by Lee Bond
Barnabas strolled over to the melter, keen on taking a gander at the prize Garth had netted himself thanks to his diligent bartering. Popping the lid open with a practiced thump of an elbow, the King and ‘Priest waited for the stench-filled vapors to vacate before sticking his head in. “Oh,” the smith replied casually, “a week or so. Mayhap as long as a fortnight, depending on conditions.”
Garth cautiously rolled onto his back. The … incident … with board and baton had thrown him thirty feet in the air and nearly fifty feet backwards into the tree line. He couldn’t even rightly say if it’d been a burst of electricity that’d launched him like a Nerf football or if the board had reacted violently to the sudden surge of power flowing through its circuits. Hell, for all he knew, it’d been a combination of both.
Either way, the Kin’kithal felt lucky to be alive, a notion that actually brought a wry grin to his lips; without the full protection of quadronium, technically speaking he should be tons more Eeyore and buckets less Tigger.
It was difficult, though, and for oh so many reasons. Cloud 2.0, hovering everywhere, infusing everything, under the command of a man who’d brought to life a bizarre version of England that’d never existed, populated with things and monsters that’d never seen the light of day in the Unreal Universe … It was all so … so … It was an aggravating itch, being surrounded by paradoxical impossibilities, an itch serving only to compound his … affliction.
The Dark Iron under his skin, a maddening insistence that crept up on him every time he relaxed, whispering hot violence and bloody murder every time he dropped his guard. For all his actual non-existence, the easy route –that of limitless violence and seas of bloody- offered up by Specter was a burdensome temptation to be denied at all costs, even if that cost was his own life.
Specter seemed to whisper coyly in his ear, reminding him quite frankly of all that waited for him.
Barnabas, an uncompromising asshole Garth knew he couldn’t trust.
The Gearmen –though they had yet to make an appearance on the scene- who were hunting him for his disastrous performance in the pub.
The two Big Kings looming somewhere in his future like some kind of fucking steampunk Sentinels.
Except I ain’t Wolverine and Barnabas sure as shit ain’t Magneto, Garth thought gloomily. Still, he was alive and his arms and legs hadn’t been blown off in the explosion.
“Why’s that?” Garth asked, eyeing Barnabas.
Barnabas grimaced. The tub was full of things he’d love to put his hands on. Yes, as King and controller of Will, the nanotech particulate would hasten to manifest whatever was desired into reality, but there was something to be said for working with what you had to hand.
Solid metal bones, as he’d thought. Perfect for making some long guns and other things, though what else they could be turned to would take a lot of working with the big welder, a costly venture to be certain. Other bits, excellent for some sort of chainsaw apparatus. A metal heart. Oh, the things Barnabas could do with that. There were hollow, flexible veins formed from copper, ligaments made from brass, a cornucopia of gears big and small, pistons and hydraulics that’d once been muscles. As things shifted and settled, Barnabas’ heart leaped right up into his mouth. The bounty in the melter was such that Nickels –especially because of his talent- would be able to create virtually anything his creativity could dream up!
There was no telling what Nickels had planned, for it’d not gone amiss that the lad had paid precisely what he’d intended.
Damn his curiosity! Twenty-five gallons of Kingsblood hardly mattered at all when Barnabas turned his mind to the sorts of things a man with Nickels’ talent and knowledge of outside tools and weapons might build.
Barnabas looked to the foolish outsider, who was lying about on a tree branch as if he were up there on purpose, then back to the tub. If it were any other man, there would be no hesitation. The man would be dead and the contents of the melter would be his.
“Hey! Barnabas!” Garth shouted, wondering if gearheads had ever tried using trees to climb over the Wall before remembering that Barnie’d claimed that the damn barricade grew.
In a land suffused with nanotech, anything was possible.
“Hm? Yes?” Barnabas stepped hastily away from the melter lest avarice get the better of him. “Oh. Yes. The why of our traveling. As always, young master Nickels, it is a matter of your lovely Gear tattoos. This area is positively lousy with Kingspawn points, and since you are currently weaponless, one would assume you would prefer to have time to … ah … rebuild your defenses?”
There was that. “Good point.”
“Every point I make is a good one, young apprentice.” Barnabas replied with amusement. “Such as this one; I warned you not to mess about with that broken board, did I not? Said it were dangerous in ways no man could possibly understand, did I not? From the scene here, it looks as though you tried to apply whatever mysterious force causes the Wall’s Bite to the blasted thing and it fairly launched you into the sky. I would say you are lucky to be alive.”
“I would say,” Garth muttered as he flipped over onto his stomach so he could eventually grab hold of the branch and thus lower himself gently to the ground, “eat a dick.”
Barnabas watched Garth work his way clumsily down from his perch, barely able to contain the glee bubbling up in him. Oh, it was delicious to see the man out of sorts. The booby-trapped circuit board had taught the man a lesson in humility. Short-lived that humility may very well be –you simply could not discount the staggering arrogance Garth owned- but … it was heartwarming to see the bastard even temporarily discommoded.
The King cupped a hand to his ear. “What was that you said, Garth? These old ears of mine …”
Garth smiled blankly at Barnabas. “I said, it’s a good idea for us to take a while traveling to Ickford.”
“That is what I thought you said.” Barnabas nodded. “Good. Now then. Have fun making way back to camp. I shall await your presence before breaking my afternoon fast.”
“Hey, what?” Garth watched Barnabas disappear down the path. “But what about the … the melter?”
Barnabas’ voice wafted through the trees. “You are a big boy, Garth Nickels. You can manage on your own. Don’t forget that metal baton you stole.”
Garth flipped Barnabas a double-barreled bird and kicked some dirt in the direction the blacksmith had gone. Then, because he knew he’d be unable to handle the older man’s incessant nagging should he forget, Garth went back to the scene of the explosion that’d sent him tree-ward to grab the aforementioned metal rod.
Garth Nickels, Kin’kithal warrior and Engineer of Reality 2.0 took a deep, deep breath. He nodded.
No matter what, he was taking his leave of Barnabas when they got to Ickford. Not after they met with this mysterious Agnethea.
Before.
25. A Father’s Love, A Friend’s Revenge, A Horse’s Ass
Tomas Kamagana looked up from his prote as his oldest friend, Vasily Tizhen, walked up the steps. Grinning impishly, he rose as quickly as his even older bones permitted, promptly making a big show of being quite impressed that one such as the mighty, mighty Father Vasily should find the time for a simple game of chess. This involved quite a bit of capering and making of faces, and –as learned through Garth’s example- much cheering with a hand cupped around your mouth.
Tomas was about to move on to the next phase, which consisted entirely of poetry written about Vasily’s magnificence, but the much taller man laughed loudly, threw his hands into the air, signaling defeat.
“I yield, old friend, I yield.”
Tomas frowned. “I have no idea what you mean, Vasily. I was merely excited to see you. You and I are very busy men these days. Something of a miracle that we’re here at the same time!” Tomas laughed at Vasily’s indignant look then gestured grandly at the table. “Come, sit. When you are ready, I will show you how an old programmer can beat a man who once ruled an army of thirty million in a
game of tactics. Easily.”
Vasily laughed again. It took getting used to, this genuine laughter. Truly, there was a world of difference between his laughter now and the forced hilarity that’d been required of him as OverCommander. Then, it’d been the grim humor of a man with too many dark secrets gnawing at an already wounded soul; it’d been laugh, or go mad, or weep.
Now though, whenever Tomas took great effort to tease and mock his sideways elevation to ‘spiritual’ father for millions, the laughter was earnest, because really, it was quite, quite funny.
Still laughing, Vasily took his customary seat, arranging his much larger body to block the sun; during their last three games, his diminutive brother-in-law had blamed losses, poor moves, accidental lapses in common sense and a dozen other ailments on the fact that his wily ex-OverCommander partner was devious enough to use the very sun as a weapon to bamboozle a weaker opponent.
Tomas began setting up the chessboard, quickly and efficiently.
“How are your efforts?” Vasily casually swiped another call from his prote. Yet another public relations firm eager to add the newest and ‘most famous man in Latelyspace since Garth Nickels’ to their stable of overcharged and over pampered nitwits.
The one glaring downside to being in the public sector after so long an OverCommander was that any damn fool with a few dollars and access to mid-grade avatars could find him wherever he was sat. More importantly, Fenris refused to block such tiresome intrusions, claiming it was important that the people had access to the one man who knew what was on the minds and in the hearts of the thirty million immortals spread throughout the solar system.
Still moving pieces across the board, Tomas answered. “You are no longer OverCommander. I should not speak of the war.”
Vasily made a bland face. His … daily visitors blabbed secrets so hair-raising he was sincerely surprised Fenris hadn’t arranged to have him chucked into the sun. The Father of the Goddies grinned wryly. There was time yet for that. “I understand.”
“I did not say I would not, Vasily.” Tomas put Vasily’s king in place, barely able to contain his glee at what he’d done. When his friend noticed … oh it was going to be fun. “Merely that I shouldn’t.”
Ex-OverCommander Vasily stared at the board for a moment, wondering what was going on; Tomas was squirming in his seat like a three year old who’d drank too much juice. Between that and the grin splitting his weathered face nearly in half, it amazed Vasily that this tiny man had once held all the secrets of Latelyspace in his mind …
“Hilarious.” Vasily plucked his king from the board and looked at what Tomas had done: a halo, made from a piece of bent copper wire, was looped around the chess piece’s head. Vasily nodded approvingly, wiggled the holy king back and forth between his fingers, then put it back in play.
“Originally,” Tomas confessed as he moved a pawn, “I was going to put the bishop in the king’s spot, but that was too obvious a choice. I am glad that I went with the halo. It is more fitting.”
“Indeed it is, old friend.” Vasily countered with his own move. “You were saying?”
“Ah. Yes.” Tomas pulled his pipe out, wondering as he did so what had happened to Garth Nickels. The whole of Latelyspace wondered about that. His ‘escape’ from The Peak was still one of the most covered stories in the solar system, even still. He lit the tobacco and drew on the pipe until the embers began glowing.
Thinking about Nickels brought him to think about Naoko, which soured his good mood almost instantly. With Latelyspace shielded, there was no contact with the outside world, which meant that there was no way to know what his dear daughter was up to these days. Had Alastair Katainn followed through with his promise to keep Naoko from Jordan’s grasp? Had the Elder kidnapped his daughter to raid the Kamagana Family vaults?
Worse still, had she fallen afoul of Spur?
That worry filled Tomas full of dread, a cold, sweeping fear billowing through him like an arctic breeze. His daughter, out there, amidst the wolves. Would she become wolf herself, or would she be shepherd? The capacity was in her for both. The blood flowing through her veins, after all….
“She is fine.” Vasily said gently.
“Hm?” Tomas was grateful for the interruption. Around a mouthful of smoke, he replied. “Naoko. Yes, of course she is. She is Kamagana. I am more concerned about Jordan Bishop. Or whoever has her. She is … feisty.” He moved another pawn, mentally wincing as he did so; the game was lost with that move, unless he could engineer a way to distract his old friend into an equally foolish response.
“Not to mention her boyfriend, Garth.” Vasily quirked an eyebrow at the poor move, but said nothing. “If he is not currently waging war against Trinity Itself to free us from our own war, he is tearing Galaxies apart in search of her.” He moved.
Tomas pulled on his pipe again, lungs filling with deliciously aromatic tobacco. “There is that. Your new girlfriend, she is quite talented.” He moved his own piece, this time, another pawn.
Startled mirth bubbled out of Vasily suddenly, echoing across the park. The few other old men playing chess further down the line of tables looked up briefly, but immediately bent back to their own games.
Vasily leaned over the table, whispering, “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“Tricia Takanawa. Of News4You.” Tomas waved his pipe in the air. “She is quite enamored. Her partner, Gary, not so much. But the beautifully proportioned Si Takanawa … in the parlance of the business, sa, that was a fluff piece. I could put that feed on my prote, lay my head down on it, and be asleep within seconds, it is so fluffy.”
Vasily felt his face grow red, but refused to rub his smoldering cheeks. He’d done the interview to dispel rumors concerning Harmony: everything from failed crops to suicide to the ‘military action’ with Trinity was being put at Harmony’s door, and it just wasn’t true, and frankly, putting Lokken or one of the others on camera would spell doom for the burgeoning acceptance towards the newly –properly- unveiled God soldiers, so it’d been down to him to allay fears and correct misconceptions, as well as to address a queer turn of events concerning Harmony itself.
Regular men and women by the score were adopting the basic tenets of God soldierdom as it applied to the semi-mystical force binding those they sought to emulate with disastrous results. In many smaller towns and cities on every major planet, those seeking deeper meaning to their lives were being arrested as religious activists. So far, none had been put to death –an antiquated law that Herrig was working to rewrite- but the situation was or soon would spiral out of all control.
That last reason was the only reason Father Vasily had agreed to the interview. Innocent lives would be spared.
The ex-OverCommander had prepared a dozen different speeches, all designed to deal with the specific type of hard-hitting question Tricia had become known for since her coverage of the Museum. Had she asked about suicide rates amongst those families with known God soldiers, he would’ve countered with the fact that, after five thousand years and thirty million soldiers in the Army, there wasn’t a single person without both suicide and God soldiers somewhere in their family tree.
Had she brought up the three nascent cults already stomped into the ground in Central alone over the last two years, it would’ve been no difficult task to point out that, in trying times, even the hardest heart turned to religion as a means of dealing with strife. Not even Tricia Takanawa could ignore the fact that Latelyspace had been through some of the worst experiences their little solar system had suffered through since the very founding of Hospitalis.
Vasily’d even prepared himself for truly awful attacks, vicious thrusts about Alyssa and her Crazies, the dropping of bombs on Port, her blatant assassination attempt of Garth Nickels –not to mention hundreds of thousands of Latelians in the process- and the recorded video proof to go along with it. Some journalists were looking back at the Museum Incident, hoping to tie Alyssa in with Gualf and Guillfyole.
/> But Tricia Takanawa had done none of those things, much to Gary Hombert’s immaculately delivered and perpetually stored disgust; the foul look on the man’s face as the interview had gone down the ‘fluffy’ path was rapidly becoming one of the most reproduced images everywhere in the solar system, winding up on everything from coffee mugs to Garth’s own fashion creation, the T-shirt, usually with a simple phrase like ‘Seriously?’ to underscore a person’s disbelief.
The beautiful and talented and career-minded Tricia Takanawa had gushed like a schoolgirl, handing him the softest questions in the Universe. What was it like not being OverCommander anymore? What do you do with your days? Is it true the God soldiers come and visit you all the time? What is it like talking with someone who is anywhere from one thousand to five thousand years old?
Vasily blew air noisily through his nose. A terrible interview. Her easy questions had thrown him off guard in ways he hadn’t expected, which in turn had set him on edge for the moment when she rallied with ‘Why did you kill your ex-girlfriend?’ Still, nothing. She’d avoided all the difficult –and some downright unbearable- questions. “You are right, Tomas. It was a fluff piece. I will say this, though…”
“Mm?” Tomas said around his pipe.
Vasily moved a bishop, noted a bit of subtle cringing on Tomas’ part. “Better me than Fenris or one of the others.”
“Egads.” Tomas conceded the point with a brisk nod. The diminutive EuroJapanese had met those men on a number of occasions, and didn’t like them. They made it easy, with their cool, calculating eyes, their standoffish attitudes and, of course, their absolute insistence that the whole of everything was destined to end. Now, Tomas had no problems with that philosophy: as an old man who’d come to grips with mortality far too early in life, applying the acceptance of death to the Universe overall wasn’t too much of a stretch.
It was just so damn gloomy and he was already miserable without his daughter.
