by Rick Scott
I look down at Lexi and even my grief I can no longer feel, and I wonder if a part of me hasn’t just died with her. I reach for Gilly’s hand and she stares at it a moment before taking it almost reluctantly. I squeeze it and her eyes soften and with a wail she buries her head into my chest. I hold her close as she melts into me and I feel a second sense of relief as she finds comfort in my arms.
“She saved me,” Gilly sobs. “Lexi died saving me.”
I stroke her hair gently. “I know…”
She then looks up at me with tear-filled eyes. “She was my best friend, Reece. And now she’s gone. Gone to those… those things!”
I swallow the hard lump in my throat as the imagery plays in my mind, Lexi being devoured over and over again. God, Lexi I’m sorry…you didn’t deserve this.
Gilly continues to cry and buries her head in my chest again.
“Reece,” Rembrandt says. “The timer.”
I check on it and there’s less than four minutes left. I let it go for another minute or so before I finally pull away.
“Gilly, we need to go,” I say.
She doesn’t respond for a moment, but eventually nods.
An engine rumbles in the distance and at the far end of the street I see the familiar chrome convertible of Queen Angela rounding the corner. The car zooms towards us and then screeches to a halt in front of what’s left of the buggy. Queen Angela dashes out, jumping over the car door and immediately runs to Lexi. Her countenance darkens with a scowl as she fixes on her body and then on Axel. She stoops down then, holding her head in her hand as she looks at her fallen comrade. “Damn it, Lexi…”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment and then finally she looks up at me. “Go on. I’ll take care of Gilly. You two still have a job to do and a promise to keep, thereafter. I’ll manage this from here.”
I nod along with Rembrandt, although at the moment I’m finding it hard to find the motivation to pull myself away. But we have a job to do, like Queen Angela said. And if we aren’t successful or don’t return in time, my brother’s life is hanging in the balance. I need to be as strong as Queen Angela is. Despite the grief and loss, I have to push through.
“We’ll be back soon, Gilly,” I say, squeezing her hand. “Please don’t lose hope.”
She nods but doesn’t respond and I can’t tell if she’s feeling much of anything at the moment. She stoops down next to Lexi and cradles her friend within her arms. Then slowly Lexi’s body begins to crumble, her platinum-blonde hair and fixed chrome eyes dissolving into a snow like nano-dust. Gilly sobs as the grains slip between her fingers and Queen Angela lays a hand on her back.
I can’t help her now. As much as I want to, I can’t replace her loss…or mine.
“Let’s go, mate,” Rembrandt says.
I finally take my leave and mount my motorcycle as Rembrandt hops on the back. I take a final look at Gilly as she mourns.
Me: Stay strong, Gilly. We’ll get through this. I’ll be back soon.
I don’t expect her to respond, and she doesn’t as I start the bike and head off towards the portal. My mind is awash with remorse as I lay on the throttle and head into the unknown. I should be here for her, reassuring her and comforting her—helping her to cope with the loss. To not give into the darkness like I did.
But my duty calls.
And I can only hope that I haven’t lost both Gilly and Lexi this day.
Chapter 47: Reflections
I’m back in the labyrinth again.
On my HUD the familiar pulses of error messages coincide with the throbbing in my skull. I thought I’d be excited to make it this far, but all I can think about is Lexi. As I watch the pulses tick away in slow motion, I’m reminded that time is already passing far more quickly on the outside back in New London. It’s perhaps been an hour or more already for Gilly. The fact that I’m trapped in this bubble, outside of her time, has my guts churning with anguish and regret. Losing Lexi was bad enough, but now Gilly has to go through it alone.
Or at least…without me.
Just hang in there, Gilly…we’ll find some way to save her.
I scoff to myself. What the heck am I even thinking?
She’s gone.
Lexi’s gone…forever.
My heart aches as I think back to my last moments with Lexi. How much she did for us. For me. Again the pain hits me, but instead of feeling the sorrow of grief. I feel numb.
Empty.
“Does this feeling ever go away, Rem?” I ask.
The cyberpunker is standing on the edge of the multicolored glass tile, gazing out at the crystal islands inhabited by the four winged angels. Countless tiles float all around us, rotating slowly about a central core that we still can’t quite see. I’d thought that maybe the place would be different somehow—a multi-colored racetrack or something, but it seems like this place and the one we traveled to before, are indeed one and the same. Different entrances to the same room. Which means we’ll have to be wary of the Labyrinth Spirit as well.
“What feeling?” Rembrandt doesn’t look at me as he answers. “Of loss, you mean?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“I know it’ll seem impossible now, mate, and maybe even sound a little cliché, but time is the only thing that really helps.”
Time. If that’s the case then I wish I could burn it away as quickly as it’s passing on the outside. “I’m worried about Gilly more,” I say. “She and Lexi got so close. They were like sisters.”
Rembrandt releases a sigh and crosses the tile to where I’m seated on the ground. “Yeah I know, mate. I had a soft spot in my heart for her, as well. I think we all did…poor girl.” He plops down next to me in a crouch. “And how about you? How you holding up?”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I can’t feel anything. Even when I shot that guy…I felt nothing.”
He nods. “That’s natural. Believe me, I’ve been there.”
“I understand now though,” I say. “What you’ve been trying to teach me about true strength.”
“How’s that?”
I glance over at him, my refection staring back at me in his mirror shades. “I wasn’t angry when I killed him. Not like when I tried to kill Braxus before. It was a rational decision. I don’t think Gilly understood that when she saw me do it, though. The way she looked at me afterwards was horrible—like I was someone else. I’m not sure if things will ever be the same between us now.”
There…I said it. I apparently had to say it aloud just to accept it. As much as I’m willing to pay the price, it’s not going to be pleasant, and losing Gilly might be a part of that.
“Aye she probably didn’t understand,” Rembrandt says. “It took me a long time to understand it as well. And I killed a lot more than you, trust me. But, I did it in pure anger, mate. A bottomless hole I was trying to fill through revenge.”
“What did happen with you back here, Rem?” I say. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
He chuckles. “Well I suppose since it’s just you and me here, two disciples of True Strength, I have nothing to fear by sharing.”
I smile. “Queen Angela mentioned to me that it was over a woman?”
His throat flexes in a swallow. “Aye, it was.”
“Who was she?”
He pauses for a moment as if gathering his thoughts and then continues to look out at the crystal islands as he finally speaks. “Her name was Vanessa,” he says, looking down at his hands and then up at me again. “I was going to marry her, I think. She was like no one I’d ever met.”
“She was from here?”
He nods. “Angela’s counterpart at the time. Both lieutenants within the faction, like Lance.” He eases back on the heels of his hands as he tells me the story. “I’d just been recruited by your brother back in the Shards. It was our first ticket out. We must have gotten lucky with our spawn looking back now, because we were pretty much right outside the city gates when we got here. I’d spent most
of my time in New London back in the Shards anyway, so for me it was like coming home. That’s when I ran into her. An android like Angela…except a lot prettier. Especially on the inside.” He pauses for a chuckle. “We were here maybe a month, but we fell in love hard, mate.”
“A whole month?” I think back, and can’t even remember my brother being away for so long. But then, we were so disinterested in each other’s lives back then that I probably didn’t really notice or care. But my mom probably did. “What the heck was my brother doing all that time?”
Rembrandt laughed. “Getting in a whole bunch of fist fights, if I recall. And exploring the sewers.”
“The sewers?”
“It was our first time here and he was pretty convinced Citadel was right below us. Didn’t pan out obviously.”
“No crap,” I say. “Man, he was right about not having a clue.”
Rembrandt grins. “I can’t say I was too helpful either. I was so preoccupied with Vanessa that for a time I barely even saw Max. To this day I still beg him to forgive me for that. I probably wasn’t the best wingman. I eventually planned to stay here with her, you know?”
“Yeah?”
He smiles. “Your brother was right pissed when I told him. But thankfully he understood. A good man, your brother.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, now that I’ve taken the time to get to know him, he’s a pretty swell guy. A little impulsive still, maybe.”
Rembrandt laughs. “That he is.”
“Hey, you got a picture of her or anything? Vanessa?”
“Aye,” he says. Then almost reluctantly he materializes a holographic image in his hand. I’m taken aback when I see her. Tall and elegant, a body made of chrome and accented with gold trim. Her face is exquisitely captivating with polished bronze skin, but what truly takes me off guard is how similar she looks to Angela—save her hair is long and straight as opposed to plaited in locks.
Rembrandt must see the look on my face because he chuckles. “Looks familiar yeah? They both had the same base model, her and Angela. But like I said, Vanessa was the prettier one…on the inside.”
“Were they like sisters or something?”
Rembrandt shakes his head. “More like rivals.” He then winks. “Especially when it came to me.”
I nudge him. “Man, you old dog!”
“I’m sure much of what Angela is feeling about me right now, stems from that.”
“Seriously?”
“Aye, I knew she wanted me too…maybe still does…but my heart was never hers. And like I said, Hell hath no fury. When I made my choice, she stopped speaking for a while, got really angry. I guess with her and Vanessa being nearly identical, it came as a bit of a harder pill to swallow.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it’s easy to say you’re not interested just because of looks, right? But when it comes down to your personality…well… that’s a bit of a gutter, isn’t it?”
I think back to my last conversation with Lexi and her telling me how she wasn’t attracted to me. Lexi…such a class act. Even something like that she handled with such honesty and cheerful poise. But if the situation had been something similar to what Angela went through, I can see how a rejection would be far more painful. The puzzle pieces begin to click now. “Does Angela really want to see you punished in the ring, just for that?”
“Certainly wouldn’t surprise me,” he says. “But there are other reasons too…”
He trails off then and I wait for him to continue, but he simply stares at the picture in his hand. “It’s hard but, I can finally look at this without feeling the loss now.”
“Oh man, I’m sorry,” I say, realizing I might have just opened an old wound. “I probably shouldn’t have even asked.”
“Now it’s all right, mate. Not like I don’t see her every time I look at Angela anyway.”
We share a quick chuckle at that.
“Don’t you worry, Reece,” he says. “It’ll be the same for you and Lexi too…in time. One day you’ll be able to look at her picture and remember everything wonderful about her. You’ll laugh instead of cry.”
I hear his words, but it’s hard to feel them at the moment. I’m still having a hard time even believing she’s gone.
He smiles at the picture. “I miss her something awful still, but I can look at this now and feel joy. Joy for the time we had together. The memories we made.” He shakes his head then. “For a long time, I thought I could quell my pain with vengeance. But every last one of them I killed, it did nothing. So I just kept on killing. In the end all it did was make a bed of chaos and destruction…and make me more enemies too.”
“Enemies?”
“Lord Kurgan,” he says. “I suppose you could call him my Braxus. Never would have existed had I not killed his brother.”
“Who was his brother?”
Rembrandt sighs. “I guess I need to tell you the whole story for you to understand.” He scratches his head. “God…It started so bloody stupidly too. If I could do anything to take back that day, I would.”
“Why? What happened?”
“A bloody fender bender.”
“What?”
“We were out on the town one night, Vanessa was driving. She cut off this guy by accident, made him wreck his car. Turns out it was one of the Kings of the upper houses. Artreus of House Hellion, King Deathlock’s predecessor. Usually something like that would be settled between the higher-ups. But that idiot of a king of hers at the time, Magnus, agreed that she would pay her penance in the ring.”
“For an accident?”
“I think Magnus was trying to curry favor or something. He tried to get Vanessa to take a quick dive in the fight, to save face and all that. But she was having none of it. When she got in there, she tore King Arty a new one.”
“Whoa seriously?”
“That was another reason I loved her,” he says with a grin. “She was a monster in the ring. Could even beat your brother two out of three on a good day, same class too—Karate Master. She beat Artreus’ sorry face into the ground. Embarrassed the heck out of him. They didn’t like that, the Council… for some minor faction to disgrace a Major house in that way was unacceptable.” He swallows. “That’s when I saw the true hypocrisy of the system.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Council kept calling for rematches, giving King Artreus more chances to beat her. They even allowed him to call proxies from the other Great Houses, something unprecedented. That’s what wore her down eventually. As an android, they knew she couldn’t heal between fights. It was a bloody farce. And that worthless bastard Magnus did nothing to stop it. It was King Artreus that finally did it in the end. She had yielded but he took her out unnecessarily, busted her back down to essentially level 1. She lost everything, mate. Years of progression…gone in one defeat. But that wasn’t enough for them. The other Major houses called for more.”
Rembrandt shakes as a tear rolls down from behind his mirror shades.
“That’s when he true killed her, mate. Executed her right on her bloody knees in front of everyone.”
My stomach drops through the floor.
“My life fell apart before my eyes, our future… our happiness… gone in an instant.”
“Rem…I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head. “That wasn’t the end of it. A match like that was supposed to be nothing more than a spar. King Artreus should have been punished for killing her. Punished with True Death. But you know what they did instead? They declared an amnesty so there would be no ‘hard feelings’. They even threw a damn party and invited King Magnus to it. Paid him off in blood money.”
The anger of injustice boils in my gut at just at hearing the story. I can only imagine what it must have been like for Rembrandt to live through it. I understand now why he’d killed all of them. Even more so than if I’d lost Gilly. Or even losing Lexi. To suffer watching the death of someone he loved one, condoned by the masses in an unjust trial.
“If I were you, I’d do it all again,” I say, understanding his actions completely. “I’d have killed all of them.”
He nods. “That’s exactly how I felt…and what I did. Even Magnus. That’s how Angela became Queen.”
I pause a moment. Something isn’t making sense. “But, Rem. That sounds completely justified to me. Why do you feel so much guilt for what you did? Why do you think you need to subject yourself to this trial now? Especially when you know how corrupt they are?”
He sighs. “Because I took it too far.” He pauses a moment more. “There were only a handful of people involved in the matches. But after I killed them, it wasn’t enough. Killing even King Arty didn’t quell the anger in my heart. I went after the council next, but still found no satisfaction. Then I just started going after whoever got in my way. And that’s where Kurgan comes in.”
“Kurgan?”
“Aye, apparently, he despised the whole House system long before I did. I never really knew him, only heard of him. He’d been here for years before I arrived, living mostly as a recluse, obsessed with leveling and gaining in power. And as an android that’s entirely possible. There’s no limit to the upgrades you can have so long as you can afford them. I estimate he’s probably worth several billion quid by now. Plus rank 20 or something.”
“Rank 20?” Holy crap. “No wonder he has so many abilities slotted. And it probably didn’t help us unlocking Class Change either.”
“Don’t worry,” Rembrandt says with a chuckle. “Knowing him, he probably already had them unlocked and leveled anyway. I just wish I knew who his brother was at the time.”
“Wait…you killed his brother without knowing it?”
“Sort of, yes.” He sighs. “I was taking a sniper shot at his faction leader, King Paulus of House New Meridian. They were at a rooftop party and I was five blocks away. King Paulus was there and talking to Kurgan’s brother, Ezekiel. Didn’t even know his name at the time. Didn’t care. Was just another Major House fodder getting in the way of my justice. My world was so dark then. They were all worthy of death in my eyes. So I didn’t wait. Didn’t wait for a clean shot. I went straight through him. Killed a young kid who had nothing to do with Vanessa’s death, just to satisfy my own bloodlust.”
