by Lee Bond
“I … I have nothing to give them, Fenris. Yes, of course they are my children. Of course I love them. How could I not? I adopted them into my heart when I took command of a broken Army and then when we began poisoning them to keep them under better control, I did all I could to make their lives as simple and as easy as possible.” Vasily slapped the table as Fenris had done, though to much less effect. A startled and sad bit of laughter escaped him. “I … I have nothing to offer them. They have outgrown me. It is all a father can hope for.”
Humans. Humans and their emotions. So complex. So … foolish. Were he at the helm of the Engines of Creation with his hands on the controls, Fenris knew he’d do what he could to prevent a brain such as theirs from developing. Nebulous feelings spontaneously arising from some inner pit held far too much sway. He tactfully ignored the emotional outburst. “An interesting thing about the Harmony, OverCommander, and one you may be aware of but might not have thought too much about.”
“Oh?” Vasily felt deflated, empty. He’d lost his Goddies to men like Fenris the moment they’d arrived and then he’d gone on to kill the only woman he’d ever loved. Granted, she’d cracked like a poisonous egg and had been intent on destroying the lives of every person on the planet, but still. No one ever said IndoRussian passion had to make sense.
Fenris gestured to the OverCommander. “As you say, you inherited a broken Army. By the time the mantle of OverCommander was passed on to you, the God soldier Army had already been mothballed by Trinity for about twenty years, no? Yes. There is no need to dwell on what happened with them any longer. We all know the sorrow and horror you feel at what you did to them, and I will only say this. They, your children, have forgiven you. As the immortals they are learning to properly become, they are discovering the joy of taking the longest view possible. The pain and anguish they’ve endured for the last hundred years or so is –to them- a drop in the bucket. Momentary surcease from the horrors of war across The Cordon, an ironically welcome if painful freedom that they’ve willfully put aside. Now. Back to my initial point. What else did you inherit, OverCommander, when you agreed to lead an army without enemies?”
This was the first time Vasily had heard tell of the Goddies forgiving him for his part in their chemical dependencies. Part of that, he reflected ruefully, was his insistence that he avoid them. But it was their fault. They just … they just stood or knelt there, in the distance, impassive golems the size of giants, eyes downturned. When they’d been like maniacal children, well, they’d been frightening then, as well, but he’d known how to handle them. For all their great strength and hunger for blood, a sharp word and the threat of no pudding had kept almost all of them in line without delay.
But these new God soldiers, replete with all their memories … he was awed. Overawed. He could not believe he’d hollered at men and women who could crush his skull into fine paste with a thumb and forefinger, called them big babies. It was impossible to imagine he’d done that for so long without ever once worrying about his safety.
“I’m sorry, what?” Vasily blinked. “What was the question?”
“What else did you inherit, along with the silly hat and big cloak?”
“The hat’s not …” Vasily flushed at the glimmer of amusement in Fenris’ dark eyes. He’d always liked the hat. He missed wearing it, but mostly because Alyssa had found him rather dashing in it. “The sleepers. They came with the rest.”
“And this is where the problem arises, OverCommander.” Fenris felt his brothers’ feelings on the conversation. They were enjoying themselves, damn them. He’d wasted more words on bringing Vasily to this point than he’d even dreamed necessary and there were hundreds more to come, of that, he was certain. “The sleepers.”
Panic gripped Vasily. He looked around, though for what, he had no clue. “Are they all right? I … I did the best I could. Are they falling back asleep?”
Fenris waited for the mortal to realize he’d betrayed his feelings for the God soldiers in that one panicky instance, relishing the raw, naked embarrassment on Vasily’s austere face the moment it happened. “They are fine. They will never sleep like that again, OverCommander, not ever. At least,” he could not resist the jab, and Lokken’s laughter echoed in his ears, “at least not until Darkness Falls and the Light Rises.”
“Go fuck yourself, Fenris, right in your eye.” Vasily locked eyes with the Harmony soldier. It was like staring at stone. Stone that could kill you with a gesture. In the end, he looked away, but only for a moment, only a quick flicker to the left and right. “Then what is wrong with them?”
“They remember.”
The statement rolled out of Fenris’ mouth, an implacable storm.
Vasily shook his head. “Impossible.”
This time, Fenris did laugh. How could he not? “When we live in an Unreal Universe, Vasily Tizhen, everything is possible. And in this case, not even difficult to understand.”
“They had no signs of life. We did … we did what we did because we were ashamed and saddened at what had happened to them. There was never any sign! They can’t remember.” Vasily shook his head. They couldn’t, could they?
“One of the gravest and greatest secrets this solar system has ever held surrounds the OverCommander and what he has done for God soldiers severed from life by the power of the Sigma.” Fenris approved of this tale. It was one for the books, yes it was. “For thousands and thousands of years, the men and few women who’ve commanded Titans, who led them across The Cordon to fight and die on alien worlds, cared for those Sigma’d into silence. In the beginning, there were few. Your great grandsire Ute was amongst the first to fall prey to the sweeping power of the Sigma Protocol. And the OverCommander of the day built the first Tomb and hid it, and the sleepers inside, away from the rest of the world, doctoring reports, manufacturing lies, all to convince a power mad Chair that the … shameful secret had died.
But the numbers of sleepers continued to grow, down the long centuries, yes? Other OverCommanders, new Tombs, more slumbering God soldiers. And always, the secret was kept. You all did what you could. You moved the asteroids around when the corners of your solar system got crowded. You engineered the assassination of people who grew too close to the truth. Why, I know the names of more than a dozen Chairs who were murdered by the hand of an OverCommander to preserve the integrity of that secret. The myth of the sleepers is a greater secret than any other thing in the entire history of this solar system, OverCommander Vasily, greater than where duronium came from, more profound and inspiring than even the mystery behind the First Engine and the Chair’s legendary proteus.” Fenris raised a finger. “But do you know the one thing no other OverCommander ever did? The one thing that not one man or woman in four thousand years thought to do? At least, until you came along? An OverCommander with no goal? A leader of Titans with no enemy? Do you know what you did that no one else had had the time or the inclination to do?”
Vasily licked his lips and was suddenly glad once more for the rain. “I visited them. I … every chance I got. I …”
Fenris gritted his teeth, pressed his lips flat. Oh, if the man had done no such thing! “You visited them. Dozens of times a year. Alyssa Doans tried to find where you vanished off to, eventually concluding that you had mistresses. No big shock, or even concern. Your … affair was too public to show affection, and that was the price, in her foolish mind, she was willing to pay for your attention and devotion when you were around. You visited them, Vasily. Strode into their dark resting places, turned the lights on, and sat with them. You told them stories from your preposterously rich IndoRussian childhood. You whispered to them the Tale of the King who would be a Man, the Boy Who Ate The Moon, The Princess’ Other Shoe… you read to them histories of their families, Vasily, you filled them in on the achievements and accomplishments of their ultimate children’s children, of Adele Neumann’s triumph at the spelling bee and the day that Johnathon Eclese became a cardiac surgeon. You told them that one day, Latelyspace
would be all there was, as far as the eye could see and the mind could imagine and on that day, you said into the darkness that was their slumber, and on that day, you would find a way to wake them up. And the thing, Vasily Aurick Tizhen,” Fenris banged the table again, outraged at being in this situation, “and the fucking thing about the Harmony, you bastard, is that they heard you. Every single one of them. They all heard how the boy ate the moon and laughed at the silliness. They all cried over the Princess and her missing shoe. They were buoyed out of the darkness by a child spelling fuchsia properly and they sang to themselves when a boy became a man who became a doctor. And it’s all your fault! They will fucking waste themselves to death now because you think you have nothing to offer them! All those memories, of those times, of those stories … they have spread through the glory of Harmony until there is nothing else they can think of! Awake or asleep, OverCommander Vasily, awake or asleep through the millennia, your children have been and will always fucking be your children. Now. And forever.”
Fenris took a deep, ragged breath and stared into Vasily’s ashen, shocked face. He spoke quietly, and with intent. “Now you listen and you listen closely, you stupid man. You say you have nothing to give them, that they’ve learned everything they can, that we, my brothers and I, are the only ones for them now. You gave them something that threatens to destroy the precious balance of Harmony. You gave them hope. You showed them love. You proved to them that they mattered. When you ignore them, when you look through them, you take that away. And when you take that away, they begin to doubt. When they doubt, the Harmony flickers. You, Vasily Aurick Tizhen, are doing something that even the M’Zahdi Hesh cannot do. You are killing Harmony. And I swear that I would rather kill you here and now, with my own hands and deal with the fallout from that action than anything you might do.”
Silence filled the park. The rain continued falling, though less than before. Vasily checked his watch. It was nearing three in the afternoon, and, like every day, as Huey promised, the rain would be moving to another part of Central City. How the man could promise that was amazing on its own.
Fenris wiped rain from his face. He hadn’t lost his temper like that in a very long time. Vasily had no clue how close he’d come to death. If Lokken and Nalanata hadn’t started shouting in his ears, the mortal who’d seized the heart and soul of every single God soldier would be ash. “You say you cannot be their OverCommander. That is fine. It is even correct. You cannot lead them in the War to Come. We are not even certain we can.”
“What about Nickels?” Every day, protes and Screens filled up with endless speculation on that. Where had the man gone? How had he piloted The Box out of The Peak? What was he doing now? Why had he left them when he was needed here?
Fenris waved a hand. “He is doing things that require his very specific attention. It’s extremely unlikely you will see him again and I certainly will not see him until very nearly the end. But N’Chalez is neither here nor there. You cannot be a leader to your children any longer, but you can still be what you were destined to be.”
“And what is that?” Vasily asked, pathetically attempting for a light-hearted tone. Fenris’ nearly immaculate rage at being forced into this moment practically reached across the table and choked him. He dipped his head in apology.
“Be their father, Vasily. When they kneel, ask them to rise. When they stand, salute. When they want to tell you of a great grandchild of theirs, listen, and smile. They seek your approval in everything they do, from how carefully they brush their teeth to the fine line they dance out there in the stars as they try not to kill Trinity’s men. Titans they may be, Vasily, ancient and elder warriors incapable of death, but you turned them into your children and I hate you for it. I am their commander. Me and my brothers. They will fight and die at our order. But … but for you? For you, they will live. Would that they were nothing but Harmonized weapons aimed at the greedy hearts of the Heshii and their warmaster, this would all be simple. You would be a corpse.”
“Well.” Vasily cleared his throat. “At least you are honest.”
“I have never been anything but honest, Vasily.” Fenris all but growled the words. Mortals and their insistence that he and his were liars. Every word that came out of their mouths was true. It might be all the words that could be said on a subject, but that was another thing entirely. “Do we have an understanding?”
Vasily took a deep, thoughtful breath. OverCommander no more. It was something he could live with. Truth be told, the need for the power had died in him the moment Alyssa … at that moment. He plucked at his chin, considering the ‘offer’ that Fenris had made; it had to be driving the ancient Harmony soldier mad as a hatter that his ‘Titans’ held such an unbreakable bond with a normal man. Vasily tried to imagine himself in the role that his children had accidentally thrust him into, tried to see how things would play out with him doing nothing more than talking with the giants, listening to their stories, hearing their sorrows for surely, in this great war that Fenris hungered for, there would be all manner of sorrow.
Vasily closed his eyes, saw himself there, on the front lines of that war, giving his children hope where Fenris offered blood and pain. He smiled. Oh yes, wasn’t that the thing that Harmony cried for above all else? Wasn’t that what musicians talked about sometimes? The silence between the notes? He would offer that to his children, sure enough.
Father Vasily Aurick Tizhen opened his eyes and nodded. “I’ll be their Father.” And then he walked away.
Fenris watched the nascent holy man leave, watched the goddamn clouds part to usher forth the sun in all its glory. Stride’s mocking laughter howled through the Harmony. The first of the Harmony wasn’t sure how Vasily had done it, but he was goddamn certain he’d arranged for everything to happen the way it’d happened.
It was either that, or Harmony itself was responsible.
And that was unacceptable.
9. Kingspawn Pub
For all the untrustworthy traits and habits oozing out of Nicked Jimmy, he’d taken to the role of mentor with zeal; as he walked, he talked about the microcosm world that was Arcade City like a latter day David Attenborough, though his speech was peppered with more euphemisms and curses than anyone would’ve likely seen during a foray into deepest darkest Africa.
For his part, Nicked Jimmy was surprised he were enjoying himself as much as he was. It had to be the fact that the fish had yanked the knobkerrie right out of his hands without so much as a by your leave. It took a man of unsurpassed skill to do that; although all the fighting he’d learned had been on the fly and in the grips of Dark Iron, you couldn’t get around the fact that he was fast and tough and mean as hell. And along had come fishy with a slick wizardly move.
Hadn’t gotten him far, oh no, he’d bounced right off that wall like a toddler being given a firm hand from dear old dad.
But what it had gotten fishy was another shot. Or rather, a shot.
“So why,” Garth asked after a lengthy discussion on Estates and their relative immunity from harm, “why would you risk punishment from these … Gearmen … for bringing a King onto the property every year?”
Inwardly, Garth was rolling the purpose of those Estates around in his mind. Criminals and convicts and the unwanted get shoved in through one great Geared Door or another and then they are met by smiling friendly faces, they are offered the opportunity to live out their days in relative safety –barring lunatics like Jimmy- or they can be taught how to fend for themselves. Jimmy’d rambled on and on about the various aspects of Estate life, never really sticking to one particular train of thought for very long and he kept patting the huge four gallon container at his waist.
Whatever else Dark Iron really was, it was horrendously addictive.
Estate life sounded idyllic, as far as that word could be applied in the concentrated madhouse that was Arcade City. Prisoners showed up, they were met by the town, they were given a choice. Live life and be happy(ish), work at a tradecraft, meet s
omeone, fall in love, if you were of a mind to, have babies and grow old and die. If you did that, if you stayed in the Estate for the rest of your life, odds were you’d never come in contact with Kingsblood, never see a hardened crusher or thumper or launcher, never hear the awful, stentorian screams of a giant fucking robot clambering around trying to pull your head off. Live in an Estate, you lived your allotted years and you died. Plain and simple.
Learn how to kill a King, though, and everything changed. You learned how to fight, you were trained up just enough so that you might find yourself a crew willing to take on someone new, and then, if you were godawfully lucky, that crew one day killed a King and you got your first taste of Kingsblood.
Jimmy had spun the choice of fighting the King into a tale of derring-do and wonder but beneath that, hidden carefully inside honestly surprising stories of bringing down the King in some shocking ways, Garth had heard the tiniest bits of woe and sullen, long-burning anger. It was the reason for that anger that had Garth interested, because he had the feeling that if whatever had happened hadn’t, well, the Jimmy beside him wouldn’t be jacked to the gills on Dark Iron and his skin wouldn’t be beaded with seams of solid metal.
Jimmy belched and spat at a scampering bunny. He pulled out his shooter and fired off a few rounds, chuckling when he finally beaned the hoppy little thing. It exploded nicely, riven apart at the seams by the big tiktok bullets he used. “Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that.” Garth trudged alongside Jimmy, hurrying more than he was used to; whatever power the King had that made machinery he didn’t approve of not work was pissing him right off. When he wasn’t paying attention, Nicked Jimmy started moving faster and faster, forcing Garth to hurry in ways he hadn’t needed to deploy since his earliest days in SpecSer.
There was an easy solution to that problem, and it was percolating in a brass and glass cylinder, a thick black liquid that had Jimmy hot and bothered and had Garth sick to his uneasy stomach. One sip and whatever evil nanotech riding inside the liquid would find purchase inside him, eager to follow the King’s commands.
