by Lee Bond
Oh, and he bled. Most of the time. The Eye had decided that he wasn’t going to be invulnerable unless absolutely necessary. Garth didn’t even fucking know how that worked. The last time he’d checked before being unceremoniously shoved into the chamber by his ‘best friend’, the quadronium implants and skin and everything that he’d designed for himself had been kind of a permanent deal. Like, always there, just under the skin, ready and waiting to keep stuff from killing him.
What happened if the Eye wasn’t paying attention and some dude successfully chopped his fucking head off? What then?
Well, everything’d go down the shitter in a blazing hurry after that. Didn’t take a genius to see that.
Garth sighed. Meech was an uncharacteristically silent conversational partner, more than willing to let people sit there stewing. “Yeah, man, I suppose it was.”
Meechy couldn’t stop staring at the glistening blue eye. It was amazing. If you stared at it in the right way, you could see it was made up of microscopically small fibers that were continually waving in an unseen breeze. Amazing. “Headed to Arcade City, yeah?”
Garth nodded. It’d been a toss-up between Arcade City and the Emperor’s Dome. In the end, he’d opted for the enclosed FrancoBritish isle ‘just because’; Bravo’s files weren’t necessarily full of information concerning the two allegedly immortal rulers of Humanity’s primary offshoots, but there was enough to suggest they definitely need looking at before gearing up to deal with Trinity and … and the Enemy.
Way back in the day, one of the caveats Garth had instilled in Trinity’s operating parameters was to keep an eye on things that might assist in the eventual war for Reality. It was how beings like Chadsik and Zurich were ‘allowed’ to roam free; even though Trinity was bound and determined to become the King of the Hill, it was nevertheless forced to follow those commands, and so did whatever It could to salvage whatever unique mysteries the Unreality let loose. Ironically, It might even imagine that It was keeping Arcade City and the Emperor-for-Life around for Its own benefit.
“Yeah.” It quickly dawned on Garth that his new friend Meech was staring at the eye. In a creepy way. “Yeah I am.”
Meechy licked his lips again and wanted to bash himself in the side of the head for it. He shook his head, tried to say something a few times, then just spat it out. “Do yourself a favor, mate… kill us all and steal the ship and bugger off for parts unknown.”
As a duly employed member of Ha’Penny House’s Prisoner Transfer Team, Edmund Meech was a fully and legally recognized ‘official person’. Not quite a cop or soldier, but not a normal guy, either. There were courtesies and powers assigned to the post that made men like Meech responsible and oftentimes quite proud of their job, even if it was just shipping losers and fools to their doom.
“I’m sorry, say what now?” Garth couldn’t believe his ears. Even the Eye was shocked by Meech’s furtively whispered suggestion: digital artifacts were popping and skittering across the HUD like popcorn.
Meech leaned forward conspiratorially. “We all know who you are, hey? Scourge, is who. You terrified a lot of people in Ha’Penny House, right? Did a lot of damage. I is … I am kn… I know what you’re capable of. Rumor has it that you’re going to Arcade City on purpose. Don’t. Don’t do it. Wotever … whatever your reasons are for going, change them.”
“Are you from Arcade City?” Garth didn’t know why he asked the question. In a universe as full of Humanity as Trinityspace was, running into an actual FrancoBritish citizen from Arcade City was about as likely as … now that he thought about it, Garth realized that his life had become one long string of immensely unlikely things happening all the time, in rapid succession. With that in mind, he was surprised FrancoBritish wardogs weren’t just, like, wandering around wherever he went.
Meechy stiffened, went pale as a sheet. He started nodding nervously, looking over his shoulder towards the bulkhead door and back again. This went on for nearly a solid minute. Finally, Meechy stopped the nervous gestures, ran a shaking hand across his head, and nodded once more. “Yes, I am. From Arcade City.”
Images of the TikTok Dome swam up at Meechy from the deepest recesses of repressed memories, the vast collection of gears and pistons spinning and clunking suddenly in his mind. Meechy felt he could open an airlock door that was supposed to lead to outside and into space only to find that Dome surrounding them. Chunk. Clunk. Hiss.
“I’m from Arcade City, mate, and you don’t want to go there.” Meechy said, his eyes focusing on some dimly remembered horror. “It’s the worst place in the entire universe.”
This was an unparalleled opportunity. After wasting two solid years looking for a King’s Son and hunting for truths as to what he could expect within, it’d developed early on that data on what happened inside Arcade City was nonexistent. His normal eye flinched suddenly when a particularly large digital artifact burst across his vision. He commanded the goddamn OS to fix itself before turning his attention back to Meech, who didn’t seem to be doing so well. “What’s the matter, friend? You don’t look right.”
“Not…not supposed to… to remember The Dome of Gears.” Meechy threw a hand up in the air. Oh, the things he’d seen, the things he’d done, under the whirling mass of metal. It wasn’t even about the King, oh no, that was normal stuff, that was what you did when you and your best mates wanted a challenge.
No, it was what you did when you were alone in the dark by your lonesome and one of the Nannies came to you and whispered clickety-clack into your ears. It was what you did when you were face to face with an Obsidian Golem.
“Obsidian Golem?” Garth quirked an eyebrow at that. It was obvious Meech was unaware he’d been talking the whole time, because the moment Garth asked the question, the poor FrancoBrit jerked as though he’d been jabbed in the chest with a cattle prod. “And what’s this about the King?”
Meechy looked about frantically. He could feel the clockwork closing in on him from all sides, all sharp teeth and metal hisses and awful grimness. The heady cocktail of gunpowder and wet blood filled the air. He raked fingernails across his face. “Stop asking me, mate, stop asking me these questions. I asked you to do what I asked, now do it or shut your piehole you flaming twatface. You is not wantin’ to go to fuckin’ Arcade City, no matter ‘ow fuckin’ tough you is finkin’ you is. The Dark Iron King is risen and The Dome is on its way to bein’ ready. The fires is bein’ prepped.”
Garth narrowed his eyes. The OS was telling him that the problems with the display modules wasn’t internal; there was some kind of disturbance roiling out from poor, disturbed Meech, shattered and broken commands spilling into the air between them. Garth guessed –and the OS, who was feeling quite communicative at the moment, concurred- that there was some kind of implant or device inside the FrancoBrit, a device keeping him –and probably every FrancoBrit who won free of Arcade City- from talking about what happened in their hometown.
The OS set about trying to find the device, plucking away at the blocky disturbances filling the electronic air like a musician trying to find the right piece of music.
“Don’t you mean Mad Goth King?” Garth asked the moment Meech stopped gibbering under his breath.
The response was instant. Meech lashed out with a wiry arm, slapping Garth across the face so hard that an ordinary man’s neck would’ve snapped. His cheek stung through the quadronium layer, another marvel.
“Try harder.” Garth suggested casually, though inwardly, he was very impressed. He pulsed a query to the operating system and it came back negative; other than the theoretical memory implant that was obviously failing, Edmund Meech was implant and augment free.
Meechy leaned in close, his breath reeking of bad tea and suspicious seafood. “It’s the Dark Iron King you want to watch out for, mate, him who makes us who we is.”
“And what does he make you?” Garth tried to lean back and away from the FrancoBrit, but the man just moved with him. This close, it was easy to see the
sudden and unhealthy sheen glistening under the man’s skin and to smell the warm stink of engines running too hot. “And I’ve only ever heard of the Mad Goth King. No one’s heard of anyone else.”
It was true; during the hunt for a King’s Son, Garth had heard enough stories, enough gossip and enough outright lies about what went on in Arcade City to fill a dozen books. The Mad Goth King wept and wailed all night long, filling the city with his sounds of sorrow. The Mad Goth King ate people, chewed them up and spat out their bones. In all that time, had anyone known anything about the way more interesting sounding ‘Dark Iron King’, Garth was certain they would’ve coughed up that info right away, if only to get him to stop hitting people and breaking things.
Meechy howled like a car trying to start. Wiry thin hands grabbed Garth by the throat and the prison guard hauled his captive straight into the air with startling ease. The veins in his forehead and the sinews in Meechy’s neck popped and flexed until they were like cables under shiny, sweaty skin. At this point, he was only dimly aware that he was shouting.
“The Dark Iron King has his Armorer back, you fuckin’ twat. The Forge will reopen. He’ll be makin’ his weapons. The Dome will Rise.”
Garth hung there, more or less secure in the knowledge that he was at least partially sure that his damnable Eye wouldn’t let him be killed by a skinny dink who was halfway through some kind of bizarre Hulking out process. It was busy trying to analyze and assess what was going on with Meech and having limited success, which was bewildering; N’Chalez hoped his Eye wasn’t fully distracted. Having fought the living incarnation of a crazy God and lived to tell the tale only to be shaken apart by a spasticated FrancoBritish prison guard would be humiliating.
The madman’s rage was reaching an apoplectic crescendo. He was shrieking and hollering about nannies again, and the King in the streets, and triumphs and loss and winners and losers. He wailed over the vicious taste of ‘crudey-crude’ and wept over something called Kingsblood. Blackened spittle flecked both their faces.
Meechy paused to take a breath. Garth took his chance. “Why do you even care if I go into Arcade City, Meech? As you say, you know I went out of my way to arrange this nefarious passage.”
Meechy tried wiping some of the spittle off his cheek by swiping his face across a shoulder, keeping one eye on his prisoner. Shivers and tremors rippled through him. Even though The Dome was a solar system away, he could feel the gears ticking and tocking now. It was one of the things that you learned to do if you wanted to survive. There was some kind of weird connection between The Dome and the doings in the City, and if you were good, and smart, and devilish, you just knew when certain gears or cogs or shafts were doing their business. It wouldn’t be long. Not long at all.
Garth asked the question again. It seemed to’ve had a calming effect on Meech, though the weird skin thing was a bit disconcerting. There were still no definitive answers from the Eye.
Meechy smiled. The temperature in the holding cell seemed to drop, and the stink of overheating metal grew stronger. “I’ve got something in my eye, N’Chalez. Would you like to see what it is?”
“What the fuck?” Garth beaned Meech with his Prisoner’s Choice-bound hands a few times, bouncing the explosive-laden metal mittens across the FrancoBrit’s head in the desperate hope that the fucking things would go off.
Nothing doing.
Meech shrugged the attacks off and levered Garth closer, so he could get a better look at what was in his eye. “See what’s there? See what’s in my eye, N’Chalez?”
Garth started kicking with his legs, but again, Meech just ignored the blows. “How do you know my name? My proper name? What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you want me to go to Arcade City?”
Meechy smiled sardonically. “Under The Dome of Gears, all things are equal until you start surviving, N’Chalez, and with the Armorer back, things are very unequal. Your bibs and your bobs won’t matter naught. It’s gonna be just you down there, all on your own, surrounded by men loyal to the Dark Iron King. You think you’re hard. You think you’re tough. You’ve had backups and tricks and secrets and powers. Under The Dome, surrounded by the gears and cogs, you’ll be nothing. Just you. And with the King walking the streets day and night, night and day, well, tougher men than me will be out in force. Now. Look in my eye.”
Meechy pulled Garth as close as he could.
Mind whirling from the deviant foretelling, the ex-Specter turned … whatever he was now … could do nothing but stare into Meechy’s left eye and do his best not to gag on the stink of metal on metal rising up out of the man’s greasy skin.
A gear. A metal gear, shining black and wet and glittering madly, shifted and turned and spun inside Meechy’s eye like a second cornea.
“What the…” Against better judgment, Garth leaned forward until he could feel Meechy’s hot breath on his cheek. There. It was as he thought. He’d wanted it to be his imagination, but Meechy’s eye didn’t have just a cog floating smack dab in the middle of the crud-green cornea … his entire eye was comprised of gears and cogs, hundreds of millions of microscopic machine parts. “What the fuck?” he hissed, dreaded memories of his first tactical engagement coming to mind against his will.
“Dark Iron is a poison, N’Chalez.” Meechy insisted with dire seriousness. “The Dark Iron is a poison and if it gets in you, you will be lost. An’ if you want ter survive, you got ter get it in you. No chance, N’Chalez, none for you, neither way. You get in, it gets in you, all changes. All changes for you!”
Disturbed to his very marrow now, Garth redoubled his efforts in trying to break free of Meechy’s inexorable grasp, bashing at the man’s head and upper body with the Prisoner’s Choice until his arms ached. The Eye’s HUD continued spitting and stuttering glitchy hash across Garth’s mindscape, but the ex-Specter no longer needed to know what was wrong with his jailor.
Garth didn’t know how it was possible, but Edmund Meech had to be infected with a variant of the Cloud, the nanoparticulate he’d seeded an entire solar system with, the … the dust that’d first turned an entire population into immortal men and women before transforming them into matter-hungry zombies. There was no other explanation, no other possibility; in the last stages of Cloud zombification, men and women affected with the semi-intelligent particles had had a similar texture to not just their eyes, but their entire bodies.
But it wasn’t his Cloud that Meechy was suffering from. His Cloud had been designed to reorder the matter of an entire solar system into a vast machine, stripping away everything containing even the hint of mass and shifting it. It was part of the endgame strategy to break through the meniscus of Unreality so that Reality might be born.
Whatever was happening inside Arcade City was, just as Bravo had feared, a direct and present threat against anyone else who ‘wanted’ to fight the M’Zahdi Hesh for control over the Unreal Universe.
Garth took a few ragged breaths and did his best to calm down, though dear Meechy seemed intent on raving like a lunatic until the end of his days. There was every chance that his gut instinct was wrong, that Meechy wasn’t infected with a Cloud variant but some other kind of impossible nanotech system that’d also escaped not only Trinity’s eternal vigilance but the depredations of the Unreal Universe itself.
Besides which, there was nothing to worry about, right?
He’d been immune to the Goreene Cloud, and back then, he hadn’t –technically speaking- even been a damn Kin’kithal. He’d just been normal old Garth Nickels, desperate to get Tynedale/Fujihara Debt Collectors off his ass. Now? Now he was Garth N’Chalez, would-be Engineer for Reality. He had himself a shiny new quadronium-infused super body and a glittering blue robo-eye that let him –amongst other awesome things- see the quantum chatter between AI systems. When it felt like it.
Meechy’s body wrenched suddenly and he let go of Garth, who was, at this point, quite happy to fall to the ground like a sack of wet potatoes. The maddened jailor spun and pointed an accus
atory finger at the men who’d shot him in the back with a stun rifle.
“You is lucky,” Meechy howled over the gnashing, grinding gears that suffused his every thought, “you is lucky I ain’t innerested in you! You gotta stop this fuckin’ arsehole from goin’ to Arcade City! It isn’t…”
Captain Branford Eck pointed a rather antique looking musket at Edmund Meech, one of his friends and the man who’d been with him on the prisoner run the longest and sighed. You took risks, hiring on one of the Escapees, risks that sometimes meant you’d find yourself having to shoot them with the Musket.
Meechy’s eyes widened until they were the size of saucers. He shouted incoherently and tried to run. The Musket fired even as he turned to leap over Garth.
Edmund Meech, survivor of Arcade City, took the round from the Musket in the back, screamed once like his very nerve endings were on fire, then exploded in a loud, wet burst of blood and bone that coated the cell and everyone in it. The men standing behind Captain Eck retched and groaned miserably while the Captain bit back a hot surge of nausea.
“Okay.” Garth cleared his throat and did his best to wipe Meechy off his face with another part of his body that was less covered in Meechy. About the only thing he accomplished was smearing stuff around. “Okay. That wasn’t fun at all.”
***
Garth closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He felt like a real person for the first time in a long time; though the prisons in Ha’Penny House were typical of a politely and properly run FrancoBritish correctional institution, they’d lacked some of the niceties in life, like hot showers.
Captain Eck, grimly embarrassed that Edmund Meech had first gone crazy then exploded all over everyone, had politely offered Garth the use of the hot water shower in his very own cabin.
Actual water showers on a spaceship were one of those things that were ludicrously expensive and fiendishly difficult to maintain properly. One burst pipe in the wrong area and suddenly you’ve got compartments flooded with water. On a spaceship. Floating through space. It wasn’t like you could pop a window and, you know, bail that shit out.
