by Lee Bond
No one in their right mind, not even Trinity Itself, could expect Ariel to repair those damages, recoup those losses. As wealthy as the Conglomerate was, doing so would pass from exorbitant before a single structure was repaired.
Andros turned back to the conversion bubble. Jordan had at last stopped trying to claw his way free. For the time being, at any rate. The geneticist itched to learn the secret behind Jordan’s purity. Off the top of his head, he could think of no more than five different ways to keep a lineage as safe and as secure as Jordan’s that could also survive the depredations of Dark Ages and the vast tract of time that was Human history.
“No.” Andros shook his head. “No. She is too smart, too cunning. She will look at me and she will see. She may not know what she is looking at, but she’ll know. I need to think on this, see if there is another way.”
“Sir.” The servitor nodded and left the room.
Faint, muffled sounds of thin bone and blood pushing against an unbreakable bubble reached the geneticist’s sensitive ears. It was an uncomfortable sound. Andros wrinkled his nose. He was going to have to work harder, go deeper into the sequences that made Jordan Bishop a human being.
If that meant cracking Jordan wide and deep, all the way down to the mitochondria and beyond to succeed?
So be it.
Andros Medellos looked around for a proper laboratory smock.
Work was going to get messy.
11. Bad Moon Rising
He was drunk.
No. Scratch that. He was hammered.
Him. Drunk. He hadn’t been drunk … since forever.
When … when had that even been? Certainly not recently, though he’d been forced to fake various levels of inebriation –with hilarious results- on more than one SpecSer Op.
Maybe … it … it might’ve been in the never-was Reality? That sounded right. Garth squinted at the murky memory. Had he really gotten drunk with Drake and Sparks in that club that time, or had he been pretending? So much of what he’d done, who he’d claimed to be, all of it had been epic bullshit, and through it all, Sparks and Drake had believed every word.
“Hey, look at me…” Garth muttered moodily into the almost-empty beer glass, “I’m a Kin’kithal, I can’t get drunk to save my life. Wheeee. Booo.”
Except … except he was drunk right now and … he was pretty sure he didn’t really like it all that much. Nicked Jimmy and crew had done their best to get him liquored up to weaken his resolve over the whole ‘no Dark Iron’ thing, but they were going to be surprised to learn that no matter how drunk he was, he’d rather die than have crudey-crude come anywhere near him.
Even … even if that meant suiciding.
In the beginning, he’d accepted their drinks because dammit, he’d been through an awful lot of hair-raising bullshit in the last twelve years and people who experience that kind of crap deserved to get shit-face drunk with a bunch of scary-ass weirdoes. There was a law or something, wasn’t there?
Garth chuckled wetly, then burped so sourly he had to grab hold of the table with both hands to make sure he didn’t fall over. He was really drunk. The room spun and wobbled and danced and all the freaks and geeks with their horrid Kingsblood mutations capered to the beat of the band.
Kin’kithal warriors and Specters and Fishy-Fish Blacksmiths didn’t fall over drunk. It was undignified.
Right hand gripping the table so hard he was white-knuckling –oh no, he wasn’t going down, not yet-, Garth raised his left, signaling it was time for another drink. The ex-Specter grinned blearily at Staunch Mel and her coterie of sexy steampunk lady-freaks. All … all you had to do –really- was, like, ignore certain ‘aspects’. Subtract what seemed to be a poorly-built steampunk ear or, like, fingers that looked wrong and you were good to go.
“Beer goggles are a thing.” Garth belched wetly again, shuddering. Good lord, the stuff had definitely been better on the way down. “Holy shit, I never knew that. Hey! Hey Melsbeth!”
The would-be Engineer for Reality 2.0 watched Mel angrily slam back another shot of Dark Iron before heading for the bar. Garth shrugged and accepted a fresh beer from the waitress with his left hand, wondering why in hell he was staring at his right one.
***
Nicked Jimmy was gripping his shoulders so hard Dave thought he might have to correct the situation. The looker’s breath stank of beer and hot iron and the bartender was certain that if he stared down Jimmy’s throat there’d be an actual forge down there, all red and … forge-y.
“I … I’ve been doing as you told me, Jimmy.” Dave remembered to put a tremble in his hand as he indicated the thick-glassed empty syringes tucked out of casual sight. The dull brass and glass injection devices glinted evilly. “Every last drop, just as you wanted.”
Unaware he was repeating the same thought that’d been percolating through Dave’s brain for some time now, Jimmy pushed in closer still until his hot, fetid breath curled around the panicky bartender’s face. “Then why they fuck isn’t he done for?” Jimmy demanded, turning his grip tighter. “Tell me that, then, hey? He’s a fishy. Fishies don’t drink more than a drippy-drop without screaming and wailing and looking like they’re about to die. Our fishy-fish blacksmith has had near on a quarter-gallon and he’s out there adding lyrics to your musician’s songs. What is a catscratch fever, hey?”
Mel came around the bar, eyeing both the fish and the other crews. This was all going very, very wrong. Hours ago, when Jimmy had mentioned Garth’s status as blacksmith, she’d sensed the communal accord reached by the other crews in Kingspawn Pub and had been relieved. Everyone would wait until the blacksmith was reborn under the sign of Dark Iron and then they’d all have themselves a good tussle over the crudey-crude in their shiny brass canisters.
But that had been hours ago. Hours. Mel remembered her own marriage to Dark Iron clear as day. It’d taken seconds and had been swift, merciless, vicious. A furtively whispered conversation with Brother Echo, a man who’d been taken the way Jimmy was trying to take Garth, had confirmed that –when all were said and done- his experience had been little different; it were a fact you couldn’t taste Kingsblood if it were deployed in a heavy drink like Dave’s brew.
E’en more so if it were just a few drops at a time, as they’d had this stupid bartender do! But the eventual experience was exactly the same as everyone else’s.
Once the ol’ Kingsblood reached proper levels, by all that was unholy in the world, you fell to your knees and started trying to claw it out of you. Some carried permanent scars across the neck and face. That was how intense the marriage was, and how badly you wanted it out of you. Until it was all the way in, then naturally, it were the other way around. You couldn’t wait to get more in, did all you could, hating yourself every step of the way until the anger was a permanent gnaw in your gut.
“What is the deal, here, Dave?” Mel asked quietly when she got close enough. “You’re not stealing from us, are you?”
Well now, that were something Nicked Jimmy hadn’t even considered. A fresh surge of Kingsblood-fueled anger rose up, a howling shrapnel storm of rage. “You grifting us?”
The accusation was so absurd Dave laughed before he could catch himself.
Inwardly panicking that he’d made a right mess of things and really would have to get involved, Dave started speaking hurriedly to wipe the mottled anger from Jimmy’s.
It would be the same old lie he’d been telling for decades, aye, only with a little twist to cover his gaffe and keep things from getting properly out of hand.
“I’ve tended bar here since the King decided to commemorate that Big’un of his well and truly losing his shit and tearing out its own spawn point, Nicked Jimmy. Thirty years I’ve poured brew and hooch for your kind. In that time, I’ve never once taken a sip. Once, before you came here, fellas as had gone as far as they could towards Arcadia without trying to do for the Platinum King decided to make their way back here, t’home, as it were. Cost a pretty penny it did. Had
to get them Matrons up Arcadia way to sign off on it, didn’t they just? Anyways, one offered me the purest Kingsblood you can find, save for the bright stuff as is supposed to flow through the Metal Monarch there in Arcadia.
He showed it to me, Jimmy, and King’s honest truth, it hain’t like nothing you seen before. Near-on clear it were, with only the tiniest little ripple of the rough stuff. Stuff on your table, there, Jimmy, that’s molasses over single cask whiskey. He remembered the gloomy times under my roof and wanted do me a turn. Do you know what I did, Jimmy?”
“You took that sip, course you did.” Jimmy’s laughter joined in with Staunch Mel’s. He’d eat one of his own hands for a taste of the good stuff. Hardly did nothing bad at all, they said, that fresher stuff. Just made you more of what you was on in the inside, it were whispered.
Only made sense, hey? With the way Old Dave had laughed there, with no fear of nothing, well … only one with some of that purer Kingsblood in ‘em would find nowt to worry about when gripped by Nicked Jimmy’s rough hands, hey?
Dave shook his head in denial. “No, Jimmy. I didn’t. I said no. I’ll always say no. If I turned down a dollop like that, free and clear of all debt from a willing benefactor, why in all things under The Dome would I start stealing crudey-crude from you?”
Nicked Jimmy was certain there was an insult in there somewhere. It didn’t matter. There were one simple test to prove or disprove their favorite bartender’s claims of unsullied blood. The looker jerked his chin at Staunch Mel and she pulled a knife from her belt.
“A little scratchy-scratch on the arm should prove you a liar.” Nicked Jimmy whispered seductively, holding Dave tight against the wall with one hand whilst the other groped for a buzzknife. His captive struggled for a bit, stopping when the pain grew too much. “Just a wee…”
A large crash drew Dave, Jimmy and Mel’s attention to the main part of the pub; there was their fish, staring at a broken piece of table in his hand as though it were the strangest thing he’d seen all day. Guttural laughter and excited catcalls took over when the music failed.
Jimmy made a thoughtful face. “Well. Look at that. Our fish is being welded to the Iron after all.” He turned a scarred, leering grin Dave’s way to hide sudden worries flashing up through his hot head; their poor fish had gulped down more ‘sblood than any fresh faced fishy had ever done, more’n some poor boys and girls ever had in their entire lives!
The looker figured odds were real good they were going to watch a man burn into ash and twisted iron cinder, but it were a learning experience, this whole thing, weren’t it? If Nickels the Fish did turn into ash, mayhap he’d move on in anyhow, hey? He were nearly grey himself these days, weren’t he? Didn’t need no blacksmith fishyfish for that, did you?
Sure, it’d make things easier, hey, but were it necessary?
Another thought popped into Jimmy’s brain. “You and I, we hain’t done having our little chat, Dave. You want to think long and hard about giving up the name of your wealthy friend.”
Mel slapped Dave on the back of the head, then punched him in the gut before following Nicked Jimmy back around the bar. She snickered over her shoulder at the gasping bartender.
***
Garth stared aghast at the broken piece of wood in his hand. He dropped it a second later like it was a poisonous snake. Around him, the walls wobbled. Everyone else apparently held no issue with everything violating the laws of physics. In fact, the goons were chanting and stomping their feet like they were at a tailgate party.
“What’s …” Garth’s mouth slammed shut as the pervasive feeling of quadronium flooding through his atoms started uncoiling somewhere near where his alcohol-abused gut.
That wasn’t possible. Even assuming The Eye was capable of adjusting to the nanotech blanket surrounding everything in The Domed City –which struck Garth as highly unlikely- he hadn’t been in Arcade City long enough for the damaged systems to repair themselves. And no matter how impressive the quadronium machinery engraved onto his atoms were, there definitely hadn’t been time to hack into the King’s Cloud Variant to redirect some of the broadcast energy fueling the world’s nanotech engines.
This was something else. This was something awful.
The gaggles continued chanting. Nicked Jimmy and Staunch Mel strolled onto the scene, the former grinning like the cat who’d had all the cream and some fresh fish on top, the latter humming and smiling casually.
Garth narrowed bleary eyes at Jimmy. “What did you …”
And then an incandescent flame sheared through him, curling and eddying around individual quadronium cells seeded throughout his entire body, a white-hot caress tossing Garth to the ground, breathless and shrieking in agony.
Kingsblood.
Had to be the so-called Vicious Elixir and not his own defunct cybernetic systems.
They’d done it, somehow. He should’ve known better. Had known better, at least to start; he’d kept a careful eye on everyone and watched for weird tastes in his beer, but after the third glass and nothing untoward, he’d given in and decided to enjoy himself.
More fool, him. Now his lax judgment was bringing the heaviest of prices.
Another spasm of furious fire blew through him, a cleansing agony eliciting raucous cheers from the horde of chanting maniacs.
Nicked Jimmy crouched down to put a fatherly hand atop poor Fishy-Fish’s sweat-drenched skull. The man was burning up, all right; the flesh of the fish’s burning forehead was hot as a King’s thumping forge-heart, yes it were, and growing hotter by the tick.
Question was, could their lad survive it? Then, what manner of man would he be when all was done?
Jimmy looked over his shoulder at his crew. “Our lad’s got implants. Lots of them, I reckon. Explains why it took such a heavy dose, hey?”
Stupid Ferd haw-hawed loudly and would’ve kept on if someone hadn’t beaned him in the side of the head with a gauntleted fist.
Jimmy turned back to Garth, who was trying to crawl for the door. Fishies did that a lot when they were in the grips of their first bout with Kingsblood. The infernal heat washing them clean of the outside world and welding them to King’s Will had them hungry to be outside in the cool, fresh air. Shrugging with casual aplomb to those who watched, Jimmy pulled Garth back towards him.
“I … I …” Garth struggled to gain control of his legs, but Jimmy’s grip was iron-hard. The Eye was spitting and stuttering now, a gross and indelicate black snow that churned his stomach; the hytech systems were trying to draw power from whatever drove the Iron, but were in turn slowly but inevitably being corrupted by the nanotech’s vile nature. Pops and flares of brilliant light kept him flinching even as he tried speaking.
He prayed –when his mind focused long enough on something other than scintillating pain- that his hytech nature rose above the particulate invasion. “I don’t have implants, you asshat.”
Garth booted Nicked Jimmy hard in the face, and the leader fall back on his ass with a surprised grin. Everyone hooted and hollered. The first time was a rough time, and if the gearhead had indeed given the fishy-fish newcomer a heavy dose, things were going to get violent in a hurry.
Dragging his feet beneath him, Garth rose unsteadily. Some of the searing fire was gone. But only some. It still twisted and flexed under his skin and around his bones like effervescent snakes. Beneath the searing tinder lacing through him thanks to Kingsblood’s foul heat, there was something worse, something … dreadful uncoiling from the inside, from the place inside his own soul that was better off left in the dark.
They were the fools, not him, and oh, they would…
Garth slammed a hand against the heavy wooden floor of the bar and the merciless thought receded, though not far. Ravaged with agony, the sweat on his brow turning to steam, the Engineer turned to Nicked Jimmy.
Specter. Specter wanted out. This was just his sort of thing, just how he’d been before, so long ago, out there in the darkness of the Universe. And he’d been
oh so good at it…
“You got to have implants, my fish, else Kingsblood would’ve burned you from the inside out an hour or more ago.” Jimmy shook his head with mock sadness as he rose to his feet. “It’s what the stuff does, mate. Crawls inside your guts, through your blood and your bones and gets rid of the things our King don’t want. It’s well painful, I hear, and sometimes what the Iron gets rid of, it don’t replace, or don’t do right. Why do you think Stupid Ferd is so stupid? Had himself one of those IQ boosters in his old, overripe melon. His first sip of the Vicious Elixir had him wetting himself like a baby for months. Strong as an ox, now, mind, but … daft.”
Garth grit his teeth to keep from screaming in rage. It was boiling in him, the Dark Iron was, boiling through him like a supernova and it was taking every measure of self-control to keep that heat from spilling over into violence. The desperate urge to shout, to warn them away, flickered and wavered beneath the furious onslaught of this nanotech invasion.
For others, crudey-crude settled in and the blowtorch feeling dissipated, replaced by a continual hunger for more. It’d been the same with the matter zombies. The ex-Specter spat in attempt to rinse his mouth of the hot metal taste suffusing his senses.
But that was only if the poisonous nanotech could find a place to root, to grow, to flourish.
Quadronium was matter forged from another universe. It wasn’t going to be that easy. In it’s semi-intelligent fashion, the poisonous black goo was making way for the one place in the body that was less secure than anywhere else, and all because once upon a time, Garth N’Chalez had thought it wise to test the loyalty of thirty thousand year old memory recordings of people he hadn’t trusted when they’d been alive.
The gritty, gross nanoparticulate was crawling through him, sneaking ‘between’ the quadronium and the layers of his flesh, leaving cruel hooks that tried drilling through something they’d never seen before. But that wasn’t all.
