the same as had done for most of his lads
and lassies, splitting the air, casting down wicked blue lights and turning shadows dark as a King’s diseased heart. “Surprised to see reg’lar people thusly transformed, ain’t I? Never would of imagined such a thing.”

  The orbs … they were growing larger, battening down on something he couldn’t see.

  “Time to move on a bit from here, hey?” Dom quickly looked this way and that, spied a chunk of brick and mortar gashing upwards into the relatively empty sky, and leaped for all he were worth, leaving behind them as were too stupid to see that their deaths flew towards them.

  Hair whipping in the wind from his escape, backside blistering somewhat from the rude explosion of fire and heat and who knew what else, Dom Breton prepared to close one hand ‘round rough edge of the wall that were to play a significant role in the demise of the armored killer; as his hurtling body grew closer, the ex-Gearman rotated sweetly in mid-air, twisting ever-so-slightly so that when he hit said wall, ‘twould be with his back to it, feet pressed firmly ‘gainst the base.

  “Bollocks.” Dom hit the wall a bit harder than intended. “Do think I injured me old pancreas there!”

  The self-titled scallywag paused for just a second. Weren’t more than that necessary, as these days, the old melon were fairly abuzz and ablaze with lightning quick decisions, weren’t it just? If this were what it were like to be inside Nickels’ brain, it honestly weren’t that difficult to see why he were always on the top of things, e’en when he did seem to be fooling around doing nowt more than talking about superheroes and villains instead of doing wot he ought to do.

  Thusly, while he spent the second thinking on what to do: his fiend in armor were twisting ever so slowly in the air by some unknown means, them as remained of his lads and lassies were still firing with their paltry weapons and doing little more than cleaning the grime from the suit, and he were just hanging off the side of the wall, an enraged gnat ready for action.

  “Nowt to do but do it, I reckon.” Dom bunched his legs and when he felt the impressive strength coiled within tremble in anticipation, he let fly once more, intent on closing the gap with but a few seconds more spent in the effort; some inner whisper had him pushing up a bit more than he would’ve done, sending his flight on a gentle arc upwards into the air.