Fulcrum

by Doug Rickaway

  “Yes, my lord,” said Jim.

  “My children, we go once again into the field of battle. We go in service of our Lord and Master, so that His will may be done. As always, there will be peril, but it is nothing that we have not faced before.”

  The captain’s voice rose, the syllables more urgent, almost songlike. “Cantus’s loss weighs heavily on all our hearts, but take comfort. Through the Master’s great power, his spirit has been restored. He will walk into battle with us once again.”

  He strode over to a large scarab-like case in the corner of the staging area. He entered a series of characters into the keypad, and the panels of the metallic coffin began to peel back. Plumes of steam and mist drifted from the openings in the scarab, and as it dissipated, a large humanoid figure appeared. Mavus clenched his teeth and looked away.

  “Cantus lives on in this new body. The Jolly Roger rises once again!”

  Ancient machinery came to life at the captain’s word. Pistons hissed, and electric motors whined as the metallic figure staggered to its feet. Cantus’s new incarnation was a mechanized armor suit that stood roughly eight feet tall and had an auto-cannon mounted to each forearm. The twin cannons were chain-fed from an ammunition repository on its armored back. The mech-suit’s visor was shattered, still smeared with the blood of its original owner.

  “Where am I? Mavus! Look out!”

  Mavus gasped at the hollow mockery of his twin brother’s voice coming from the abomination before him.

  “Cantus, I am here!”

  “Look out! They’re making a push toward us!”

  The beast began to stagger on wobbling legs; Cantus’s essence willed the mech-suit to dive for cover that did not exist, trying to escape attackers that had already killed him. Mavus ran to Cantus and placed his hands on the sides of the machine’s faceplate. Inside he could see the ghastly green phantom image of his brother’s face, awash in infection-green smoke.

  “Cantus!” Mavus moaned in a pale imitation of Eursan expression.

  The captain brushed Mavus aside, and placed his own hands on the creature’s armored shoulders. The thing that was once Cantus Wheatley rolled from side to side, kicking its legs and flailing its arms like a child unable to break from a nightmare.

  “Cantus, listen to me! It is I, Alastor,” said the captain.

  At the sound of his master’s voice, Cantus stopped flailing.

  “What is going on? I can’t feel my legs! I think they shot me!”

  “Reach out with your spirit, and feel the strength of your new incarnation. You have been brought back from the void by the Master’s power.”

  “I—I can’t feel anything,” Cantus/Jolly Roger stammered.

  Mavus wailed like a woman at her husband’s grave.

  Alastor turned to face the assemblage. “Too long have we been without the Jolly Roger, our standard-bearer. He will strike fear into the hearts of our enemies!” he said, raising his fist into the air.

  He brought his arm down to his side with a flourish, and now that the show was over, his countenance became placid once again, his voice falling back to that low, even clip.

  “I understand,” said Cantus in a flat, mechanical voice.

  Mavus’s entire body was shaking, incapable of expelling the intense pain inside.

  “Mavus, it is time. Are you ready?”

  “Yes, Alastor, I am ready.”

  The captain left the foursome in silence. No one knew exactly how to hold themselves. Jim scratched his buttocks, a blank expression on his face.

  Thresha knew that Mavus was anything but ready. She knew that quaver in his voice too well. She suppressed an urge to run to his side, to place her hands upon his cool cheek, to brush the wheat-blond hair from his eyes.

  Not the time, Thresha, she thought. Get it together.

  ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

  The ship coasted in silence toward its target like a shark. As it drew closer, the enormity of the station loomed. A readout in cryptic picto-text informed the captain that the ship was within breaching range. He executed a series of finger strokes over a glowing, spinning orb directly in front of the computer terminal. He guided the orb in various directions as alien characters began to appear on the screen. The ship’s boosters roared to life, blazing blue like alien suns. The sudden explosion of energy would have appeared on the Fulcrum station’s sensors, alerting security forces to their presence, but it was far too late for anything to be done.

  “Brace for impact,” he said into his com link.

  “Roger, Captain,” Thresha said.

  In his mind’s eye he saw them strapping themselves into their harnesses in the ship’s staging area.

  As the ship hurtled toward the round front end of the Mercury Fulcrum station, the captain willed himself to be still. The ship shook with the impact, but he didn’t move at all. He reached out with his mind, exerting force in all direction, allowing his body to remain in perfect stasis.

  ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

  The invaders dropped from the burning hole in the Envirodome’s ceiling like motes expelled from a great eye. They landed on top of a great pyramid in the center of the Fulcrum station’s false township, detritus, flames, and chunks of the Envirodome ceiling raining down around them. Before them sprawled several blocks of Hastrom City, Eursus’s cultural Mecca and largest city, recreated down to the tiniest detail, as it was on all Fulcrum stations.

  As the captain stared down at the plastic cobblestones of the roads below, he marveled at what man had wrought. Blocks and blocks of a false city stretched out before him. He knew the mock city’s layout by heart, for every Fulcrum station was identical down to the last rivet. Hastrom City, the pride of Eursus, a city built long after all those whom Alastor had known and loved had given up their natural lives. He had never visited what was left of the city, unless one counted the myriad of replicas on each of the Fulcrum stations he had raided.

  This distillation of Hastrom City was divided into four quadrants, separated by massive thoroughfares which led directly to the temple-like structure that was the Civil Services Building. The captain could see everything from his perch atop the ornate Public Court Building, at the very peak of the great pyramid.

  It was three in the morning, Fulcrum time. The Envirodome was empty and the shops were all closed; even the bars and dance clubs in the entertainment sector had been cleared out after last call. But the captain knew that the curious citizens would be streaming in any moment now, riding escalators and disembarking transit shuttles. It was always the same; common sense dictated that hunkering down in one’s dormitory, awaiting further instruction, would be the safest option. And yet they would come; they couldn’t help it. They were drawn to spectacle, to any respite from their mediocre lives. He would give it to them.

  The unmolested panels of the Envirodome’s ceiling projected a clear, moonlit night, and, much like the false grass, it wasn’t quite right. Alastor and his team looked like wraiths, their skin a translucent alabaster under the false light. As he predicted, the first to witness his spectacle were those from the poor sector. They began to trickle out of buildings, seeping into a greater throng of people that clotted the main thoroughfare that led right to the town center.

  A parade in my honor, the captain thought.

  Standing atop the ornate Public Court Building, he looked to either side, reassured by the presence of his brood. Crimson Jim was grinning as ever, and even Mavus’s eyes appeared sharp, focused.

  We come in peace, he said into the citizens’ brains. Come, gather ’round!

  The citizens couldn’t help but comply. They were numbering in the hundreds now: women, men, adult and child alike, stood at the foot of the pyramid. Atop the pyramid stood a godlike figure, a black and crimson cape swirling around him, above his head the false projection of the moon, and a blight that appeared to be an eclipsed sun. He raised his hands like a cadaver priest preparing to soak the temple stairs in blood.

  As if on cue, a small cadre of stat
ion inspectors began to pour out of the side wings of the amphitheater stage.

  “Freeze!” one of the inspectors shouted.

  They were armed with black assault rifles, and laser points began to appear on Alastor and his crew.

  “Gentlemen, we mean you no harm,” the captain began. “My name is Alastor, and I come to present a grand opportunity to you and your citizens.”

  His voice boomed in the auditorium with unnatural magnitude. His syllables were terse, uttered in a low, calm inflection that matched the frozen, gunmetal gray in his gaze.

  “We can do this the difficult way if you like, but I prefer the method that wastes none of your precious blood,” he said, voice still flat, almost small. Yet it rang off the domed ceiling like peals of thunder conjured by an angry god.

  “Drop your weapons!” the lead inspector shouted.

  “As you can see, we wield only swords, which are sheathed. The magnificent specimen you see behind me cannot drop his weapons, for they are attached to his armor. Rest assured that his weapon systems are deactivated at the moment,” Alastor said through a rakish grin.

  “Who are you, and what the hell are you doing on my station?” The phalanx parted to allow a hirsute man through. He stopped exactly three paces in front of his men and turned to meet Alastor’s gaze.

  “Ah, you must be the chief inspector of this Fulcrum station,” Alastor said, gesturing toward the gold star on the man’s lapel.

  “That’s right. I ask again, what do you want?”

  “We wish to execute a search of your Fulcrum station. We believe you may have some information that is vital to our cause. We also wish to take some of your citizens with us as well. Volunteers only, of course. And I would ask that you drop your weapons.”

  “Over my dead body, pal. You got about fifty assault rifles trained on you right now, and they’re all loaded with blossom-tip rounds,” the chief inspector said through pressed lips.

  “I was hoping he’d say that,” said Crimson Jim, his grin a blight spreading across his face.

  “Of course. Blossom tips provide maximum internal trauma with zero danger to nearby innocents, without the added liability of hull penetration. A station inspector carries no other rifle round, if I am not mistaken,” Alastor began.

  He dropped to from the top of the pyramid to stand within twenty paces of the lead inspector. He heard the muted clatter of rifles being retrained, and hundreds of laser points appeared on his chest. No one fired.

  “Ah, that’s better,” Alastor cooed. “I prefer looking a man in the eye when I am conducting business.

  “Let me pose a question to you, sir. Do you think that I would just land right on top of your Civil Services Building right out in the open if I believed that your weapons were of any danger to me and my men? How poorly you must think of me.”

  Time seemed to slow down. Microseconds ticked by as eyes blinked, drops of sweat slipped down Eursan cheeks, and neurons began to fire impulses into muscle tissue. At long last the station inspector gave the order to open fire.

  The semi-darkness of the pseudo-night lit up with muzzle flash, and belches of brimstone erupted from the station inspectors’ rifles. Alastor crossed his arms and bowed his head as the bullets began to make contact. Slugs pinged off of armor plates—and a few found their way into chinks between the armor plates. With the sheer amount of shots fired, hits were a mathematical certainty. The fact that none of them were headshots was not only improbable—it veered toward that which could only be described as mystical.

  The station inspectors continued their salvo. They stopped only to slam fresh magazines into smoking rifles with red-hot glowing barrels. Guttural war shouts soon subsided as it became apparent that the blossom-tip rounds were having zero effect on their targets.

  After moments that seemed like hours to onlookers, the shooting began to subside. The area immediately surrounding Alastor had been chewed to bits by errant fire.

  Alastor said nothing for some time; his only movement was to unclasp his arms from his chest. He began to wave his index finger from side to side.

  “Now that that unfortunate business is over, may we have a conversation?” Alastor asked. “My Master wishes to say a few words. Listen now, as He speaks through me.”

  Alastor threw his arms back, his head whipping up as if struck. His eyes went wide and he writhed as if in agony. When his head returned to its normal position, a new presence was apparent upon his visage. His eyes swam with sublime tranquility. A supple grin spread across his face, ageless and sardonic. His eyes began to glow red.

  A new voice began to issue from Alastor’s mouth. It was sultry and sleek like wet leather, rich and dark like fertile earth. The Fulcrum station citizens listened, their eyes wide.

  FOUR - Reassignment

  Letho’s sleep had been feverish, full of nightmares in which demonic versions of slave bears chased and attacked him again and again, savaging him with sharp teeth and razor claws.

  When he finally broke from the dream, he lay awake for quite some time, replaying it in his mind. He wasn’t much for divination or dream interpretation, but this one was stuck to the back of his brain, and he was at a loss to find any sort of meaning in it.

  When his alarm had gone off the first time, he had not even been awake enough to realize that he had muted it. When his alarm rang for the seventh time, he sat bolt upright in his capsule, his body flooded with panic. The intercom announced that the last shuttle for the hour had just departed the loading platform. He did the math in his head, and his stomach clenched when he realized just how late he was going to be.

  He threw on his jumpsuit, forgoing the morning ritual of the smell-test, and not even bothering to rake his fingers through his hair. He was halfway to the door when he realized it wasn’t opening because he had shut off his uCom the night before and forgotten to turn it back on. He also took this moment to realize that he was wearing only one sock inside his clunky boots.

  He raced down the walkway, staggering and almost falling as he tripped over a sack of his neighbor’s festering garbage. He continued his full-out sprint, feeling the muscles in his legs complain, tightening and burning as his lungs threatened to explode.

  Letho, why are you doing this? his lungs seemed to say.

  He reached the terminal and leaped over the turnstile. He reveled in his deftness, having never pulled off a move like that in his life. Then the world shifted, and he was tumbling to the ground. As he fell, he realized that in his haste he had also forgotten to tie his boots. He felt the stupidity and shame that everyone feels when a fall reminds them of the lowness of their existence.

  A couple of young boys snickered as Letho gathered himself, his face red with embarrassment. He offered them a wan smile, and the boys’ mother thumped one of them on the ear and stuck a stern finger in the other’s face.

  “It’s okay. I’d laugh if it were me,” Letho gasped, doubled over, hands on his knees.

  The woman shooed her boys toward the egress, popping one of them on the seat of his pants with a well-aimed under-swing.

  “LETHO FERRON. YOU ARE LATE AND HAVE MISSED YOUR TRANSPORT. PLEASE WAIT FOR THE NEXT AVAILABLE SHUTTLE, ARRIVING IN TWENTY MINUTES. THIS INFRACTION HAS BEEN NOTED IN YOUR EMPLOYEE FILE. PLEASE SEE YOUR ADMINISTRATOR FOR A CONSULTATION.”

  “Consultation, huh? Thanks—”

  His mind locked up, unable to come up with a new name for the disembodied voice. He had never had a “consultation” before, and it didn’t sound like it was going to be a pleasant engagement.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and felt a little stupid as he realized he had hurried only to wait. Right on time, the shuttle arrived. He took the same seat he had ridden in a thousand times before. But something about today felt different. Maybe it was the slave bear. Maybe it was the dream. Maybe he had just had enough of the foolishness, the emptiness. He felt an ember agitating the lining of his stomach, threatening to stoke a fire in his guts. He took the pill packet out of
his pocket, regarded it for a moment, and tossed it onto the seat behind him.

  ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

  Letho made his way through an empty concourse; all of the sane and responsible citizens were already behind their desks, performing their civic duties, and had been for at least two hours.

  Letho somehow managed to make it into his cubicle without drawing the attention of Mr. Gall. He was an absolute wreck: wheezing heavily, doubled over from his run, he collapsed into his chair—which dumped him flat-assed onto the hard tile floor. Several heads peered over their cubicles; he waved them off. No one said anything. No one asked if he was all right, or why he was so late.

  A balmy sheen of sweat covered his face and dampened his hair, which was already on the greasy side. He could feel beads of sweat rolling down his back, down between his buttocks. The swampy, irritated-skin musk that emanated from his armpits only served to make the unclean, musty scent of his uniform more pungent.

  Should have woken up early enough for a rinse-off.

  Definitely need to get my jumpsuits cleaned.

  Why did I even come here today?

  And then, there it was. Right in front of his face was the reason. Letho’s breath hitched in his throat as he read the title of the article, having no idea that, even as he read, a thick slab of his fate had loosed itself, and begun an inexorable tumble that would shake his existence to the very core.

  “MERCURY FULCRUM ATTACKED.

  TWO HUNDRED KIDNAPPED, ONE HUNDRED STATION INSPECTORS DEAD.”

  He didn’t know how long he sat there aghast, reading the title again and again. He attempted to ingest the words, but they thudded against his mind like rec-balls against a backstop.

  “Mr. Gall is going to want to see this,” he said aloud when he was finally able to comprehend the words on the screen. He slid a finger across the screen and pressed the icon for his boss. Before the connection could be made, Letho felt an impatient tapping on his shoulder.