The City of Monsters

by Matthew McCollum

  “Mine next,” Ling said, grabbing a long and thin box. Akane opened it, and found a rather elegant silver necklace. Just the chain, though. There was a place to add a pendant, but she didn't have anything.

  “Thanks,” Akane said honestly. She wasn't really sure when she would have a chance to use it, but she liked it. She carefully packed it away again, and placed it with the cell phone.

  The rest passed by in a but of a blur. Laura's present turned out to be a pendant to go with the necklace. It was a simple onyx stone, Akane's birthstone. Lizzy cheerfully gave her The Art of War—in Japanese, of course—all the while rambling on about how it had managed to capture the intent and feel of the original Chinese. Her rambling was also in Japanese, so everyone else just looked politely confused.

  Lily gave her a black gi, and Akane vaguely remembered mentioning to her months ago that she only had white ones. Lily's memory could be scary at times.

  Adam, on the other hand, gave her a sharpening set. It was very high quality, she had to admit, but she had a billion of the things. She just smiled, thanked him, and moved on.

  Flynn gave her a pair of absolutely beautiful earrings, each with three onyx stones inscribed with the kanji of her name. She couldn't resist, so she put them on right away, earning murmurs of approval from everyone else. She hugged him, but withdrew quickly when she realized what she was doing.

  Derek was last. “Here,” he said, handing her a lightweight bag. Akane frowned. Normally, he gave her knives and other practical things, but this didn't feel like that. She opened it up gingerly.

  It was a panther.

  A plush panther, that was.

  Adam raised his eyebrow. “A stuffed animal? Really?”

  But Akane smiled. Panthers were her favorite. He really did know her perfectly.

  “Thank you so much,” she said, hugging him. “I love it.”

  Lily slid off the bed. “Now, it's time for cake!”

  Chapter 28: OBLITUS

  SIMON

  Simon blinked. “Oh hell, we forgot Akane's birthday!”

  Seena turned and looked at him from where she lay on his roommate's bed. The lower bed, that was. He had two roommates, and he had gotten the single, while they were stuck with the bunks. “Were we even invited to that? You're still not exactly her favorite person.”

  Simon tossed his laptop onto his pillow and rubbed his hair back. “Yeah, we were invited. Derek made me promise to not do anything.” He shrugged. “It was mostly to get you there.”

  Jelena, also on the lower bunk, looked up from where her head lay on a very embarrassed Yolanda's lap. “Which one is Akane again? The angry Japanese giant?”

  Ugh. Her. “No, that was Umeko. Although she goes by Konoko ever since she became a warlord...” Simon rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Anyway, Akane is Derek's... something.” He frowned. “You've met her, right? The quiet girl with the sword.”

  Jelena ran her hands through her white-and-black streaked hair and frowned. “...no. No, not that I remember.”

  “It was when Derek saved us from that grue,” Delphie said. “She was the one carrying the strobe light.”

  Jelena snorted and tapped her daygoggles. “Well, no wonder I don't remember. The light knocked me out. I lost about six hours.”

  Delphie, sitting on the upper bunk, just continued laying on her back, petting a small mouse. “I seem to remember you forcing me to track him down so you could 'thank him properly.' She was the girl standing next to him when you took off your top.”

  “Ohh...” Jelena cooed. “That's right. So it's her birthday?”

  “Yeah. It's just seven floors down. But if we go now, we'd be crashing the party.”

  Simon saw her doing some quick math in her head. “Wait, she's actually on the sixth floor? I thought it was just storage.”

  “That's just room sixty-six,” Yolanda said quietly. “For obvious reasons.”

  Jelena snuggled a little deeper into Yolanda's lap, making herself more comfortable. Yolanda, on the other hand, just started blushing again. “I can understand that. Honestly, I think we're lucky we even got floor thirteen at all.”

  Delphie let her mouse go, and it scurried down the bedpost and out the open door. “What floor are you guys on, again?”

  Jelena opened her eyes, annoyed. “You were just up there earlier.”

  “I know, but I wasn't really paying attention to the floor number.”

  “Twenty-nine. Why?”

  “Just curious. I might want to visit or whatever.”

  Simon stretched his legs out over the edge of the bed a bit and leaned back against the wall. “What about you, Delphie? What floor are you and Zusa on?”

  “Fourteen.” She leaped down from the bunk, not even bothering with the rudimentary ladder. “Which reminds me, I need to get back. Zuzu is getting back from a mission, and needed help with homework.”

  “Well, okay,” Simon said as she walked out. “Don't be a stranger.”

  No one else said anything for a few minutes. Seena had her laptop, Yolanda her book, and Jelena was practically asleep already.

  Simon shrugged, retrieved his own computer, and logged onto Fundie.

  Even just glancing at a few blogs made it clear that things were deteriorating. The cultures were fighting, with civil wars popping up everywhere. The warlords were struggling to keep things under control, but they were only having limited luck.

  Simon wasn't a soldier, and he had no interest in becoming one. But even he could tell that the more the cultures fractured, the easier time the screamers would have. This was all just falling apart too well to be completely natural.

  MC and others were cruising the internet as well, of course, trying to put out the worst fires, urging calm and composure instead of panic, but it wasn't helping much. There were entire message boards dedicated to nothing but freaking out over the attacks.

  It was all way too coordinated. Maybe it was just a couple trolls inciting things for kicks. Or maybe there really was someone behind it all. He was beginning to believe in that ridiculous “Composer” meme, some super-zombie controller acting behind the scenes.

  A blank chat window popped up.

  Simon frowned. As the newest sibriex, getting messages from unknown demons was something he was used to. But this wasn't that. The window was completely empty, which shouldn't happen. Normally, it only popped up after someone messaged him. Not only that, but the spot where the name and avatar of the other person would normally be was blank.

  Then a message appeared.

 

  “Nine Hells!” he spat vehemently. The girls all looked up, even Jelena, but he just smiled and waved away their worries. They shrugged and went back to what they were doing.

  He had seen that phrase before, and suddenly knew exactly who was talking to him. He should have known from the start. No one else was that unnecessarily mysterious.

  he typed back carefully, making sure to get the capitalization right. She was picky about that.

  appeared next.

  He took a deep breath and typed the last code phrase.

  Even through the impersonal nature of text, he could still feel her grinning.

  He gulped before replying.

  He normally didn't bother with the honorifics. It was one of the reasons he had become a sibriex in the first place. They didn't care about any of those stupid titles. It was a place he could do his work without worrying about offending anyone.

  But the Queen of Loveless, Matron of Night's Northern Winter, cared. And offending a fey was never, ever a good idea. It was the middle of autumn, and day at that. Normally the fey didn't stray out of their prescribed domains, but more and more he was finding that to be less than accurate propaganda.

  she messaged back mockingly.

  he
typed back angrily.

 

  Simon's heart nearly froze in his chest. He knew where this was going.

 

  He bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.

 

 

 

 

  she said.

  Simon took a deep breath, wiped the blood off his lip, and typed again.

 

 

  There was a pause, and Simon knew she was chuckling to herself.

  He glanced across the room to Seena, still typing away at her own laptop.

  Nine Hells, what could she have been thinking, dealing with a fey? If he hadn't managed to convince Loveless to buy the egg, Seena's daughter would be running around town, filled to the gills with more toys than the Mother Monster herself.

  But she was Simon's sister. Protecting her was his job.

 

 

  Oh shit.

  The Helix was a record of the toy maker experiments, as well as the buffs and cosmos of members. Every culture had one, usually only noting the more interesting creations they utilized. But more toy-centric cultures, like the sibriex, had extremely detailed records, both of the toys we had and the many experiments we had done. It wouldn't be an understatement to call them state secrets. If the Glasyans or Clarke got their hands on it, the sibriex would be at a major disadvantage.

 

  Simon didn't have a choice.

 

 

 

 

  The chat window disappeared, even though normally he would have to specifically cancel it out.

  He sighed. Wonderful. What exactly had he gotten himself into this time?

  A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door, even though it was already open a crack. “Hello?” a gruff voice called. “Everyone decent?”

  “Yeah,” Simon said, a little tiredly. “C'mon in.”

  His roommates, Steve and Kevin walked in. Steve smiled at the girls. “Hello, all.”

  Steve was a big black baseline with light brown skin and a shiny shaved head. He had a bit of fat around his belly, but mostly his size was the result of big bones and strong muscles. He was always smiling, and had a round face well-suited to it.

  Kevin frowned a little at the girls before climbing up onto his bunk and pulling out his laptop. He was a bit harder to read. He was a small South-American man, also baseline, and he didn't talk much. But his sharp black eyes missed nothing, and when he did speak he did so with a tongue as sharp as a knife.

  Seena looked up from her own laptop. “Hey there. Where were you guys?”

  Steve shrugged. “Had a few jobs to do.” He a deep, gruff voice that didn't match his personality at all. He had mentioned when he got drunk a few days ago that it scared the kids at his orphanage. “And Kevin tagged along as my bodyguard.”

  Simon raised an eyebrow. “Wait, I thought you were out of ammo?”

  Kevin frowned from his bunk. “I was. Went out with him to get more. He's just being weird.” He turned back to his laptop. “Didn't find good prices, though. Just got a box for my pistol.”

  That got Yolanda's attention. “What do you use?”

  “Tiamat Raaze 4.4 Special.”

  “Oh.” She scrunched up her face into an adorable frown. “I don't think I've heard of that one. I mean, I've heard of the Raaze, but not the Special.”

  “Yeah, no one has,” he said. “That crazy lace who thinks she's a dragon—”

  “Gonna have to be more specific,” Jelena said without even opening her eyes.

  Kevin continued as if she hadn't spoken. “She only made them on special order.” He unholstered it and dangled it down from his bunk. Yolanda took it carefully. “I'm sure you can see why.”

  “Interesting design,” Yolanda said as she turned the strange weapon over in her hands. It was built like a revolver, but it had five stationary barrels, arranged around a solid center.

  Simon leaned forward to get a closer look. “How many shots do you get out of that thing?”

  Kevin chuckled. “Just one. But if you use armor-piercing bullets, you can kill a warlord with that one shot. If you're lucky.”

  Simon whistled as Yolanda passed the weapon back up. “Now that's a hand cannon.”

  Jelena scrunched up her face, though she still didn't open her eyes or move from Yolanda's lap. “What's Pam's, again?”

  “Standard Necessarian Saint Jude,” Yolanda said. “Though she said she also has a Black Knight ZF740 that she never uses.”

  Simon bit his lip. “740... isn't that the one with the manufacturing flaw? Explodes in your hands?”

  “750,” she said. “But you can understand why she leaves it at home.”

  “Let's switch to a less violent topic,” Steve suggested. “What have you guys been up to all day?”

  Yolanda shrugged. “Just reading. It's a Saturday. Not much else to do.”

  “We should probably get a present for Akane at some point,” Seena said, though she sounded too lazy to actually get up and do it.

  “I'll go out later and buy a sharpening set.”

  Seena turned and glared at Simon. “Are you an idiot? She has a billion of those. We need something more unique.”

  He threw up his hands. “Well, I don't know. What else is there? We're not exactly rolling in cash, you know.”

  She sighed. “It doesn't have to be big. Something small and easy would work just as well.”

  Steve blinked. “Huh. That reminds me.” He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a rolled-up small white envelope, like the kind people used for letters, and handed it to Simon. “Sorry about that. Courier office gave it to me about an hour ago, and it slipped my mind.”

  Other than “Simon Lancaster” written across the front in delicate script, the envelope was unmarked and still sealed. There was something inside, but Simon couldn't quite tell what. It definitely wasn't a letter, though. He opened it up and...

  Pulled out a flash drive. The kind that you plugged into a USB port.

  Steve raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn't plug that into any computer you want to keep. Flash drives from anonymous sources—”

  “It's fine,” Simon said, swallowing his anxiety and willing his heartbeat to slow back to a normal pace. “I know who sent it.”

  Chapter 29: MALEFICUS

  LAURA

  “Silver and gold, where are they?” Laura muttered, pacing in front of the dorm. The room had quickly proven too claustrophobic with eight people.

  Derek leaned against the side of the building nonchalantly. “Calm down, Laura. They'll be here soon enough. They're only a few minutes late.”

  The rest of the group was mostly clustered around Akane, chattering about how great her new earrings and necklace
looked. She hadn't removed them since she got them three hours ago. Lizzy was joking that she'd never take them off; Laura touched her own necklace, with the diamond ring hanging from it.

  Some things you just wanted with you at all times.

  “Happy birthday, Akane!”

  And some things you wanted as far away as possible.

  Derek jumped. “Mom! Dad! You're early!”

  Adam frowned. “I thought you said your dad was dead?”

  Derek turned red as a beet and kept his mouth firmly closed.

  “That's my dad,” Laura said. “Unfortunately.”

  Laura's father, Victor Medina, was only a few inches taller than her. Like her, he had a very strong European cast to his face—strong bones, pale skin, and jet-black hair, including a short goatee. But while Laura could barely even remember the last time she had honestly smiled, he always had a goofy grin on his face, like nothing was wrong in the world.

  “It's okay,” he said, reaching forward and ruffling Derek's hair. “I think it's cute.”

  Derek's mother, Maria Huntsman, chuckled. The Italian woman didn't look much like her son; she had brown hair and matching eyes, and where he had whip-thin muscles and a strong frame, she was round and full, like a cinnamon bun. Emphasis on the full.

  “Don't tease them,” she said, elbowing Laura's father in the ribs. “This is Akane's day.” She scuttled over to Akane and handed her a squarish bag filled with tissue paper. “Here, this is for you.”

  Akane seemed a little surprised, despite the fact that Derek and Laura had told her this was coming. She dug around for a moment before pulling out a pair of large fabric bands, probably designed to be strapped on her upper arms. Each band had six knives held carefully in place with small buttons; they could likely be pulled off quickly and easily.

  The knives themselves were double-bladed, making them dangerous to handle, and they were clearly balanced for throwing. These were no-nonsense weapons, with no ornamentation of any kind.

  “Nice,” Akane whispered, gazing at the gift in wonder.

  “Very nice,” Derek added. “How much did those cost?”

  Laura's father laughed. “Oh, not too much, just—” He stopped, frowning.