We Aimless Few

by Robert J. Crane

  If he dressed like this, instead of a comic book shop reject, I could see him turning more than a few heads.

  I wasn’t about to say that to him though.

  “So,” he said, straightening his jacket, I can only assume to keep it from creasing, “where to now?”

  “The million-world clock put the cutover to Laknuria by the Hive,” said Heidi.

  “Know which direction that is?” I asked.

  “I thought you might,” she said.

  “Not really. I came here once, when I was about twelve. I’m pretty sure the Hive is new anyway, built in the last couple of years.”

  Heidi bit her lip. “I don’t suppose they’d at least put up planning permission signs or something?”

  “I’m fairly certain Kew Gardens doesn’t need to petition London council for planning permission within their own park. A new exhibit isn’t exactly going to whittle down nearby property values or anything like that.”

  Heidi craned around, as if Kew Gardens was compact enough that she could see it. Of course, she couldn’t—there was just the pond the Palm House overlooked, a few geese relaxing by its side. A young girl, maybe five or six, was half-running after another few, cooing madly at them while her parents ignored her. Luckily the geese were waddling away, rather than putting her in her place by breaking one—or both—of the girl’s arms.

  “Hang on,” said Borrick, loping away.

  A man and woman—a couple, mid-twenties, in her case, probably early thirties in his—had just come out of the Palm House via the external door (there were two, one immediately inside of this, like a kind of lobby, again to service that wretchedly smothering humidity).

  “Excuse me,” he said, “do you have a map? And are you finished with it, if so?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said the woman, digging in her handbag. She produced it and passed it with a smile to Borrick. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.” He tipped them a wave with the pamphlet and meandered back over. “Sorted.”

  “Easy when you know how,” I said.

  Heidi snatched it out of Borrick’s hand. Unfurling it, her eyes roved, finding first the Palm House—more or less dead center—and then scouring for the Hive. It wasn’t far, apparently.

  “That’s it?” Borrick asked, pointing.

  “No,” I said, following Heidi—she’d already set off at a clip, requiring my own jog to keep pace. “It just says ‘The Hive’ beside it for a laugh. Practical jokers, the mapmakers at Kew.”

  “Very funny,” said Borrick, frowning. Eyebrows relaxing from their taut pout, he said, “At least we’ll know it when we see it.”

  We would, although I’d known that even before coming here. The Hive had been a particularly central element of Kew Gardens’ advertising since it was erected. I’d seen a handful of posters around the middle of spring to remind people that it existed, mostly in Underground stations.

  We walked in silence for a while. Heidi kept a good few meters ahead of us. She was almost frustratingly quick. But then, of course she would be, knowing what this quest represented—what it might still open the door to.

  “So,” said Borrick eventually, stretching it out nice and long, adding at least another three ‘o’s to the back end of it. (Or the middle. Same diff, really.) “Pretty crazy about your parents, eh? Showing up at the Way-Crossing like that.”

  “Bit of a wind-up,” I said.

  “I sympathize,” he said. “I really do.”

  “You surprise me,” I said, shooting him a sideways glare, “considering just this morning you were sucking up to my mother like it was going out of fashion.”

  He winced. “There is nothing wrong with being polite.”

  “Hah. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

  Now he frowned, eyebrows drawing in again and pressing a comma in between them. “I meant what I said when I apologized for what happened to your brother. It doesn’t make me a … a suck-up, or whatever you think of me as.”

  “I think of you as much worse than a suck-up.”

  His frown deepened. “Sometimes you’re very frustrating, you know that, Mira?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Evidently, given the temper tantrum my mum threw at the Entanglement twenty minutes ago.”

  Borrick pursed his lips. “You remember what I said to you when we were searching for the Chalice Gloria? That we are two sides of the same coin?”

  “I remember,” I said. “I seem to recall you saying it after I claimed Feruiduin’s Cutlass before you and your army of orcs, and you threatened Carson’s life in exchange for it.”

  He didn’t look affronted by the memory, or even really very guilty. He just said, “Yes, well … regardless of my timing, the point stands. We are two sides of the same coin. There is a great deal similar between us. I’d have thought that might confer a little more …”

  “Respect?” I finished, turning my nose up.

  “Ideally,” he said. “I respect you, after all.”

  “Of course you do. You're clearly a masochist and I've thoroughly crushed you on multiple occasions.”

  He gave me an exasperated look. “Could you please be serious for once? Yes, we were enemies before, and yes, I acted on that, in the same way as most enemies would.” Before I could cut in that most opposing Seekers wouldn’t set armies on the other or kidnap a member of an oppositional team and hold them hostage with threat of death over their head, Borrick continued: “I would think that you’d appreciate my understanding of your situation.”

  “What situation?” I asked.

  “Your parents—the animosity between you.”

  “Oh.” Then: “Ooh. Things not so friendly right now in Chez Borrick?”

  He glared at me for a moment before averting his gaze. “My father and I are done,” he said with finality.

  That caught me off-guard.

  Not that it was surprising. How keen had Alain been to recuse himself of Preston five weeks ago, running Erbridge Vincin’s quest? The tension between them had only ramped up as the competition progressed—and when finally Alain had made it through to the final stage of the quest alone, and his father was banished—well, I’d wondered then just what Daddy Borrick’s temperament would be when Alain returned home.

  Apparently things had been sourer than I thought.

  I was about to ask more—but the Hive revealed itself around a stand of trees, nestled in amongst many more. A lattice of metal hexagons all arranged in overlapping layers, it reached skyward amidst flower gardens. Lights winked on and off—and there came the subtle buzz of a recording of bees—for this monstrosity of a thing was supposed to be some artist’s representation of a beehive.

  “Oh, wow,” said Borrick. “That is … even uglier than I thought.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “Mira,” Heidi called. She was already running up the walkway and into the Hive itself. “Compass, please.”

  I threw it to her. She caught it, and peered into its face, head down as she disappeared into the lattice. A moment later: “It’s here!”

  “Brilliant,” I said. “End of the line now, right?”

  “I believe so,” said Borrick. “I think the final temple is this way.”

  “Wonder what game the Antecessors will want me to play this time,” I murmured. “I hope it's Pictionary. Or Cards Against Humanity.”

  He looked puzzled at that—but we were around the curve of the walkway, which turned a final abrupt corner, and then deposited into the Hive itself, onto a floor level that was actually a translucent layer overlooking the actual ground, another eight or ten feet under us.

  Overhead, the Hive’s latticework curved inward, narrowing to a final, single hexagon that looked out to perfectly blue evening sky.

  “It’s here,” said Heidi, standing beneath it.

  “Then by all means,” I said, “do the honors and cut us through.”

  She nodded quickly. “Right.” She passed my compass back—and then she cut another gate in the flo
or underneath us, not bothering to check that we definitely were still alone.

  I didn’t blame her. If I had a more traditionally loving mother than my own, and she’d disappeared without a trace years ago, and I harbored some small hope that I could get her back or at least find out what had happened to her? Yeah, I’d be chomping at the bit too.

  So rather than remind her of her error, I exchanged a glance with Borrick—and then the three of us, Heidi first, then Borrick, and finally me, dropped down into the gateway, to our final destination on this quest—Laknuria.

  21

  The city of Laknuria was nothing like the bright pink rainforest where we’d inadvertently ended up when the Antecessors sent us on their rather pointless detour. (Pointless to me; I’m sure they got a brilliant kick out of watching the three of us struggle not to be eaten by massive birds or bitten to death by alien Venus flytraps.)

  Laknuria was the heavily industrialized place the pyramid, and then my million-world clock, had promised. Deposited onto a crossroads, that the city’s forking streets were labyrinthine was immediately clear.

  Line of sight was poor. Hulking great skyscrapers rose up in every direction. I’d have counted the floors—but there were no windows, casting a sodium glow out into the semi-darkness of night—and the storm, currently raging above us.

  Lightning flashed amidst the clouds. Its rumble came only a couple of seconds later. It was muted though; the pounding of the rain on the steel streets underfoot was much louder.

  The Antecessors, it seemed, wanted us all wet today.

  Heidi wrinkled her nose. “Urgh. This place stinks.”

  It did: like a thousand knackered old cars had been lined up and their engines fired, blasting away, until their fuel tanks—full, to start—had been emptied, and the air had been laden with the rich, bitter smell of burned gasoline. I could practically feel the lung cancer growing inside me as I breathed it in.

  “Don’t suppose either of you have face masks, do you?” I asked. “Alain? In that Mary Poppins coat of yours?”

  He frowned in confusion.

  “Mary Poppins had a bag,” said Heidi. “Not a coat. And by the look on his face he hasn’t seen it.”

  “Of course I've seen Mary Poppins,” Borrick said. “I love it, except for Dick Van Dyke's awful accent-”

  “It really is awful.” Heidi nodded.

  “Yep,” I agreed.

  “But I was a bit thrown off by the assertion she had a coat,” Borrick said. “Come on—let’s just get this thing done. I didn’t pack an umbrella.”

  Umbrella! Right.

  I lifted Decidian’s Spear, in its bright red and yellow glamoured form, and unleashed the umbrella with a flick, extending the handle to its full length, and opening the canopy.

  “Here,” I said, holding it out for Heidi and Borrick to crowd under. Emphasis on the crowd: things were tight. Very tight. And—

  “Ow!” Something dug into the exposed flesh of my right arm, something sharp and needle-like.

  Borrick jerked away, like it had stung him too.

  A snapper head buried itself into my skin. With maybe two and a half inches of vine left clinging to the bottom of the adapted leaves that made its carnivorous little mouth, it must’ve hung onto Borrick’s jacket, then had enough life in it to switch targets when it felt the two of us brush together.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “It’s fine,” I said through clenched teeth, handing Heidi the umbrella so I could remove the snapper. Squeezing the base of it, I forced it to release. Another five nasty little pockmarks glistened under it, reddening in circles like bug bites. Blood welled.

  I swore at the snapper’s head, hoping it had enough intelligence within it to hear me and be offended, and then I dropped it on the floor and stamped on it. Not just stamped—kind of ground my foot down too, to really shred it up. Just for good measure.

  “Can we get going, please?” said Heidi. “I want to be in and out.”

  “My pleasure,” I said. “The quicker the better. Lead the way.”

  She appeared less sure about that. Nevertheless, she said, “Right,” and moved into motion, taking us off of the crossroads and down the street that my brain would say was northbound, if only because that was the direction that we were pointing as we came out of the gateway.

  The streets were wide enough to fit four lanes of traffic. Not that there was any: no vehicles to speak of, nor any markings to corral the non-existent vehicles into the correct lanes. For all intents and purposes, Laknuria appeared to be empty, save for the three of us winding down the streets, forking every couple of hundred feet.

  At least, it appeared empty until—

  “What is that?”

  Borrick asked the question before I did. But we’d all seen it at once, as we rounded the latest in a series of corners.

  In the middle of the street lay a hulking blot of metal. Around the size of a small car—a really small one; like those ugly little two-seater things with neither back nor boot to speak of—it was entirely inert, from the bulky core, which was shaped somewhat like a painkiller, long and with rounded ends, to the long metal arms which lay madly about it, stretching eight or nine feet away.

  We’d stopped instinctively. Heidi brought up Feruiduin’s Cutlass. In turn, I gave the umbrella a quick flick with a snap of my wrist, turning it into Decidian’s Spear (and letting the rain pour down on our heads). Borrick’s club-shaped blade appeared a moment later, produced from a pocket that surely would give away its width.

  We waited. But there was no movement except for the sound of the rain coming down. It drummed on the bulk of the inert thing before us.

  “I think we’re safe,” said Borrick.

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.” Nevertheless, Heidi lowered Feruiduin’s Cutlass, just an inch or two, and then started slowly forward.

  I followed, in a close third after Borrick. My heart thudded in my throat.

  One of the machine’s long arms lay coiled in the road, like a hurdle before we reached the thing’s actual body. Stooping down, but not so close it could suddenly whip out and thwack her in the face, Heidi peered at it. After a long appraisal, she prodded it with her boot.

  It didn’t move. Not even with the touch of her toe. She might as well have planted her feet upon a rock, three-quarters buried in the earth, and tried to wiggle it.

  “What’s it made of, do you think?” Borrick asked. A note of awe crept into his voice. Eyebrows together, he looked to me. “It’s an automaton, isn’t it? A deactivated one?”

  “Don’t ask me,” I said.

  He stepped over the arm, lifting his legs high. Unnecessary—it was only around eight inches in width—but it was important not to get too cozy with the unknown.

  He approached the automaton’s body. It lay at a slight angle, where the arms on its other side had pooled and given it a sort of cushion upon which to lay.

  “It’s a marvel of engineering,” said Borrick.

  “You had to ask me if it was a robot just a second ago,” I said, “now you’re an expert on how well it’s built?”

  He ignored me. Running a hand along the automaton’s body, but separated by an inch, it was like he stroked an invisible force field rather than the shell itself. Perhaps there was an invisible force field? I wasn’t getting close enough to find out.

  “No seams,” said Borrick, “no panels, that I can see, for access … the arms come out from perfectly sized apertures …”

  “Falling in love, are you, Borrick?” asked Heidi. “The tinman did always want a heart. Not sure what it’ll think about having yours, but nevertheless …”

  Borrick ignored that too. He continued to survey the lifeless automaton sprawled in the street.

  Something whined behind us—a noise like metal dragging.

  We spun round as one, Heidi bringing up the cutlass, me bringing the spear to bear, Borrick his blade.

  Nothing behind us but the rain.

  “Let�
��s go,” said Heidi. “This is creeping me out.”

  “Right behind you,” I murmured.

  I stepped toward her—

  One of the automaton’s arms whipped into the air—and sent me reeling backward with a powerful slap across the chest.

  I didn’t even comprehend it happening until afterward. One moment I was moving—the next there was a blur of metal—and then the impact, and I was sailing, the world spinning as I rolled backward—BAM!—I hit the blank, featureless façade of a skyscraper, and rebounded with a clatter.

  Stars filled my vision.

  I fought to blink them back—

  What was that shouting?

  —and lifted my head—

  “DUCK,” Borrick was shouting.

  The automaton had risen. Using two of its arms in place of legs, it rose easily onto them, the other four arms swirling in a heaving mass. Borrick had only been extricated from them by force: he lay a small distance away, on his back, soaked through and eyes bugging wildly.

  Heidi, on the other hand, was still in the middle of the fray. She rolled out of the way as one of the automaton’s arms came sailing down over her head—

  “What did you do?” she roared.

  “I didn’t do anything!” Borrick yelled back.

  I pressed groggily to my feet. The rain was good; the wetness, its drumming on my head and the back of my neck, it cut through the fog of pain.

  Clutching Decidian’s Spear—heaven only knew how I’d managed to keep hold of it—I steadied myself on my feet, took a steeling breath—and then ran in, spear extended.

  Borrick was right: the automaton’s carapace was entirely uniform. There were no seams, and no lights to speak of, nothing that would indicate where exactly its front end was. Part of the design? Probably. But it made it very difficult to know whether its sensors, whatever form they took, were pointed at me as I barreled in—