Soul Jacker Box Set

by Michael John Grist

  The weight of her love for me is almost more than I can bear. There's no time for a final kiss and no time to explain, there's only time to…

  The first wave of ideation explosions strikes. I feel it as maddening pain in my hands readying to fight on deck, burning their nervous centers up in seconds. Through the eyes of a flagging soldier I watch as hormone bombs strapped with screaming bodies hurtle from the bellies of machines overhead to burst on metal. Clouds of poisonous chemicals bloom outward on impact, felling every Soul they touch with screaming agony.

  The hand I'm watching through dies. I feel his pain and reel, because this is stronger than any ideation I've felt yet. I send orders out to So and La to close us up, seal every galley and hatch that can be sealed, but already it's too late, and seconds later I feel more hands dying in corridors and rooms within the suprarene. The hormones have filtered in through the fracture lines from the earlier blasts; they're inside here with us. We're none of us suited against it, none of us prepared for such a massive assault.

  I push out with my mind, enveloping the Wall and Lagging away the suffering welling through my people and hands as best as I can, redoubling the command to flee. Far above I feel our guns coming online and see La hammering shells into the ranks of their buzzing helicopters as they descend on us like locusts. There must be a thousand brood-members out there swarming closer. I feel our Dactyls launch under Ray's guidance and start firing missiles, picking out the frontlines of this massed offensive.

  From a last surviving hand on another suprarene's upper deck I watch the sky overhead fill with tracer-fire and urgent explosions, raining hormonic ideation on us and catching us unawares, rocking us on our massive treads with mortars and missiles that bite great chunks out of the armored walls, opening us to deeper infiltration. Black-clad marines with buzzing EMRs drop like a meteor storm on rappel lines.

  I reach out further and faster, pulling deep from the chord's strength to Lag the ideation suffering as it lands, even as I drop into a vacant EMR and re-launch the Wall alone.

  Blue light flares around the suprarene like a dome, augmented by my cleansing efforts against ideation. Ray and La spray the machines and marines in the air, establishing a temproary beachhead overhead, but there is no evading how immensely we are overwhelmed; our Dactyls rapidly flame out under incoming fire, our suprarene cannons gutter and erupt as mortars hit their munition banks, our hands drop one after another.

  We have moments only.

  I pull away from the fight and focus on the bonds, on keeping the ideation effects from slowing the flight out of the back of the suprarene and silently into the dark, toward the last bore-hole where any moment La will surface in her subthonic. I extend the umbrella of my protection out to them, in agony now as the massive forces I'm sucking out of the air threaten to tear my Soul apart.

  It's too much, but there's no choice, and already he's here.

  I feel the brood-King all around me, some kind of gestalt presence distributed through his many encircling marines, each tethered on tight bands of control. He's looking down through the aether like I'm an insect pinned under his boot, judging what I'm doing with distant curiosity, and in Far's absence taking aim.

  I open my eyes in the aether and see him everywhere. He hangs across the universe like a sarcophagal shroud of black oil, only visible for the stars he occludes. There is a great spear held in his amorphous hand, the tip blazing hotter than King Ruin's Suns.

  I can't defend myself at all, not if I hope to shield Yena and all the Souls fleeing under cover of the Wall across the dunes and into the dark night, away from the explosions and toward safety. In the aether my chest is wholly bared to this new figure, my golden shield already blown apart, and I can change none of it now.

  "Far!" I shout. "Far, please!"

  The first blow of his spear plunges into my chest with a crunch and pain like I've never felt before, because this is my Soul, not my body, impaled with a weapon I've never imagined. It passes through to core out of my back, and the pain buckles my consciousness and saps hard at my sense of self, making the Wall sputter and crack.

  Screaming ideation bombs drop into those cracks in the real world, bursting in fogs of sand and gas that fell many of the Souls in their exodus trail. I gather myself and Lag their pain as best I can, then cry out as the spear sucks out of my chest, calling still for Far.

  But he's gone, too far gone to ever come back.

  CRUNCH

  The spear strikes again, punching a second hole through which my Soul's blood flows into the aether. I have one terrible flash back to Doe dying in the depths of King Ruin supernova, dying forever, then the Wall slips out of my control.

  Its blue light flickers out. In the sky above the suprarene the last of our Dactyls explode in spiraling flame, chopping themselves to shrapnel pieces as they fall under vast, orchestrated fire. I sense La racing between artillery emplacements seeking one that will still function, but they've all been destroyed. I sense Ti in the Arctic pinned down under her own attack; countless bombs dropping on the waters above her berth point and driving her down in a massive, globally synchronized attack. I feel So and Ray folding themselves through the bridge, only to stumble under the same aetheric onslaught that is killing me now.

  Still I reach out, sheltering the last ten in the exodus from my suprarene, the last five, the last one, until Yena is running alone through the sand and the subthonic is surfacing just ahead.

  So much has been lost already, all the others are dead, but as long as Yena survives then I have not lost everything, I have not failed everyone and I have not become the thing she feared most. I urge her on even as the shifting black figure drives its burning spear for a third time into my chest, this time pushing through my spectral ribs and cleaving my heart.

  I gasp and break, and my shield over Yena falls. I can only watch through her own eyes as she drops to the sand, spasming with ideation pain that falls from the sky like rain, suffering again all the horrors I promised she never would.

  "Far!" I scream as Yena contorts and screams. La's subthonic bursts through the surface just before her, but no arenes pour out to save those dying. They are not equipped for this and I cannot shield them now. They can do nothing.

  "Yena," I whisper to her, striving with my last consciousness to Lag some of her pain. "I'm so sorry."

  Through her eyes I watch as her last hope, the subthonic, sinks again out of sight. Missiles chase after it, sending gouts of sand and ruptured metal up into the air.

  So Yena dies. So La dies, and half a world away anti-subglacic mines boom all around Ti in a concerted onslaught until the subglacic is ruptured, the icy Arctic water floods, and Ti too dies.

  I scream. Ray is gone, they're all gone, and my heart is broken. I am staring into the black depths of this new King that I cannot understand, that I don't know, that is killing me one strike at a time and can only think that he has already become a god.

  "How?" I whisper, but no answer comes. I try to throw something back up at him but I have no strength left. I'm going to die for the fifth time but this time it's going to last, because I have wholly failed.

  The spear crunches through me once more, burning a fourth sucking wound through my Soul, and at last the black figure speaks.

  THANK YOU

  -it says, its voice thrumming like thunder through the aetheric bonds.

  THANK YOU FOR SHOWING ME THE WAY

  I see everything I've done fritter away. I see in its black frame a world where every living Soul will disappear into a blackness so complete nothing will ever escape, at the hands of this newly minted god.

  I sigh, I sob, because all of this I have done for nothing.

  YOU HAVE DONE IT FOR ME

  -answers the voice.

  AGAIN, I THANK YOU

  I'm fading, turning to a blur, and now this will be my legacy; that I unleashed this creature through the bridge and was unable to stop it, that all I ever did was play progenitor to demons in the form
of gods.

  "Far," I whisper weakly, "Far, please."

  Then I go black. All the chord goes black with me. That is all.

  --.

  E. TRUST

  I come to and I'm no longer spinning wildly through space, but I feel sick to the soles of my feet. Purple light flashes. I lean over and vomit; nothing comes. Two figures stand before me. Maybe it's one. Solfeje in her suit. I blink and she resolves then de-resolves.

  "You're a lucky man, Me."

  I laugh but it comes out wrong. I don't feel lucky. I feel like I'm close to vomiting myself to death, like Solmiz.

  "You caught me," I say. My voice sounds hot and feverish. I need shock-jacks; I request them through my HUD but nothing comes. That's impossible. They can't be dry yet. I try to run a systems check but the suit seems to be shorted completely. Nothing works.

  "You system's fried," Solfeje says. She kneels. We're on the asteroid surface, I think? It's hard to tell. I can't see much with the purple flare of the Hollow Star beaming down full in my face. "I barely brought you back around. It took all the shock-jacks you have. I'm worried you're not going to make it."

  I feel another rush up my throat and hack out a few shattering coughs. Die like Solmiz, I think. I don't want to die like that.

  "Can you spare some?"

  She leans in and her visor fills my vision. It's opaque though and I can't see her face.

  "Where's your other, Me?"

  The question confuses me. I asked about shock-jacks. I become aware of a terrible stench and see gray dissociated Lag meat everywhere around me, lying on the asteroid's surface like a layer of rotting snow. It exploded from within, and even through the HUD I can smell it, like the putrefaction of a Sunken World.

  Wait. What?

  "I-" I begin, then stop. I can't remember what we were talking about. Did she ask about my chord? I'm too sick to think clearly.

  "I went into your ship," Solfeje says, "after I rescued you. Trying to understand what you're looking for in the Hollow Star. Beyond the aetheric bridge."

  I try and hold on to what she's saying, but the words roll off me like QC particles, constantly shifting their state. Do I know what the aetheric bridge is? I'm not sure. Maybe I do, but is it a secret I'm supposed to keep? I don't remember.

  "I saw your forging pod. Seven pods, Me. You lied to me."

  I see something in her visor now. I hear it through blood-mic. Anger.

  "I-"

  "Doe," she says, like an accusation, "Ray, Me, Far, So, La, Ti. Seven plaques on seven doors to seven rooms, Me. Seven notes in a chord."

  I jaw at the air, trying to speak. All this seems very important but I can't quite grasp why. I feel half-forged again. I want to say that I saved us both and she can trust me because of that. The others are long dead and there's nothing to be afraid of, I'm alone like her, so what does it matter how many of me there once were?

  "Tones," I manage to say, trying to come clean now. "Not notes."

  She stares. Of course, I see I've betrayed her in this. She showed me Solmiz, half of her Soul dead in his pod, while I lied about the chord. Now I'm helpless. I need to do something, need to earn her trust back. Words spill out of me unplanned, not even really my story, but a story I know. "I never had a mother. I didn't hear a pulse. I only had the seven harmonic tones of my artificial womb. But I don't tell anyone that. I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

  She stands up. She's a blur, as my eyes water. Then there is a QC pistol in my face.

  "What?" I ask. I don't understand. "What are you doing?"

  Her body starts to jerk. At first I don't know if I'm just imagining it, but it goes on; her arm twitching, her shoulders rolling, her legs buckling and kicking. It's some kind of fit. I can hear her teeth grating through blood-mic.

  "Do you know who I am?" she asks through the fit, and her voice sounds choppy and strangled. "Do you even know what Solfeje means, Me?"

  I gulp to speak. "It's your name."

  She laughs, though through the convulsions her laughter is more of a guttural bark. Her arm holding the QC shakes. "It's a study," she says, "it means a study of the seven tones in a chord. And you're a chord."

  "It's a good name," I say, casting out for something, anything. "A chord's a nice thing to study."

  "It means I've studied you!" she gasps as the shaking becomes uncontrollable. "I know you."

  She squeezes the trigger on her QC. I stare in horror. With the power dead the QC defenses of my suit will be minimal. A single QC particle could dissociate me completely.

  "The Hollow Star," I blurt, "we said we'd go there together."

  Her visor flashes up, and now I see her face. It's contorted. I see the sickness in her even as I feel it growing in me too. She's so pale. We should be helping each other. She wants me to see this.

  "I know you now," she says. "I remember you. Me, of the chord."

  A long moment passes, and the trembling steadily passes out of her body. It's an incredible act of will. I levy what control I can and try to do the same.

  "How do you know me?" I ask.

  "From another time. I know what you are and what you want, but I'm the one who'll get to decide, Me. I'm the one who'll take the Hollow Star and ascend to godhood."

  I stare at her. I start to see things too, and remember things I didn't know before. I see trust, misplaced. We both lied. We were doomed from the start. We aren't here to help each other, but to win a terrible race. I see it all.

  "You cut the pulley line," I say.

  The accusation hangs between us. Her QC pistol doesn't waver. She stares.

  "Why?"

  "Because it has to be me."

  "There's no way," I say, still clinging to the old frame. It's a better frame. I want it to be true. "We have to find a way together-"

  "I found a way. On that other rock there's a ship that can fly the aether. It can carry two. It will only carry one. This is where your journey ends."

  "I-"

  "You shouldn't have trusted me, Ritry Goligh. I'm not a good man."

  She pulls the trigger and QC particles flood out and envelope me, rebounding off the suit at some points but working their way in at others, dissociating my flesh and bones to mush.

  F. EVA

  I remain conscious as my skin, my muscles, my sinews and tendons and bones and organs all dissolve to constituent matter beneath the antimatter touch of Solfeje's ricocheting QCs.

  The sense of it is indescribable; not pain in any way I've ever felt before, as the particles do not damage the nerves that carry pain signals to my brain, they remove them completely. It feels like my body is being ground in a silent blender, with all sensation removed except the plain knowledge that it is happening.

  It continues for long milliseconds as the QCs digest upward into my lungs and heart, burning themselves through my flesh until at last some emergency function in the suit reacts and clamps a triage sealing wall through my neck to shut them out.

  CRUNCH

  My spine shatters, and that hurts. I black out then come to flat and immobile in the dust, a jellyfish trapped in a dying helmet with flashing warnings in my HUD telling me that my whole body has just been amputated. The image from the mission pack flashes before my eyes again, the arch with Me and You written on the columns, and for a moment I glimpse something that seems very important.

  I shout into blood-mic, barely gumming out a sound with no lungs left to project air. "We have to do it together, Solfeje. It's not too late."

  "Quiet now," comes Solfeje's voice, then she breaks blood-mic contact and un-syncs our suits.

  The image of pillars fades and I forget the clarity it brought. Now gray dust shivers on the surface of my visor as the QCs exhaust themselves within me, burring slight vibrations through my body. I request shock-jacks but of course nothing comes. I'm just a head kept alive by the suit, but…

  It takes far too long to understand, seconds rather than milliseconds, but I grasp it at last. The suit was dead but now it'
s holding a bare sliver of power, registered at the edge of the HUD by a blinking red readout: T-minus five. The QCs must have charged the quantum battery through resonant harmony, buying me five minutes until the HUD's artificial heart and lungs die and I die along with them.

  A lot can happen in a few minutes.

  I subvocalize a string of commands to suture brain function directly to the suit's exo-motors, while ahead Solfeje grapnels across the aether to the surface of the pivot rock. On zoom I can see the ship she talked about; an ancient looking saucer-shaped craft no bigger than a few forging pods grafted together. She climbs in.

  It has foils and a screw. As I watch she brings it online: the screw spins, the foils begin to blow dust and small rocks away, then the whole creaking, ancient thing lifts, hovers briefly then flies off the asteroid and away.

  She's gone.

  Revelations pile up in my lagging mind; that she saw this ship from the start and hid it from me, that her whole plan to rig pulleys was just a way to get over there without arousing my suspicion. She always expected the Lag to eat me. I was betrayed before we'd even begun.

  Her craft picks up speed and soon I lose it in the stroboscopic flashing of the Star.

  T-minus four minutes until total suit shutdown. I hope it's enough. I have the glimmer of a plan now; too reckless for anything other than a last-ditch hurrah.

  Under rough jerry-rigged thought-control, the suit stands.

  The exo-motors are imprecise. They're not designed to replace basic locomotive function. Normally they work to augment existing power, driving leaps and powering blows, but I can make them do this if I focus hard enough, if I work to consciously walk. I remember running dozens of hands at a time, in anoher life. I've jacked Souls with fresh memory engrams every day of my life; I think I can manage this.

  The suit starts to run. It's shaky and it wobbles but soon picks up speed. The Lag meat underfoot is slick and the suit slips, but I factor that in. My grapnel is gone, taken by Solfeje, but it won't matter. At the hole we blasted through the asteroid's surface I drop. The suit fumbles the landing and I sprawl to the rock floor, hammering my face against the visor, but a broken nose is not much to me now.