"Oh wow! So that's where that ended up at!" Ratt exclaimed.
Jon held it aloft in both hands. "What is it?"
"Well, it's a little something I whipped up for Maya one year for Holiday, one of the first things I ever made. She told me about a dream she had. This guy was wielding a glowing hammer, said it was full of stars 'n stuff. She described how it looked in her dream, so I tried to make it to surprise her. It's constructed of a nearly indestructible alloy, and I shaped some Strange into it. Altered its weight, making it light as balsa wood, while magnifying its potential energy. In other words, it hits harder than it should. A lot harder. It really puts the smack down. I call it the Star Hammer." Ratt beamed with pride. "She loved it, but she never used it. She doesn't really use weapons... I don't know what I was thinking. Stupid."
"It's perfect," Jon said, and closed his fist around its pommel and inhaled deeply. It felt right in his hands. Like an extension of himself. He lifted his gaze to find Lucy looking at him strangely. Try as he may, he could not place the emotion behind her peculiar expression. Was it disapproval? Confusion? Maybe a hint of shock or surprise?
"What?" Jon asked. She thinks I'm a fool for choosing a hammer instead of a gun.
"It's a... it's nothing," Lucy stammered. "Is that the weapon you choose?"
"It is," Jon answered confidently.
"Okay then," she said, her mysterious expression vanishing entirely. "It's Jarhead's turn. Hurry up."
Carbine let out a whoop of joy and dove into the armory like a refugee at a disorganized bread line, scampering from one weapon to another, eventually turning a corner of tall stacked crates and stopping dead in his tracks.
"Well hel-lo..." he said mock-seductively. Before him stood a suit of polished armor, roughly ten feet tall. It looked like a walking tank with a black mirror paint job. He gazed at it and saw his reflection. It was man-shaped and carried a backpack the size of a desk on it. It was considerably larger than the flying armored Hopper units he knew well but was quite a bit smaller than a Heavy Mech.
"What are you about?" he asked out loud as he ran his palm across its smooth contours. His gaze followed its curves upwards, and he noticed a rifle of some kind, almost as big as the turret on a small tank, attached to the backpack and right shoulder of the suit on a swivel-hinge suspension system. "And what are you hiding back there? Is that a cannon in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" He purred. "Ratt!" he shouted across the room, having wandered far enough back into the depths of the armory that he had lost visual contact with the others.
Ratt promptly showed up on the scene, eager to show off his toys.
"Oh!" He stopped when he saw what Carbine was admiring.
"What, pray tell, is this pretty thing?" Carbine asked, his eyes bright with excitement.
"Um... Well, see. I didn't make this one. It's called a MISS, a Mini-Mech Sniper Suit. It's from before the Storm." He fidgeted. "It's not a good fit for you..." His voice betrayed his anxiety.
"I'll be the judge of that!" Carbine said, too star-struck to notice Ratt's discomfort. "What's up with the pea-shooter?" he asked, pointing to the cannon stowed behind the suit’s shoulder.
Ratt perked up a little. "Oh! That's the best part! That, my friend, is a railgun. It fires small slugs of depleted uranium so damn fast it will make your head spin. It uses a series of magnets to hyper-accelerate the cartridge. The gun itself is soundless, but the projectile never fails to make a sonic boom. It's deadly, uber-destructive and very accurate. It has a range of several kilometers. Its scope can even see through solid walls! It’s one bad little baby. It was developed as an all-terrain, mobile, one-man howitzer sniper show. It's powered by its own nuclear fuel cell; you pilot it more than you wear it."
"I'll take it," Carbine said without hesitation.
Ratt fretted. "It's kind of a collector's item, bud, one of a kind. They don't make them anymore. And it's my most prized possession!" He pleaded his case just as Lucy strutted around the corner.
"It's perfect. He will take it, Ratt. We don't have time for games anymore."
"Yes ma'am," he said, looking down, shoulders slumped.
"Get him in it. Prep, check, stat," Lucy ordered, and Ratt complied, showing Carbine how the suit opened. She walked back over to the front of the room where she had left Jon, who was intently studying his new hammer.
"Would you humor me and at least take a backup sidearm?"
"Huh?" Jon looked up. "Oh, yeah, sure. Of course."
"Good. Grab one and then follow me. You passed the test."
"I did?" Jon asked, surprised.
"Yes," Lucy said flatly. "Now, my Lady has left something for you."
"Yeah." Jon's mind searched its memory banks. "She mentioned something about a test, and then a serum. Something that would help me overcome my obstacles?"
"The very one," Lucy said.
"What is it? What's it do?"
Rather than answer the question, Lucy asked one of her own. "How are you feeling right now, Jon?"
"What?" Jon asked.
"Just answer the question. How do you feel? Be thorough and honest."
Jon thought about for a second and then responded angrily. "Okay, I'll play. You want to know how I feel? I'm tired, Lucy. I have been running around chasing you for a day and a half. I'm hungry. I haven't eaten anything in over 24 hours! I'm sore! I've been beaten up by a pile of trash and a slug-crab two days before that! I marched the entire day before I started to run cross-country with you, tending to the sick and wounded the whole time, only to see them slaughtered by my own military! I am angry, emotionally exhausted and I feel like I'm going to collapse any minute! Does that answer your question?" He hadn't expected to lose his temper so much when he’d started, but the release of frustration towards the woman who had treated him like garbage since she met him and wanted to leave his best friend to die had picked up momentum once it was free from the confines of his chest.
"Yes, Jon, it does. And how do you think Jarhead feels?" Lucy maintained her icy demeanor, ignoring the tension that Jon had placed in the room.
"How do you think he feels, Lucy? He had a rod of steel through his leg, remember? You wanted to leave him to die!"
"Yes, I know," Lucy said coolly and smiled.
"You think it's a joke?" Jon demanded.
Her smile vanished, and she spun on him. "What I think is a joke are the chances you two have of actually rescuing my Lady!" Jon was so startled by her response, an 'A...' was all that escaped his lips.
"Your friend couldn't even walk on his own, and you are about to collapse from exhaustion! You're both too frail and weak to even begin to take on the task before you! My Lady is scheduled for termination tomorrow morning!"
Jon felt as though she had slapped him with a cold, wet hand. "I... I don't..."
"Look, I'm not trying to beat you down. I'm just being realistic. You two are more of a liability to me than you are an asset. More of a hindrance than a help."
Jon was crushed, but he knew her words to be true. "But... I want to help. Those things Maya showed me... I want to fix it!" Jon said with fierce determination, raising his clenched fist.
"I know, and I need your help. You know your way around the Ziggurat, I don't." Lucy surprised him yet again with her sudden change in attitude. He looked at her curiously. "Besides, you did pass the test. You are the one my Lady is looking for. As much as I cannot believe it."
"Okay…?" Jon asked more than said.
"That's where the serum comes in. This stuff is rare, potent, powerful, and lethal."
"Lethal?"
"Yes. Lethal. Here's the deal. You inject this shit into your body, and you will become every bit as powerful as me. Maybe more so. Your reflexes will heighten, you will have herculean strength. Your body will be resistant to damage. You’d hardly need to sleep or eat. You will, in essence, become a god among men." She laid it all out casually.
"But?" Jon's question hung in the air.
"But it wi
ll consume you. You will burn up in a matter of months. There is no known cure."
She offered no apology. And for a minute, neither of them spoke. Jon stared into Lucy's painted eyes, his thoughts wandering once again to his recent revelations and his purpose. After a long silence, which Lucy uncharacteristically respected, Jon asked, "Do you believe in her?" He knew it was a dumb question, but he wanted to hear it.
"Of course, she is—"
"Your Lady, yeah, I know. I mean, do you believe that this Morning Star, whatever it is and whatever is inside it, can stop the Drops and defeat the Harvesters?"
Now it was Lucy's turn to be silent. She cocked her head slightly and studied Jon through narrowed eyes, appearing to be in deep thought. As if the question proposed to her was not one she had given much thought to. As if she had always taken her goddess’s crusade as truth, unquestionable.
"I... we have no choice but to believe. We must."
Jon thought about that for a minute, chewing her words in his mind like a delicate morsel of something exotic, slowly, so as not to swallow it too fast and have the experience pass too hastily.
"Well, let's do it. I was made for this."
Lucy nodded almost imperceptibly, and Jon thought that perhaps he saw in her face a small glimmer of... what was it? Respect?
As if on cue, Ratt returned to their immediate area with Carbine a few paces behind him.
"Ratt, fetch the serum. He is ready." Lucy spoke to the kid but never broke eye contact with Jon. He nodded back and gulped, hoping he knew what he was doing.
"On second thought, let's follow him. We can do this in his lab, where you can get strapped down."
"Strapped down?" Jon asked. "It's that bad?"
"It's that bad."
A minute later Jon and Carbine found themselves in a small rectangular room, brightly lit, with tiled floors and walls. Devices of unknown purpose cluttered the four corners. Lucy helped Ratt prep several thick canvas straps on what appeared to be an operating table in the center of the small room while Carbine pressed his lifelong friend for answers.
"What's this all for again?" Carbine asked for the second time.
"Nothing bud, don't worry about it," Jon said as nonchalantly as possible. Carbine knew better and studied Jon's face. Jon felt Carbine's examining gaze like a tangible thing and finally cracked.
"It's like Lucy and Miller's cybernetics. It'll make me stronger. Only it’s chemical and not mechanical," Jon said, a little too rushed, the words coming out smashed together.
"Okay, sounds sweet. So why are you so nervous?" Carbine pried.
"Nervous? I'm not nervous. I just don't like needles," Jon said and pointed at the large syringe of nearly glowing yellow fluid Ratt was currently fishing out from a nearby locker.
"Bullshit. Jon, what's up?"
Before he could answer, Lucy interrupted.
"We are ready."
Ignoring Carbine's last question and silently breathing a sigh of relief, Jon stepped forward and began to roll up the sleeves of his uniform.
"Just take the whole thing off," Lucy instructed. Jon complied and then climbed up onto the table wearing nothing but his boxer-briefs.
"Um, lie back, man," Ratt said.
"Oh, yeah, right," Jon replied and shifted his seat so that he could follow the instructions. The metal table felt cold against his bare skin.
"I wasn't around when Lanstar and Maya made this stuff, but I have seen the footage of the trials," Ratt said as he and Lucy worked together to loop the straps across Jon's body and then buckle them. "But, uh... I think it's going to hurt," Ratt nearly whispered.
"Hurt?" Jon raised an eyebrow.
"Yes," Lucy said.
"A lot," Ratt added.
"Wait! What?" Carbine rushed in and made to undo the straps that now held Jon down. Lucy spun around faster, placed the open palm of one of her hands on his chest and pushed him back several feet with no effort.
"Rene," Jon said, stopping his friend instantly, "it's alright. I want this."
"Are you sure?"
"I have no choice but to believe," Jon said, using Lucy's words. Carbine yielded, and Ratt approached Jon with the syringe and a handful of other supplies. The kid set the serum down on the table and went to work on Jon, cleaning one of his biceps with some alcohol pads. Jon stared at the bright lights above and tried to focus his thoughts on his life's purpose, his destiny, sacrifice, and worth. A moment later he heard Ratt mumble "I'm sorry" and then felt the sting of the oversized needle as it pierced his flesh. The sting was followed by intense heat as if molten steel was being pumped into his veins, but it was not until the serum reached his nerves that the real pain began, shooting through his entire body, unlike any Jon had ever experienced or could even have imagined.
Jon screamed the primal scream expressing that pain for which words do not exist. Ratt jumped back in alarm, nearly dropping the now empty syringe. Carbine resisted the urge to lunge forward and save his friend from agony, while Lucy coolly watched Jon's transformation.
"What are you doing to him?" Carbine asked through teary eyes and gritted teeth.
"His entire genome is being re-written. It's unlocking his potential. Maya tried to find a way to continue Enki’s work. This was her and Lanstar’s attempt to find a way to make men into gods," Ratt murmured, still staring in awe at the scene unfolding before him.
Ripples ran through Jon's body as his muscles twitched and grew. A fiery glow began to emanate from within his body, giving his skin a paper lantern appearance. All the while, his howls continued. Bright beams of light shot out of Jon's mouth, nose, eyes, and ears, turning him into a morbid human flashlight. Jon's scream grew to an inhumanly loud volume, so much that everyone save Lucy had to cover their ears.
Jon flexed his whole body, first stretching, then severing, the straps that held him down.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the metamorphosis began to subside. The lights faded from his orifices, the glow behind his skin dimmed, then vanished, and his body relaxed. Jon seemed to collapse in on himself, completely exhausted, and he closed his eyes. Carbine gaped at visible wisps of smoke trailing through the air, coming off of his best friend. It was over.
"Did he survive the process?" Lucy asked without pity, ever professional.
Ratt blinked several times, and Carbine bore holes into Lucy with his eyes. A smell like ozone washed over the trio. Ratt snapped out of his stupor and rushed to the table and began to examine Jon. He looked up to Lucy a moment later and nodded.
"Good. Let me know when he wakes up. I need to check with Miller that everything is ready. We go to the Zigg tonight."
013
"DO YOU HEAR THAT?" Lucy asked as she ducked instinctively into a low defensive crouch. Jon wore no helmet and found that his newly heightened senses enabled him to hear things he might normally have missed. Off in the distance, heading their way, he could hear it; a grinding, whiny noise, as shrill as the wail of a banshee. A sound which, like that of a keening spirit, heralded certain death for all who heard its mournful cries.
"I hear it!" Jon shouted. "The cleaner! Carbine, get ready!"
They had expected it and discussed how to handle it when Lucy and Ratt had laid out the plan for infiltrating the lower levels of the Ziggurat.
"It functions like my personal one here." Ratt had gestured to his hover-board, floating off to the side of them where they stood gathered inside the vault, admiring the large levitating platform whilst discussing their plan. "The controls are simple." Ratt held aloft an N-Tab and pointed at its digital display. "This arrow makes it go up, this one makes it go down."
They were to leave the vault, wait until a trash-tube made a discharge, and then mount the platform, riding it up over the Underground and into the tube above. Theoretically, they would then float up all the way inside to the lowest level of the Zigg. The only hang-up was the well-known cleaners that shuttled back and forth the lengths of the tubes, breaking up the remaining trash and preventing infi
ltrators. Ratt had explained with deep sorrow how several desperate souls over the years had tried to climb the tubes, hoping to escape the poverty of the Underground for the milk and honey of the Ziggurat, only to be thrown back down in pieces after meeting the steadfast machines.
Upon meeting it, the plan called for Carbine to blast it to bits with the MISS, allowing them entry to the fortress city. From there, they would lean on Jon and Carbine’s knowledge of their home to navigate to the Ministry of Social Purity, break Maya and Wyntr out of prison, and return to the Underground before eventually leaving for the mysterious Morning Star.
Jon knew then that it sounded far-fetched, more like a suicide pact than a viable rescue plan, but he couldn't deny Lucy's determination nor his new-found sense of unstoppable power. After recovering from the injection, he had stood amazed, repeatedly opening and closing his fists, blown away at just how incredible he felt.
Now they were coming face to face with the first of the mission’s many obstacles. It was time to put their strengths to the test. Jon stowed the N-Tab Ratt had given him in his dump pouch alongside another device crafted by the tinkerer, a hologram projector exactly like the one he had used to conjure the illusionary Drop and dragon. That will come later, Jon thought. Sure hope it works as well on Scrubbers as it did on the East Side Lords.
"Everyone ready?" Carbine asked, his voice projected through the Mini-Mech by use of external speakers. "Ratt said this would be loud!"
Ratt had given Carbine a rundown of how to operate the Pre-Storm Mech and Carbine had taken to it like a duck to water. He showed a natural aptitude for the thought-activated controls, and everyone on the team was eager to see what he could do when he combined his talent at sharpshooting with the suit's railgun. The HUD inside the Mini-Mech was similar to the one in his old Easy-Rider suit, only with more space in which to move one’s head around. Moments after Lucy had asked the question and Jon had responded, the suit's audio sensors had picked up the chugging, scraping noise coming down the tube. Carbine looked up and with a thought switched his optics to low-light and x2 telescopic.
The Goddess Gambit Page 25
