The Goddess Gambit

by B Michael Stevens

  "They're holograms!"

  Jon couldn't believe their luck and cursed himself for not picking the better trash-tube through which to make their infiltration. For once the lift reached the bottom floor of the Zigg, the doors opened directly into another droid-operated trash-dumping station.

  "It couldn't be more perfect!" Carbine announced.

  "Actually, I can imagine if our hover-platform were here, and not two grids over, things could be a mite better," Lucy reminded him.

  "Oh yeah, shit."

  "Come on." Jon urged them out of the lift and into the trash station. "There has to be a way down. Lily— er, Maya, do you think you can do that floaty thing for all of us? Even Carbine?" Jon raised an eyebrow and nodded his head in the direction of the Mini-Mech.

  The group cautiously walked past the working robots, with Jon repeating his reassurances to Maya and Wyntr, and approached the ledge that extended out over the tube.

  "It will take me a minute to shape a Strange strong enough for all of us, and we will have to form a chain of hands, but yes. I think I can manage that," Maya said, smiling.

  "Perfect. But guys, what do we do about the cleaner this time?" Jon said, the end of his question punctuated by a deafening roar. They spun around to the source of the sound and were greeted by a wall of fire, expanding outward from the service elevator.

  Jon and Lucy both stepped forward to shield the girls from the flames, and nearly collided. Ignoring Lucy's grunt of annoyance, Jon peered through the gaps in his fingers which he held out in front of his face to save his eyes from the punishing wave of heat. Out of the fiery explosion, a form appeared. At first a shadow, the silhouette burst forth from the billowing clouds and flew straight towards them.

  "Hoppers!" Jon announced, although it was obvious to everyone that their plan had been compromised and they’d been tracked down.

  Three more Hoppers leaped from the fire and ignited reverse thrusters to brake before the escapees. Hovering in place over the cubes of compressed trash and droids, they all opened fire with twin streams of plasma discs, tearing into and igniting everything they touched. Lucy asserted her position in front of her Lady and Wyntr, using her already damaged and limp arm as a shield. The glowing discs of superheated matter severed the useless arm right above the elbow. Residual plasma splashed over Lucy's torso, melting holes in her bodysuit and igniting strands of her long black hair. Without complaint, she returned fire, pummeling one of the Hoppers and eventually landing a lucky shot in the helmet's visor, penetrating it and killing the pilot.

  Carbine likewise began to take punishment from the plasma bombardment, and like Lucy, returned fire, the slug of his railgun clipping a Hopper in one of its dangling legs, atomizing it instantly and sending the unit into a levitating spin that lasted long after the operator had bled out, showering the room with his life's blood.

  Leading the charge, Chad dove his Hopper into a straight run towards Jon and company.

  "This is for Hegna!" Chad screamed, pulling his suit into a climb that would take him over and past his targets and then into a trash-tube.

  Jon was ready for him and ran to meet him halfway before he could fully execute the climb. Sprinting every bit as fast as Lucy with her cybernetic legs, Jon bolted forward and then, stepping off a nearby robot, jumped into the air, intercepting Chad and bear-hugging the flying power armor in the process.

  Chad was nearly as quick. While not able to avoid the incoming grappler, he did manage to release his Hopper's remaining complement of mini-missiles. Lacking time to engage the Smart-Lok to the targets below, the explosive projectiles instead flew wildly down into the ledge itself.

  Unaware of what was transpiring below him, Jon held onto his hammer with one hand, pressing it tightly against the back of the Hopper so as to not fall off, while using his free hand to dig into the flight pack of the armor, grasping blindly at anything he could find, and then using his newfound strength, tearing at it as easily as a bear claw would rip a rotten log asunder in search of grubs.

  "You idiot!" Chad called, feeling the sudden lurch and drop in his suit, now falling instead of flying. "You've killed us both!"

  Just as Jon, now upside down and still clinging onto the falling Hopper, fell past the ledge upon which his companions stood, he saw the entire thing break away from the trash-dump alcove. He only glimpsed the scene before speeding by like a dropped stone, but it was enough time for him to see that none of his friends had managed to leap from the breaking ledge to safety. He managed to see Lucy wrap Maya and Wyntr up in her three functioning arms, while Carbine in his Mini-Mech tipped over backward and began to plummet down the tube, its mass turning their fall into a race to see who would crash first.

  Regretting his rash impulse to tear apart the Hopper's flight pack, Jon held on, hoped his friends would do the same, and prayed for a miracle.

  The remaining Hopper pilots lowered their hovering units and approached the new edge, peered down and watched as the crumbling ledge, their officer, and the esoterrorists disappeared into the darkness of the tube’s depths.

  "Should we pursue?" one of the men asked the group, hoping that one of them would step up and fill the vacuum created by the loss of both their New Breed officers.

  "That won't be necessary." They turned to see the source of the brisk answer. Out from the smoldering ruins of the service elevator stepped yet another Hopper unit. Its helmet was gone, and the rest of the suit looked like it had been stomped on repeatedly by the massive feet of a Heavy Mech. The face of the man piloting it was instantly familiar, despite being covered in blood and with one of its eyes now missing, replaced by a burnt and bloody charred hole.

  "Sir!" The men snapped to attention.

  Hegna strode forward, joining his men, then looked down the tube and spat. They watched in silence as the globule of saliva sailed down and down, and then eventually, like their prey, disappeared from sight.

  "It won't be the fall that kills them," Hegna said, breaking the windy silence.

  His men watched as he strode away, past the oblivious robots and to a control panel on the far side of the room. Comprehension came to their confused faces when they watched their lieutenant pull up a command screen and touch a large green icon with the word "RETURN" along with a picture of an upward-pointing machine that looked like a cross between a drill bit and a meat grinder.

  "It will be the cleaner."

  015

  "DID YOU DO AS I COMMANDED?"

  Warbak flinched at the wording of the question. He had suffered Umbra long enough, and over the years, as his power in Home grew, as his scientists created bigger and better weapons, he had grown unused to hearing others give him commands. Soon, I will be the only one on the planet that gives commands. Soon, Umbra.

  "Of course. Do you think me a fool?" Warbak answered.

  "Now, now," Umbra soothed, brushing away a long lock of lavender hair from his face and studying Warbak through the N-Tab with his double-iris eyes. "No need to be so testy, Accoba. I was only asking."

  "Even when I don't understand your... orders, I have always complied."

  "That's why you will always be my number one," Umbra said without smiling. Warbak had grown used to his co-conspirator’s aloof mannerisms and alien appearance long ago. Used to and sick of. The earth belongs to humans. Belongs to me.

  "And I trust you did not make it too easy? Too obvious?” Umbra asked. “We don't want them suspecting the truth, that we let them go."

  "No, again, I am not a fool. I ordered my aide to have a custodian report to the prison ward by means of the service elevator. The custodian was genuinely surprised by the scene. As surprised as I'm sure the intruders were by his appearance. They made use of the lift as I assumed they would and escaped down a trash-tube. The same way, my analysts now tell me, that they managed to get in."

  Warbak chose to leave out the part about them all falling to their deaths. No need to alarm Umbra. He wanted the alien lord calm and cocky when he marched right i
nto the trap.

  "They are under the city. I'm tracking them even now. One of the terrorists used to belong to me. A former assassin creation of mine. She doesn't know it, but I can follow her every move," Warbak said proudly. It was a lie, of course. Or at least a partial truth. Warbak used to be able to track Lucy, but that stopped the second Maya severed the connection, along with the control he once had over her. Seeing her in action on the N-Tab had kindled a fire of conflicting emotions deep inside him. He had always assumed his precious creation had perished, even when reports came in from the Rough of a murdering, four-armed cyborg woman cutting down his troops and rescuing Unpure humans and Invasive Drop-trash alike. He had wondered but ultimately dismissed the rumors as urban legends that the trash told themselves, fanciful stories they spun to inspire hope and resistance under his ever-increasing dominance. Had she returned to haunt him? Was it some sort of morbid poetic justice that his puppet was now a thorn in his side, working with traitorous soldiers to rescue the most dangerous criminal he had ever captured? If Umbra wanted the witch bad enough to come to Home and to accelerate their agreed timeline, then she must be something special indeed. A moot point, Warbak thought. They are all dead now anyway.

  His men had reported that the cleaner in Trash-Tube 11A had not exploded or been compromised in any way. It had arrived at the top of the tube with only minor damage, no doubt from when the Mini-Mech impacted it. Of course, any metal from the Mech or Hopper would have been chewed up and spat out the bottom side, dumped down into the Underground like everything else that managed to ever find its way inside the tubes. And the device was self-cleaning, so there would be no blood or viscera. A great design, until the lack of a mess cast shadows of doubt on the fate of those one wanted dead. There were no other exits in the tube save the alcove of the trash station. They were finished. They had to be. There is no way they could have survived that. No way. Still...

  A nagging doubt began to grow in Warbak's mind. He reminded himself to send his troops into the long-forgotten Underground once the Purge had started. Just in case. Either way, it will be a good idea to search the area for any Drop-trash that managed to get down there from the Shanty and avoid the coming Purge. We can't have any loose ends, now can we?

  "Good. Keep track of them until I arrive. Make sure they stay out of the way of the Purge. I want them to escape completely."

  "Completely?" Warbak asked, confused.

  "Yes. Escape Home. I want them to fulfill their mission."

  "Why would we ever want a group of esoterrorists to achieve their goals?" Warbak asked incredulously.

  "Don't concern yourself with things bigger than you and your little world, Accoba. Do as I command. Make sure the Purge is ready for my arrival and make double sure that Maya and her hammer-wielding friend you spoke of escape it."

  "It shall be as you command," Warbak lied. I will make you eat those words, my alien-eyed friend. You will rue the day.

  With the comm line on the N-Tab safely turned off, Warbak looked up and gestured to Matiaba.

  "We must move fast. Is everything ready?"

  The aide bowed deeply. "Yes, sir Chairman."

  "Good. Pull the trigger. The Purge begins tonight."

  His mind racing as fast as he and the Hopper he clung to fell, Jon managed to peer over Chad's shoulder when he heard the cleaner. It and its grinding maw were coming up to meet them just as they were falling to meet it. If I let go of Chad, he may open fire on me, or Maya...

  "Carbine!" Jon called out of the roar of the rushing wind and the oncoming machine. "Can you shoot it again?"

  "I'll try!" Carbine yelled back and proceeded to think the Mini-Mech through a series of twists and turns in an attempt to get turned around and squeeze a shot off before they were all consumed by the relentless machine. Righting the Mech as best he could, Carbine fired one round, but only clipped the very edge of the grinder, damaging it only superficially and slowing it down not one bit.

  "Damn!"

  Lucy tried to impale her Macuahuitl into the wall of the tube, hoping to slow if not stop her fall and reached for her Lady with her prehensile tail, but both efforts fell short as she was practically in the center of the tube.

  "My Lady!" she cried in frustration. "I have failed you!"

  When he heard no response to Lucy's tragic confession, Jon craned his neck to see how the goddess was faring in the fall.

  Eyes closed, still holding hands with the little girl, Maya fell almost gracefully. Arms and legs spread-eagled, as if she longed to embrace the rushing cleaner, her hair whipped about her, and in between flashes of obscurity, Jon thought he could see her lips moving.

  Is she praying? Is this the end? Had they come this far only to die in such a stupid and gruesome way? Jon thought perhaps he should make his peace the world also, and then wondered who he would pray to if he were the praying type. Maya?

  It was then he that heard her voice. She wasn't praying, she was singing. Her voice, unforgettable, was amplified by an unseen power; it reached out and into him, vibrating his chest with every note.

  From below came a flash, and Jon thought for a split-second that his friend had managed to shoot the damned machine, but he heard no sonic-boom. Still holding his enemy’s arms tight against the torso of the Hopper suit, he turned his head back around and saw just below them, above the rushing cleaner, a Drop-like portal rip open in mid-air.

  In the next instant, both he and everyone else fell directly into it. Their vision washed out in deep darkness as they tumbled into the unknown. Just as the cleaner reached it, the rift snapped shut and disappeared, along with those who had fallen into it.

  Unmolested, the cleaner sped by, ever upwards to its destination where Hegna and his men waited.

  The darkness passed as quickly as it had come, and Jon found himself standing upright on the ground. No, that isn’t right. Chad, still clad in his Hopper, was standing upright on the ground and Jon was still clinging to him the way a drowning man might cling to a tossed lifeline. Before his eyes fully adjusted to the glare of the overhead neon and fluorescent lights, Jon realized the gravity of the situation: he had a tiger by the tail, and they were no longer in free-fall. Chad too realized the game had changed and redoubled his efforts to break free from Jon's bear-hug.

  "How are you so strong?" Chad grunted as he struggled to break free. No man should be able to hold back the power armor. In desperation, he cocked his helmeted head back and brought it down on Jon's face. Expecting to hear a crack, he was confused to hear a hard thud. Jon grimaced but took the hit without so much as a nosebleed.

  "A little help here!" Jon called to no one in particular, hoping that his friends had come with him through the mysterious pseudo-Drop.

  One heartbeat later Jon felt the Hopper suit cease its labors. It was then that he noticed the razor edge of Lucy's tanto under the chin of Chad's helmet.

  "Either you open the suit up, or I open you up," she whispered.

  Chad wisely surrendered and willed the suit to open up. While Lucy helped to peel him out of the suit, Jon stood by, hammer at the ready, to make sure Chad didn't try to go out in a blaze of plasma discs. It was only after Chad was fully disarmed and bound that Jon looked around at his surroundings.

  Carbine was hard to miss, still in his Mini-Mech but fumbling to get out of it. Wyntr seemed good, meek as ever and still holding hands with Maya.

  Maya.

  She stood— they all stood at the base of a tree. A tree? Quickly glancing up, Jon confirmed what he’d thought he had seen a moment earlier. Glowing white lights above. They were in a building, or perhaps underground. The room appeared to be a garden of some kind. Concentric circles, divided by narrow stone pathways, expanded outward from the tree at the center. All healthy-looking plants, presumably kept alive by regular care in the form of watering as well as by the artificial full-spectrum lights above. The tree in the center was the only tree in the room, the rest of the plants being shrubs or bushes. Its trunk was twisted and bl
ack. If Jon didn't know any better, he would swear it was dead. Its branches reached up nearly to the covers of the white light bulbs on the ceiling. Each leafless branch looked brittle and, unlike most of the shrubs on the ground, bore no fruit, but was kissed here and there by needle-like black thorns. The only sign of life on the tree was a pale, pea-soup green bush of kelp-like soft plant material. It looked completely out of place. Jon squinted at it. A growth, a blemish almost, of vibrant life on an otherwise iron-clad desolation of a tree. Maya followed Jon's eyes to the splotch of green in the branches above and explained.

  "It's mistletoe."

  "Huh?" Jon stumbled out of his inquisitive reverie, like a drunk trying to find a light switch in a strange room in the middle of the night.

  "It's called mistletoe. It's invasive, a parasite. Though it's not from the Drops. It's native to Earth. The ancient people of Earth-Before-The-Storm had a special reverence for this plant. Its leaves secrete sticky glue, and it gets carried from tree to tree by birds and the like. Once it gets brought to a tree, it grows itself into its host and makes a new home. It doesn't hurt the tree at all; only if it's forcibly removed does the host-tree get injured."

  Despite his trust and growing affection for the goddess, Jon thought he heard more than an allegory in her explanation. The soldier in him heard a threat.

  "The ancient priests of Earth-That-Was thought that this plant was very magical. They used it in their rites. Druids, they were called. While not magical, this tree is still very special to me. It's the first place I thought of that wasn't far away."

  Carbine, now free from the confines of his Mech, overheard and decided to interrupt.

  "Wait. Are you saying that you did this? Brought us here? You opened that Drop thing?" Carbine was incredulous, and Jon thought he detected a hint of outrage in his friend's voice.

  "Yes, of course!" Maya smiled.