by Lee Bond
Mirabelle had gathered herself a following.
"Either that or she plans on using them as human shields, like Dom." Abby tagged Mirabelle amidst the crowd, standing next to a man named Ragar Stevenson -an ordinary man of no note- and another man identified as Samex Marshak, once upon a time a ranger for Trinity's Assembled Armies, now one of 17’s worst criminals.
"Unlikely." Suit commented, validating it's assessment by listing the various factors -heart rate, pupil dilation, pheromone emission, and others- that were indicative of forced captivity. "Furthermore, a large portion of the individuals bearing arms are covered in markings that seem to suggest some kind of allegiance or fealty to this Mirabelle."
"Well that's just fucking weird." Abby didn't know what to do. Mirabelle and her horde were just standing there inside the elevator, watching him and no doubt listening to the sounds of war raging from the other corners of the level. "What the fuck do I do? She's just standing there."
"Audio scan indicates they are discussing options." Suit ran a few choice clips of the conversation between Marshak and Mirabelle. "The Arcadian female is extremely concerned by our presence. She's never seen anything like us before."
"The feeling’s mutual." High overhead, Clint -their official eyes in the sky for this bullshit deployment- had to be having a hell of a time offering any kind of defensive suggestions for the others.
"Ah." Suit pulsed a warning overlay atop Mirabelle's form. "She is coming this way."
***
All the people behind her were a burden pressing down, slowing her down, forcing her to think calmly and rationally, and as she walked out to meet Trinity’s herald –who were floating ten feet above the ground as if it were the easiest thing in the world- it felt to Mirabelle as if there were another one of those critical moments.
The last one, with Ainsley … it hadn’t gone so well. Mirabelle wanted to better this time, for these people, which were why she were out here in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by emptiness, about to confront …
“Stop right there, lady.”
The Enforcer’s harsh voice echoed and bounced 'gainst broken stone and shattered glass, a dire warning promising imminent danger if she o’erstepped the mark. The Golem did as she was bade, though only out of conscious concern for her people; they were still too close and Marshak –damn his eyes- had argued quite sternly that he and his should be rushing out right now, to deal damage to their foe, instead of her treating wi' the enemy so boldly.
It were as if the man had somehow managed to forget the stories he’d been telling her about Trinity’s punishing Enforcers, e’en as the words had been spilling out of his mouth! The armored Herald before her wasn’t a man on the streets with nowt but clothes on his back and a gun or two, but an Enforcer, dressed in armor unbreakable, carrying weapons unimaginable.
‘twere best to treat with someone like this as old Arcadians had dealt with her kind since the beginning.
Cautiously. Nervously. Always mindful that –like wind in the trees- the direction of their humor could change ‘tween heartbeats.
“As you wish, Herald.” Mirabelle dipped her head slowly, never taking eyes off the man. Or woman. Or thing. There were no telling what was what behind such odd looking armor.
“I’m going to make you a onetime offer, Mirabelle of Arcade City.” Abercoign’s voice was amped up loud enough so that every single person cowering in the elevator had absolutely no room to doubt precisely what was happening, or what could happen. “Climb back into that elevator and go anywhere else. Your travel pass for this level has been revoked. Do that, and I won’t come hunting you. Deal?”
The Golem opened her mouth to say summat to counter the Enforcer’s impertinence, but just that moment, a clamor that were almost the equal of the time Dark Iron King had given birth to those monstrosities outside poor old Ickford rocked everyone. Soon after that, huge winds rushed in, shifting dust all o’er the place and flooding the entire area in brightness, two things which brought murmurs of concern and fresh gulping from her clan.
“I think me,” Mirabelle said once the racket had dwindled down to nowt but the usual sounds, “that others of your kind are not making the same deal as you, herald. I think me that their battles are already joined.”
Abercoign took a brief look at what was happening over Terrex’s way and shook his head. Unbelievable. One of the Arcadians –most likely Chevril Pointillier- had engineered a side breech into the Stack and was using the shock to deploy who knew how many wardogs.
A few seconds later, five solid shots rang through the level, drawing a start from Mirabelle and riling up the crowd inside the elevator. Abercoign cursed bitterly under his breath then readdressed Mirabelle.
“That’s as may be, Arcadian.” Abby didn’t like what was already happening with the other three Enforcers, and the fight for each had only just begun. From the audio transcripts he was pulling from Clint’s comm waves, things weren’t nearly as one-sided as they were supposed to be, and that was … impossible. From the looks of things, though, his Arcadian wasn’t entirely sure of herself, and if he could play it right, he could get her gone and whip off to join one of the others. “But you and I both know that they’re not going to survive, so why not take me up on my offer and go away?”
Mirabelle’s head burned with three embers and one brilliant flame still, giving truth to the herald’s lie. “If my kind were at a disadvantage, herald, the battle would already be done, yet,” she tapped the wounded side of her head, fingers glancing off bone and coming away sticky with clear fluid, “I know the three of them dance with their partners. So I offer you the same as you’ve done for me, and for similar reasons.”
“My people,” Here, she intentionally turned away to indicate them in the elevator, bolstered with confidence thanks to the fact that neither Dom, Chevy or e’en Agnethea were down for the count, “need to be brought to safety and there is no place within this stone and glass and metal coffin you call a world that is safe. Yon prize,” Mirabelle pointed directly to where Book were hidden, unerringly, fingertip drawn to the wondrous tome as if by magic, “is the only way to ensure it. And so while the other Arcadians fight your brothers, if you let me and mine go by, I promise to leave you alone. All I want is to leave.”
Abercoign started laughing. He couldn’t help himself.
***
“I detect no weaknesses in her.” Suit confirmed it’s own reports by flooding his HUD with a veritable tsunami of data, highlighting in particular the weird wound on the side of her head. “Quick analysis suggests that this injury is being maintained on purpose, Abercoign, and that the fluid flowing from it is actually organic matter.”
“She’s intentionally staying her regenerative powers?” They only had a minute or so before the Arcadian –face darkened, lips pulled tight in a scowl, fists clenched- lost her temper. Laughing at her may not have been the wisest course of action, but who could blame him? “That makes no sense. And what do you mean, no weaknesses? There’s got to be some. At least one. Nothing in Trinityspace has no weaknesses.”
“I know only what I can confirm through application of my sensors, Abercoign.” Suit replied simply. “It is apparent from her body language and stance that she is beginning to lose her patience. Her offer, while irrational on every count, seems genuine. We could …”
“We are not letting her lay a goddamn hand on that … thing she calls Book.” Abby snapped, completely and utterly amazed that Suit would even suggest something so incredibly insane. “Look at the destruction it caused all on it’s goddamn own! There’s no telling what’ll happen if someone from Arcade City touches it.”
“Then we must engage, Abercoign. Trinity demands it. We are the frontline defense of It’s realm. If, as you suggest, the tech will become even more dangerous once one of these people possesses it, we must do all we can to …”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.” Abby pressed his lips together bitterly, working his way through the differe
nt weapons they had on board and having a very difficult time deciding which would be the best to use. “Fuck it. Pick something and shoot her with it.”
“Picking and shooting, Abercoign.” Suit flicked through the selection, settling on a nice, juicy plasma thrower. Routine systems powered the weapon –situated on their right shoulder- up, and it targeted Mirabelle, Lady of the Weeping Eye, right in that milky, seeping orb.
“You are nasty.” Abby allowed the sequence to begin. “Let’s get this over with.”
***
Hackles raised, skin tingling in anticipation, hands clenched in preparation, Mirabelle readied herself for the first of what could either be few or many such attacks from the impertinent Herald. Ears straining, the Golem could hear the tiniest bit of sound coming from the armored foot soldier and she knew somehow that whatever was coming her way –for surely, this would be no hand-to-hand match of prowess, not with such weapons as the Outside could offer- would be doing so from the shoulder.
She pivoted ever so slightly, turning her body to one side so that whenever whatever bolt or beam or who knew what came ahurtling towards her did so, it would have very little of her to collide with.
“I am ready for you, Herald.” It were time to do or die, as they used to say ‘neath The Dome. It felt to the Golem that she’d already been in the Outside for a million million years, all of that time spent in this decaying, slowly dying Stack and as she waited, it struck Mirabelle that she were excited to see if she –like the others- would prove to be tougher than the Enforcer imagined.
Something bright enough to hurt her eyes spat out from the very shoulder she’d been staring at this whole time, bright as starlight and faster than anything she’d ever seen on the Inside. It struck her across exposed bone and bounced away, neatly deflected by immaculate Golem resilience.
Screams of woe reached Mirabelle’s ears almost instantly.
“Ah, shit.” Enforcer’s disgusted words followed quickly.
Mirabelle turned on one foot slowly. It felt to the weeping Golem that she were caught in mother’s molasses, unable to move any faster than the slowest of crawls, skin shivering in trepidation, mind already processing that which she knew she’d see once she were done moving, heart settling in her chest. So slow she turned, yet the sounds of dismay and woe and all else funneling from the elevator car were as fast as anything, sheer assaults on her ears.
Eyes lit on the car. Took in the scrabbling, scrambling, fleeing souls that were her responsibility. Saw Marshak hollering orders to the warriors of the Clan of the Weeping Eye, witnessed them dissipating, heading for cover, hunkered down, preparing themselves for the end. Took in the row of dead bodies, various parts charred to cinder, transformed from living beings into cooked meat.
Sound disappeared. The sensation of cool air flooding in from valiant Chevy’s arrival in the Stack vanished. Awareness of who she was faded. Faces wrought with sudden fear and terror swam at her from every side. Her people. Her people were in trouble. It might be her fault, she’d done her best to keep them from coming with her and yet the more she’d tried to dissuade them, calling their decision to follow a death sentence, the more of them appeared.
She hadn’t wanted this. Had done everything in her power to prevent it.
Yet they’d come. They’d put their trust in her. They’d given her hope that in time, she could undo –somehow, in some miraculous way- all the horrible, horrific things she’d done to the people of Old Arcadia. It were a thing as needed doing.
Her people.
In trouble.
The world was in silent mourning for those who’d died from the Herald’s first attack.
Mirabelle turned back to the floating assailant, eyes afire with rage.
Something was inside her. She could feel it. Some … thing. It’d been kindling for an age, it seemed, always held back but it wanted out now. There was only one thing she could do.
Mirabelle, Lady of the Clan of the Weeping Eye, she did open her mouth.
And it was as though all the souls she’d ever damned to death and worse crawled loose to assault the very air, each man, woman and child who’d fallen ‘neath her feet, at long last set free.
The air didn’t just shiver, didn’t simply shake.
It cracked. It broke. Silence became chaos.
The shriek of the banshee slammed into the Impertinent Herald and …
… and the Herald did fall to the ground.
Mirabelle moved.
***
Inside Suit, things were moving very quickly; the operating system counted eighty dead thanks to the deflected plasma round, swiftly moving back to weapon’s selection and also targeting the hundred-plus armed miscreants following Marshak’s commands and Abercoign … if the Enforcer could be sitting back on his haunches, that was what he’d be doing.
Because none of this was making any fucking sense.
“This doesn’t make sense.” Abercoign commented, mostly to himself, because Suit was preoccupied with about a million different things. “That blast should’ve melted her head right off. I’ve used that cannon on tanks. Tanks melt. Why didn’t her face?”
On the HUD, Mirabelle the Arcadian was looking at the destruction, back turned to him.
“We should shoot her again. Like, right now.” Abby looked to the weapon-HUD. Further dismayed by Suit’s sudden lack of decision-making skills, the Enforcer picked something at random. Motion on the targeting HUD grabbed his attention. “Oh, she does not look happy.”
Out there, Mirabelle opened her mouth …
“Warning.” Suit chimed unexpectedly. “Warning. Incoming … incoming …”
“What?” Targeting HUD had all of Marshak’s soldiers still being deployed, not that it even mattered; all of their weapons had already been identified and dismissed as utterly ineffectual. “From where? Outer space?”
The sound, when it hit Abercoign, was unlike anything he’d ever heard. It slammed into him and promptly filled him with an unearthly dread the likes of which he didn’t think he’d ever felt in his entire life. It sapped the heat from his blood and rattled through his skull over and over again until the only thing he could hear or even feel was the scream itself.
Abby tried shouting commands to Suit, but his mouth wouldn’t work and besides which, when he found his eyes focusing for a brief moment on the HUD, every virtual screen was wracked with shattered static.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. Nothing in the Universe could affect the operation of a Suit. Not now, not ever. That thought warred with the unending, soul-chilling scream right up until Suit lost all power and Abby felt his stomach flip-flop.
Down they went.
***
Clint wanted to hammer the inside of his HUD in frustration at what was going on in Stack 17, wanted to call Trinity up and roundly bitch the machine mind out for this colossal clusterfuck of a shitstorm It'd engineered, wanted to …
Wanted to leave the Stack for anywhere else in the solar system, as fast and as far as the Suit's internal engines could carry him.
Two Enforcers were so close to being dead it wasn't funny, Terrex's Suit was suffering badly from the FARS-cannon attacks and now Abercoign's Suit was completely redlined and as far as his Suit was able to determine, there was no goddamn reason for any of what was happening.
None of it made sense! Ordinary-looking people didn't possess powers like these, whether they came from Arcade City or not. And if they did, Trinity sure as shit shouldn't have let them enter the Stack.
"Fucking sonic weapons?" Clint absorbed the data that'd been streamed from Abby's Suit in the seconds preceding the insane attack and grunted. On the HUD, Mirabelle the Arcadian takes the shot to the face without incident. She turns to gaze upon the devastation wrought by the deflected blow, then turns back to unleash a scream so horrifically powerful that the Suit's recording devices skip and stutter before going completely offline.
"These Arcadians are remarkable." Suit commented.
; "Better not be admiration in your tone." Clint cursed in frustration as Shuman's life signs went black. Same with his Suit. The maelstrom kicked up by the faulty gridades and everything else deployed there had proven too much for the impressive machinery. Slizzer wasn't faring much better against the bloody fiend Dominic Breton and Terrex was -not to put too fine a point on it- having his ass handed to him by a handful of wardogs and an old man in a weird metal coat.
"There isn't." Suit affirmed crisply. "They are remarkable. I've come up with a hypothesis concerning their efficacy in dealing with Enforcers."
"Do tell." Clint sped through the menus, hunting for something that might force a remote reboot of Abby's Suit; down below, Mirabelle was just wrapping up her endless shriek and more than a few of Marshak's soldiers were looking like they might take some potshots at the downed Enforcer. Their weapons might only be standard Trinityspace issue, but with everything happening and how it was happening, Clint flat out did not like the idea of letting them test any theories.
"It is undetectable by any means I am deploying, but there has to be a field or beam emanating from the alien tech, one capable of rendering Suits like myself from functioning at full capacity." Suit paused for effect. "And as these Arcadians seem to've been drawn here by the tech, it is therefore safe to conclude that they are acting as lightning rods for this debilitating field, making their assaults more effective than they ordinarily would be."
Clint couldn't get the image of Shuman out of his mind. Trapped first in a boiling cauldron of molten metal and liquid stone then sealed inside a frozen lake, Suit inoperable, left wide open and painfully vulnerable to Agnethea.
"Ahah!" Clint fist pumped as his eyes fell upon a subroutine that’d allow him to send a reboot command to Abby's Suit through the comm frequencies. It'd better work. He issued the order.
Nothing.
He issued it again, then commanded Suit to cycle the order every three seconds until Abby's Suit was functional.
