The Goddess Gambit

by B Michael Stevens

For a moment, she considered turning around and making for the other end of the maze of cells. She knew that she should. Time was running out.

  He who risks all, gains all. Her own words to Lucy came echoing back to her. She didn't just suspect; she knew that she had to take one last look. That the next level down was the last. The one that held all the secret jewels. This was it. She knew it.

  Her mind made up, Maya bolted into a sprint; the clock in the back of her mind was ticking down. She would have to leave Warbak's mind-space from down there. There wouldn't be time to back-track to the door. It was risky, but she had given herself no choice.

  Throwing all her chips into this one final gambit, Maya nearly flung herself down the stairs into the last, deepest, most hidden part of Chairman Accoba Warbak's mind, and screamed aloud at what she saw.

  012

  THE VAULT LIVED up to its name. The nickname given to Home's Resistance headquarters evoked images of a sealed off fortress, an impenetrable bunker, something fortified which inside contained treasure; all of these and more, the Vault did not fail to deliver in actuality. The place was, in fact, one of a few structures that had been so well built before the coming of the Drops, that it had survived the Storm. Ratt, being the resident pre-Storm expert, explained to the newcomers that the Vault had at one time been what was called a fallout shelter.

  "You see, our human ancestors tried to kill each other so much and so well, that they created weapons of enormous power, including something called an atomic bomb. Just one of these could level all of Home!"

  "That's bullshit," Carbine interrupted. "Everyone knows that before the Drops humans lived in peace."

  "No, my friend, that is bullshit," Ratt said.

  Carbine looked to Jon, who nodded. "It's true, Carbine. I've seen it."

  "Yeah, you saw it alright. While you were under a dose of bewitched Weaver," Carbine mumbled under his breath.

  Ratt continued playing tour guide as they approached the Vault, the front entrance of which seemed innocuous enough, tucked away under the ruins of an old street in a darkened corner of the city-that-was. There was no sign of occupancy or activity anywhere near it, not even a light to mark its door. Jon didn't pay much attention to Ratt's narrative; he knew all too well what an atomic bomb was and the destruction and sorrow it could wreak.

  "Places like this were built for people to go in case of an attack. They are designed to survive an atomic blast. We figured it would make a great base in case the day ever comes that the Military comes down here to clean house," Ratt explained proudly.

  Lucy approached the entrance, which was nothing more than a smaller-than-human-sized, nondescript door-shaped outline on a flat wall located deep inside a canopied courtyard, flanked by two walls of thick, ancient concrete. Ratt and Carbine drifted up behind her and Jon followed. Jon watched as Lucy waved to the dark corner; if something was there, he could not see it. Seconds later he heard several loud clicks and what sounded like a release of pressurized steam. The small door opened inward and Jon could see the soft orange glow of electric lights on the other side. He turned around out of paranoia and surveyed the lonely, broken streets of the Underground: the anachronistic non-functional light poles, the trash that lay mercifully still, the quiet windless graveyard of a time long gone, occupied by those who were forgotten and abandoned. He shuttered, turned and followed the others inside. As committed as he was to his newfound quest, he relished the hope that he might soon receive a warm meal and some sleep.

  He had to duck to get inside. It occurred to Jon that if this was the single entrance to the place, having a half-sized door was strategic genius. A small number of able warriors could easily defend this bottleneck of an entry that anyone wishing to penetrate would have to squat and duck to enter, most likely head first as well.

  Once past the threshold, Jon was greeted by a mélange of rag-tag warriors. He couldn't even bring himself to call them soldiers. They were more of a mob. No uniform, no discipline. A group of individuals, perhaps united by a common cause and brotherhood, but individuals nonetheless and distinctly not a squad. Their clothes didn't match, nor their weapons. Several races were represented, as well as sexes and ages. Children! By the Great Nations of Earth-That-Was, there were children with weapons among them!

  As rude as Jon's stares of disbelief at the sorry state of the Resistance’s organization might have been, the glances and stares thrown back at him were equally rude, if not more so. Suspicious glances and jaundiced looks could be easily read in the eyes and faces of nearly everyone present—and a few dispelled any possible doubt with outright cries of, "Are you fucking serious?"

  No one smiled at Jon, but no one physically menaced him either; he was, after all, in the company of Lucy. Jon tried not to look too awkward as he met stare after stare from dirty, war-torn and well-armed revolutionaries. He became painfully aware of his Republic uniform, knowing what it represented to these people. He knew better than to smile or offer hollow greetings, so he just sucked his teeth and made small and grim but polite nods to every other one he saw and hurried to keep up with Lucy and Ratt.

  Peeking from behind the legs of the men, women, and Invasives of unknown gender were the curious eyes of the youngest children. They looked hungry and tired. They were innocent, and they watched Jon intently without any trace of fear in their eyes. It moved him.

  As he continued deeper into the shelter, the space opened up, and the throngs of armed warriors gave way to the living quarters of the Resistance. He saw people preparing foodstuffs, who would look up from their improvised kitchens and study him as he went by, some with looks of concern of their faces, but upon seeing Lucy, no one questioned his presence. Curtains made from old army blankets functioned as walls, offering privacy and creating personal spaces. Stacked here and there were weapons caches and, most of amazing of all, books.

  Scores and scores of books lined the walls. Jon had never imagined that there could be so many, nor had he ever been in the presence of so much illegal material. It boggled his mind. He saw Invasive and human mothers sitting together with their children, teaching them how to read, and it amazed him.

  He forgot his demeanor and allowed himself to smile at the wonderful sight before him. So rapt was Jon in the display of literacy and family before him that he didn't notice when Lucy had stopped, and he walked right into the back of Ratt's hoverboard. He had been going slowly, and only his pride was bruised. He stepped back and peered around Ratt and Carbine to see Lucy addressing a familiar man.

  The man was tall, black, and built like a Mech, in more ways than one. Heavy, barrel-chested, extremely muscular—and the glint of armored steel shone off three of four of his limbs. They looked at each other. Jon's eyes went wide in surprise the same moment that the big guy's narrowed.

  "You!" Jon exclaimed. It was the line cook from the bistro that had broken up his and Carbine's scuffle with Hegna and Chad.

  "Name’s Miller. Welcome to the Vault."

  The soldier in Jon quickly assessed the man and noticed the thickness of his armored hide, the pair of double-barreled pistols—each dwarfed Lucy's BFG—that nested in worn, oiled leather holsters, which both sat perfectly on his hips and were connected by a crisscross of leather belts, each studded with pockets containing bullets that could only be for decoration, as those twin-barrel hand cannons that Jon eyed were fusion-powered. He'd recognized the model but was amazed to see that what Miller or someone on behalf of Miller had done was to weld two of the damn things together and modify the trigger. This man's giant cyber hands and frame could certainly handle them without any problem. Jon also quickly picked up on the man's gait: although he limped, he had the walk of a warrior, not Lucy's cat-like walk, but equally as deadly. This man possessed confidence and strut. Jon was glad they were shaking hands and not drawing down on each other. Besides Lucy, this was the first member of the Resistance that Jon had met so far that seemed like he could not only hold his own but could single-handedly take a meaty chunk out of
the Republic's flank.

  "Jon, Three One..." He caught himself. "Er, just Jon." He put his comparatively small hand in the metal baseball glove that was Miller’s and gave it a firm but not too hard squeeze.

  "I know what you're thinking," Miller began. "How can I be here and also work in the Zigg?"

  “Well, yeah. That's pretty close." Jon gulped.

  "Many of us are on the inside. Sometimes the safest place is in the mouth of the lion."

  "You said you fought in the battle of Texhoma? During the reclamation?" Jon asked. "And now you're in the Resistance?"

  "Next to Maya, the leader of the Resistance. And yeah, I fought in the Republic. Killed many a man that didn't want to unify. Did a bunch of shit I ain't proud of." Miller paused and looked Jon up and down, exaggerating his glance. "And you still a New Breed officer?"

  "Miller, we need to get in the room," Lucy interrupted as she stepped up.

  Miller's eyes narrowed again, and he cocked his head slightly. "So, this is the one, huh?"

  “Yup," Lucy said coldly.

  "What about me? Am I the one too?" Carbine asked.

  "Right this way," Miller said, ignoring Carbine. They all followed the big man past more onlookers, eventually coming to another sealed door, much like the front entrance. "Plan still the same?" Miller asked.

  "Hasn't changed," Lucy replied.

  "I hope she knows what she is doing," Miller said, a pained look of his square face.

  Lucy gave Miller a sympathetic glance as if to say me too. Then she turned to Jon and Carbine. "Wait here for a minute."

  The boys did so, standing together in silence as Lucy and Miller disappeared into whatever lay beyond the sealed door. Jon was lost in thought and paced back and forth. Images from Maya's vision kept replaying in his head until a loud throat-clearing noise came from his friend.

  "Uh, Jon? Looks like we have company."

  Jon left his daydreams behind in the ether and looked up, or down, rather, to see a small Invasive approach him. The creature walked like a human, in bipedal fashion, on legs as thin as twigs, and only came up to Jon's knee. Its torso was slightly oval and covered in what looked like fur. Jon quickly noticed that, like Lucy, the small creature boasted four arms. What was most striking about the diminutive alien, however, was its head: a short, fur-covered pyramid, framed by a set of giant, flat, alien eyes that nearly took up both sides of its face. Each eye was a dinner plate of muted gray with the tiniest pinprick of solid black pupil in the center. From the center of the pyramid-shaped head, in between the two giant eyes, where one side met the other, a long, skinny, trunk-like appendage fell away and curled into several loops. Proboscis. The word came to Jon as his subconscious recalled biology lessons from the Academy. It was then that he realized that what he was looking at was a two-foot-tall butterfly that walked like a man.

  "Well hey there, little guy," Jon said, lowering himself into a squat.

  "Little girl," a voice corrected from the shadows. Jon glanced up to see an older, much taller version of the same creature approach. The little one, whose face was now level with Jon's, unrolled its proboscis and began to tap it gently all over Jon's face. He laughed, for it tickled, and pulled back slightly. "I apologize," the tall one said as she approached, "my daughter doesn't mean to be rude. She doesn't understand your human customs and finds you quite fascinating."

  "It's quite alright," Jon assured her in between laughs. He reached out and stroked the furry triangular head of the Invasive child. In response to the stimulus, the alien child's fur bristled in waves down its torso, and a pair of small wings unfolded from its back, spreading out wide and vibrating like two fans in the wind. "How could she possibly know our ways? You aren't from here, you're Inva— er, you're Displaced."

  "Yes," the butterfly mother said in perfect English. "We are. We miss our home very much but are grateful for a safe home down here."

  Jon continued to play with the child as he reflected for the first time in his life what it must be like for the Displaced. The child, oblivious to the concerns of the adults, kept probing Jon's face and making pleasant little buzzing noises.

  "What... what was it like? I mean, the Drop? How did you come to this world?" Jon asked, genuinely concerned and curious.

  The butterfly woman took her time in answering and appeared to be studying Jon, though it was difficult to tell. If there was an expression in her face and eyes, it was far too alien for Jon to recognize.

  "My daughter and I were out in the amethyst fields like we always are before the second sun rises. We were collecting nectar. There is none here, and if it weren't for the efforts of these people in the Underground to make a substitute, we would surely have starved by now. Anyway, we were there, happily drinking our fill, when suddenly we were surrounded by light. I remember fluttering to my daughter, and just as I reached her, our world disappeared, washed away by the brightness of the light. The next thing we knew, we were here, on your world. Cold, dark, afraid."

  Jon squinted, distracted by the woman's story, and ignored the playful child for the moment. He tried to imagine what it must be like to be swept up and out of one's world like that, and found that he could relate. He had, in a way, been swept out of his.

  "Don't worry," he said, "we are going to find a way to fix this. Fix all of this. And get you home." His statement brought a purring sound from the alien woman and a look of incredulity from Carbine. The door behind them popped open again, and Lucy stepped out.

  "Alright, boys," she said. "Let's get you two fixed up."

  The room beyond the door proved to be the most vault-ish place in the Vault: a true vault, isolated and protected from the outside by a massive lockable door and impossibly thick walls. Jon didn't know what he’d expected to find in the secret room, but he was surprised by its contents nonetheless. Long and narrow, with walls and ceiling shaped in a way that reminded Jon of the Quonset huts he had seen in simulator missions, the room was filled to the brim with a myriad of illegal treasures, pre-Storm relics: piles of books and film reels, along with a projector device on which to show them, ancient art, a globe, various maps, and pictures, both color and black and white, each capturing a moment of the world long gone by. It was a veritable treasure trove of everything Chairman Warbak wished didn't exist. Jon and Carbine alike stared open-mouthed in awe of the place.

  Jon slowly walked forward, as if in a dream. He reached out and let his fingers drift over the relics, gently brushing each one that he passed, having to touch them to know they were real.

  Carbine too behaved like he was in a trance. He drifted over to a stack of thin, floppy books, each with faded glossy covers in black and white. He picked up the one off the top and studied it. Stylized letters spelled out the word 'Signal.' A second later he was leafing through the booklet.

  "It's true then, isn't it?" he asked Jon quietly. Jon walked to his friend and glanced down at the pictures in the booklet Carbine held. Fuzzy black and white stills depicted human soldiers surrendering to other human soldiers. Others showed primitive aeroplanes dropping explosive ordnance on equally primitive human establishments.

  "Yes," Jon answered, remorse shallow in his voice. "But it's not all bad. There was incredible beauty in the old world too. Look." Jon gestured to their side, where stacks of art were kept. Carbine's gaze fell upon a piece unobstructed by others. It showed a man with a partially shaved head, wearing a dark gown, kneeling before a simple cross of wood and tenderly gazing upon a human skull which he held in his hands. The painting moved both men in ways they had not the words to describe and stood there in silence until their reverie was interrupted by the ever-harsh Lucy.

  "To the back. We need to hurry." She approached the pair with Ratt in tow. The kid's face bore a goofy grin that contrasted with Lucy's perpetual scowl and painted death face.

  "Impressive, huh?" Ratt asked, beaming. "It's our own little Alexandria."

  "Alexandria?" Carbine asked.

  "It's a—"

  "Libr
ary," Jon finished for him, then frowned, confused as to how he knew that.

  Even Lucy looked at him strangely for a second and then reiterated her order. "Come on, let's go to the back."

  The wayward soldiers followed her and Ratt past the maze of forbidden treasure and then around a tall stack of crates to the back half of the long room. For the second time since their arrival, Jon and Carbine's mouths fell slack. Before them, extending off another hundred feet or so was a cache of exotic and highly illegal pre-Storm weapons, most appearing to date from the peak of the Earth governments that existed at the great Storm.

  "I don't even know what half of these things are, but I want to play with them all," Carbine announced, eyes bright and hungrily examining every weapon in his sight.

  "Not just yet, Jarhead," Lucy spat. "Jon gets first pick."

  "What? Why?" Carbine whined.

  "Orders of my Lady," was the only explanation Lucy offered. When Jon looked at her quizzically, she elaborated. "Go into the pile and find the weapon you want to use. It's that simple."

  "Why be so... weird about it? Wait, is this that test Maya spoke of?" Jon asked.

  Lucy nodded. "I don't mean to rush you, but this isn't a life decision." She raised her brows pointedly and gestured with her hands. Jon got the message and turned to the piles of weapons and gadgets. He started towards the first rifle he saw, but something tugged at his mind. It felt like a presence. Like someone else was in the room, whispering to him, guiding him. It felt familiar, comforting. He stopped mid-step and closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling. Lucy twisted her face up and looked at him like he were insane. He turned and faced a corner that was piled with mostly junk and half-finished projects; no visible weapons. He opened his eyes and strolled right to it with purpose. Just then Ratt came upon the scene and saw what Jon was doing. He glanced at Lucy, who just shrugged her shoulders back at him.

  Jon was pawing through the pile like he was looking for something he knew was there, then reached down into the mess, he withdrew a large stylized sledgehammer.