by Ryan Tang
What was he doing?
The screens flickered.
All of them displayed the same words.
DEEPER CREATURES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE MAD NOBLES' GODS
It was the scanned pages of a tattered old book.
Falo's mind only had room for a single thought before burning pain sliced through every single inch of his body.
Why was that book here?
____
Falo screamed and screamed.
It felt like every part of his body was being torn apart. He'd dissolved into strands, just like what he did with his model Paragon.
He lay there, staring at his hand in disbelief.
How could it still be in one piece?
How could it not have burnt to ash?
His scream abruptly ended, and he started choking instead.
Blood spurted from his ears, his nose, and mouth. It gushed out of the stump of his neck. The red and black pooled into a messy puddle on the floor.
His head tumbled from his hand.
His body crashed to the ground.
Treachery.
Treachery.
It had to be treachery.
Falo tried pushing himself back to his feet, but his hands were slick and soft. The blood was all over them. He lost his grip over and over again. His elbows couldn't even lock. Each time he tried to push, his arms felt like they were being twisted apart. He just kept falling back onto the floor, kept falling back into the growing puddle of blood.
He flopped like a pathetic fish.
Why?
Why would Peter betray him?
The pain grew worse.
Falo felt his arms and legs disintegrate completely.
They were still intact in front of him, but they were nothing more than useless lumps of flesh.
He couldn't move them. He couldn't feel them.
He stared at Peter, who stood well on the other side of the hangar's door. The entire room was flooded with the bright light from the screens. It ricocheted off the walls, doubling and tripling as Falo gurgled on the ground.
Peter unclipped his silver flask and took another deep swig. His usual exuberant face was still and somber.
Falo could feel the words slowly being traced on his skin, starting from the title. First, a "D," and then an "E."
The letters continued to spell themselves out. Falo could feel it on every inch of his body from head to stump, from shoulder to toes.
D-E-E-P-E-R
The words were carved over and over again, piercing first his skin, then his flesh, then his bones.
His eyes rolled back into his skull.
Falo could no longer tell if the noise in his ears was simply an echo or if he was still screaming. He couldn't feel his mouth anymore. He couldn't feel his throat any more.
But even worse than the pain was the grief.
It was a stab straight through his heart, straight through his soul.
He thought Peter was his friend.
He thought Peter was like a real father.
All of a sudden, the light faded away.
"Go collect him."
The Contracted subjects stepped forwards.
The boy king screamed as loud as he could. His words were still feeble, but he knew they could hear him. He'd done all those experiments.
"Take me away! Take me away!"
They ignored him, gathering him up. He forced himself to speak louder, pushing the words through his burnt and ragged throat.
"Ki –"
"Get him! Get Peter! Capture him!"
It was like they couldn't hear him.
What was happening?
Why weren't they listening to him?
A big man cradled his body, and a girl lifted his head off the floor.
The blood seeped out of his stump.
Peter led the way as they walked down the hall.
The liquid in Peter's flask sloshed loudly with every step she took. It echoed as he stepped closer and closer. There was a slight pinging noise like there was something hard inside the liquid.
As they carried him down the hall, the boy realized he still had one last card to play.
He could release the Contracts of all the servants in the room.
He knew from his experiment with Greta that they'd attack the people responsible. There was a chance he might die, but he'd never commanded these people before. He did not know who they were.
They wouldn't know he was partially responsible for their imprisonment. They might even help him.
Falo closed his eyes and concentrated.
"All of you are freed from your Contractual obligations. All of you are freed from your Contractual obligations. All of you are freed from your Contractual obligations."
His mouth murmured the words, but nothing happened.
They took him to Peter's room. A large stack of papers lay on his desk, line after line written in the big man's flowing script.
Falo could sense the power in the black ink. He could taste the salt and rot in the air.
Peter shifted, and the flask splashed again.
And then Falo knew.
There was no hiding secrets from a Truthspeaker.
All the pieces had been right in front of him.
He just chose not to see it.
They'd treated him like some stupid little boy.
His father's mocking laughter echoed endlessly in his ears as Peter pointed.
"Set him on the bed. Be careful."
The servants lay him back down as if he were sleeping. The head they dropped face down on the pillow. Peter made an annoyed noise then set him back up again so Falo could see. The boy king couldn't move a muscle. Every shred of his body was shrieking in endless pain.
It felt like his whole body had become a stump. The echoes of the carved letters still rang in his bones.
The big man looked very sad. Little tears dripped down his big face.
The pieces fell together in Falo's sobbing mind.
The flask and the thin drinks in the morning. Peter's insistence on managing Falo's Contracts and subjects.
No wonder his morning drink had gone down easier each day. Peter had been stealing his power.
And now, Falo's servants no longer obeyed him. The big man must have destroyed Falo's Contracts and replaced them with his own. Peter could do that now. He was also bound to the goddess.
Falo had given Peter everything he needed to know through the experiments.
"I'm sorry, Falo. If I could do this any other way, I would."
The big man pulled a picture out of his pocket, a photograph he held with reverent tenderness. Peter was smiling alongside a very tall and very pregnant woman with silver hair.
"Our child will be born on Old Earth."
Old Earth?
Falo moaned.
The revelation was Peter's final knife in the back.
It didn't take a Truthspeaker to piece it all together.
The Spire. The Spire and their idiot community events. And the Contracts. All those Contracts.
Peter had countless sacrifices at his fingertips.
Falo met Peter at the high tide, the hour of the devout. But now the low tide was drawing closer and closer. Low tide, the hour of the usurper.
CHAPTER 22: THE GIRL FROM THE CHEAP ARCADE
THE STRANGE ALTAR-STAGE that the Council sat on had probably been salvaged. It looked for all the world like an artifact of the Mad Nobles.
But the simulator pods were new, and they were stained with blood.
Stock sneered, misunderstanding her shocked silence.
"This is why you shouldn't dare tell me what to do with my time and money. I'm the man who has brought back Eternium! You're just a librarian! Haven't you heard? Those who can't do, teach."
He turned back to the door.
"Get some more of the decorations out. I want everyone to see my greatness."
Stock only ever spoke softly when ordering the workers, but somehow they could hear him.
A
crew of workers stepped in, carrying burnt red Eternium busts of the famous inventor that stood on top of tall Eternium pillars of the same color.
Stock giggled.
"Take a good look. You'll be in charge of making those once you work for me. Make sure you get my hair right."
She shivered.
He cackled.
"Scared aren't you? Scared?"
How much blood had gone into them?
How had he created Eternium?
Even the sculptures in and of themselves made Alex uneasy.
The Mad Nobles had done the same thing with their likenesses, sticking them on top of Eternium pillars for everyone to see.
Alex bit her lip.
The haircut and the sculptures were affects of the Mad Nobles.
The square-framed cut appeared only in Paragons and Pilots. Page 5. Lord Zann the Hangman.
The Eternium sculptures were even more obscure. Alex couldn't remember where she'd seen a picture of them before.
And the burnt red color.
She opened her mouth, but her breath caught in her throat.
What was she going to do?
Accuse him of being a Mad Noble? She'd sound like one of the conspiracy theorists Jared and his dad hated.
Alex shook her head.
She had to win the battle and save their jobs. It was her only chance. If the answers to all these strange questions - the strange text messages, the burnt red Eternium, even Stock's haircut and mannerisms - existed, her best chance of finding them was inside the book-corridors.
She took another look at the pod and shivered.
Then she clenched her hand into a fist and delved deep into her battle-mind.
She couldn't get distracted.
When everything was in place, Stock beamed at the camera.
"Good evening, Plenty!"
He cursed and stopped.
"No. It will be morning when we broadcast."
"Good morning, Plenty! As you know, the Southern Robotics simulator tournament is just around the corner. Not only is our colony in dire need of some fun and relaxation after our recent challenges, but Southern Robotics is planning a humanity transforming announcement that day."
He gestured proudly behind him.
"I have here the pods we will be using for tournament. Can anyone tell me what's different about them?"
Bret squealed and fake giggled.
"The projectors!"
Each of the pods was mounted on top of a square projector, the latest in simulator technology, so new that not even Jared's pod had them. The projectors were able to display a vision of the battle between the two pods, allowing anyone watching to follow along in real-time and three-dimensional clarity.
Stock fake laughed back.
"Oh man, what an idiot! This guy thinks the projectors are the difference. Anyone can see the truth. The company has discovered how to produce new Eternium. We have so much of it I didn't know what to do with it! I ended up building simulator pods with it!"
Bret squeaked and interrupted him, his voice raised to an indignant whine.
"You told me to talk about the projectors! You told me!"
Stock's smile disappeared in a flash.
"Shut the fuck up! I told you to say the projectors because it's a joke! Are you kidding me? It was supposed to be funny! Shut up! Why the hell are you interrupting me?"
He pointed to a random worker.
"Get him out of here."
Without any hesitation, a worker sprinted onto the altar's spiral steps. He yanked Bret up and off his chair. The frog-like man squeaked and squealed.
"Let me go! Let me go!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, sir! Please! Have him let me go!"
Stock ignored him, turning back to the camera.
"Allen, make sure to edit that part out. Now, where was I...? OK. Start filming again."
The worker carried Bret high above his head as he left the room.
"Yes. Eternium has returned. We will be able to return to Old Earth again. Despite what my insane detractors are saying, surely, that's a good reason to celebrate!"
He stepped up towards the pods and pointed at Alex.
"I have with me here a member of the former Library Spire, a skilled ace pilot. Some of you might know her by her screen name – Every Blue. As a fun promotion before the tournament begins, the two of us are going to have a friendly match."
He turned to the screen and flexed his bicep.
"Not a lot of people have seen me fight, but I'm actually the greatest ace on all the colonies!"
Stock made a grand gesture and stepped inside his pod.
"Let the battle again!"
Alex anxiously walked towards her pod.
What would piloting on Eternium be like?
It wasn't what she practiced on.
The controls would be lighter and more fluid.
She'd have to change her sensitivity and get used to the feel. With the library on the line, Alex had no interest in adjusting. She just wanted to win.
She stepped into the pod. The burnt red Eternium door melodically clanged shut behind her.
She stared at the controls.
She shuddered.
Now that she was sitting here, she realized she didn't even want to touch the Eternium. Burnt red meant it was stained with blood.
Then she took another look.
It took her a moment before she understood what she was seeing.
The librarian burst into laughter.
The old Paragons were carved entirely out of a single block of Eternium.
Alex didn't know how that was possible, but it was repeated in all the stories.
When she first saw the gleaming red pod, she still didn't believe that Stock had created the whole thing from a single block. She thought perhaps the individual pieces had been built out of Eternium and then assembled just like a regular pod.
But she hadn't imagined this.
This was just fraudulent.
The controls were only gilded in Eternium.
It was just a thin layer of coating.
She could see glimpses of cheap arcade plastic beneath. She could see the seams where the Eternium layer had been glued to the knobs and dials.
It looked like a badly rushed job.
Alex picked at the edge of one of the thrusters were her nails.
The Eternium sang as she flicked it over and over again. It eventually got looser.
The librarian shook her head. She still hadn't read Mrs. T's book yet, but she knew that her mentor had diligently researched Southern Robotics's fraudulence.
This was just another example.
She took another look and shuddered again.
Burnt red, just like in the story.
She opened up the warmup screen and swore loudly.
The settings were horrible.
Only total beginners played on maximum sensitivity. The wild swings made it impossible to control your machine for delicate movements.
She idly wondered if Stock's was the same way. If he planned on fighting her with an imprecise machine, the battle would end very quickly.
The librarian started adjusting the dial as she moved the controls back and forth in her hand. They were even heavier than Jared's silver handles. The weight of the glue and Eternium had simply been added on top of the plastic.
Alex knew what she had to do.
She focused and touched the Eternium facade, ignoring the brief shiver she felt at touching the bloodstained metal.
The burnt red turned black, then flickered and became a soothing blue. The metal warmed at her touch and clung to her hands as she pulled it away. Tiny little coils flickered out to pluck every speck of glue off the familiar plastic.
The Eternium coalesced into a single block, which she set on the ground beneath her feet.
She'd have to stick it back on after she won. There was no need to offend Stock.
He would be furious if he knew she'd discovered his secret.
/> She didn't understand how he expected to keep it hidden for the tournament. It was obvious. The contestants would definitely notice.
Her hands reached out and gripped the freed controls precisely how they were meant to be held.
Alex grinned.
She instinctively inputted the proper sensitivity. Her fingers danced as she entered in the same combination she had thousands of times before, in arcades all across two different colonies.
She raised her gun and fired at the target. Then she fired twice more.
It was perfect.
Every shot was perfect.
The plastic controls felt like a part of her hand.
Alex and her Paragon were one.
Alex let out a wild laugh, and suddenly she was the little girl from the arcade again, the girl who was so happy to be playing on the simulator after saving up a week's worth of allowance money.
The librarian locked her settings into ready.
A fantastic feeling of iron determination spread out from somewhere near her stomach to every inch of her body.
She spoke the words.
"A woman pursues her greatest desire."
For just a moment, the Eternium cube at her feet flashed blue and warmed.
She briefly glanced down in surprise.
Then Stock started laughing, and Alex's attention jerked back to the screen.
Their two machines faced each other, ready to launch into battle.
The librarian groaned.
She'd made an awful mistake.
____
Stock cackled and pounded his cockpit.
The director's machine stood before her, painted in pearly white from head to toe. The design harked back to ancient Old Earth, a time from before even the Paragons. Alex dimly remembered Jared telling her about Stock's intense interest in Old Earth artifacts.
The Paragon wore a heroic plumed helmet. A set of incredibly beautiful wings hung from the back. They were built of thousands of interlocked thrusters and made to look like a bird's wings rather than that of a machine's.
His machine was stunning, but the design wasn't her concern.
She was worried about the weapons.
Stock was carrying a larger arsenal than an entire team could bring in a three-on-three competition.
"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!"
She'd been too distracted removing the Eternium bits to realize.
This wasn't a team battle.
This was a single combat match, and all weapon restrictions had been removed.
