by Skyler Grant
The city’s communication network came back online and I was immediately getting requests from my District Lords.
I was starting to envy Sylax’s tactic of ruling through fear. It meant less calls for assistance at all hours. One of the messages was about her. I’d turned Sylax over to Crystal who wanted to speak with me.
I needed to chat with her as well. I loaded up a transport with the Powered teens we’d just captured and directed it towards her district.
Crystal didn’t seem thrilled with the presents I’d brought her.
“Emma, have you noticed I still don’t have a single building set up? Where do you think I’m going to put a bunch of strays?” Crystal asked.
“It’s true. I live in a cave,” Sylax said. Since the loss of her Amplification crystal she’d changed fashion directions. Instead of red and black armor she now wore a form-fitting white bodysuit. I didn’t know where she’d gotten the thing. Also, after having her crystal removed she did seem, marginally, less bloodthirsty than before.
“I’ll build you a shack. You keep complaining that you need resources to rebuild and the scavengers can help,” I said.
Of all the District Lords none had been hit so hard in the struggle for the city as Crystal. The enemy destroyed every structure and slaughtered every unit—except for Sylax.
Sylax said, “It is going to take more than a shack. Let us have the use of one of Jade’s lieutenants and the assistance of one of your repair drones for forty-eight hours and we’ll do it.”
Jade and her people were telekinetics. One of her lieutenants would have strong powers.
I could visualize what Sylax had in mind. With the capacity to shift rubble about and my drones’ ability to do quick repair work, they could probably manage to restore access and function to a number of their underground facilities within that time-frame.
It suited my purposes. Although Crystal had tried to take the city instead of me, she had also been my closest ally when I was only a District Lord.
I didn’t blame her for having ambition, though I would if she turned out to hold a grudge.
“I’ll get you what you need,” I said.
Crystal directed a long look at Sylax, but grunted and nodded. “Fine. What about my clones?”
Crystal had also been seeking clones of her fallen creatures. We both held upgrade cores and our abilities came from the enhancement of others. Crystal’s focused on the drawing out of hybrid animalistic traits in others, or in enhancing the natural potential of beasts.
My manufacturing potential had been pushed to its limits. My growth vats were filled with the need to grow more growth vats and the production of Bioreactors and workers.
I’d been putting off Crystal’s request, but perhaps it was time to reconsider that. With something to work with she could start bringing her district back online and even help others.
“If your clones were a decent design in the first place you’d still have a building standing. I’ll give you a growth vat cycle in four hours,” I said.
“Capacity?” Crystal asked, turning all business.
I sent her over the specifications and she keyed in her request.
I thought she’d ask for one of her dragon hybrids. A young one would synthesize well in that time, but instead she wanted insects.
I hadn’t even known she had these, I didn’t see them in the fight for the city.
Sylax was peeking over her shoulder. “You are not bringing back those damned bugs.”
“I liked them,” Crystal said.
“They were creepy. They had a hive mind, and they sang, and wiping them out was one of the few good things I’ve ever done,” Sylax said.
“They are incredibly efficient, versatile, and evolve quickly. Emma, I know what I’m doing. If you want to get this place back in working order, give me my bugs,” Crystal said.
Crystal had also brought Sylax into the world. Crystal excelled in making scary monsters.
Still, she was one of my District Lords. This is what I expected from her now, to do what she was good at.
I loaded the biological parameters she specified into the queue.
“You’re all set,” I said.
Now it was time to approach Jade.
150
Jade’s entire demeanor had changed since I’d taken the city and overthrown Sylax. I could worry that she was being compelled, but as the ruler of the city I’d be able to see if another District Lord had conquered her.
Her district had once been defined by its ruins. She and her lieutenants had torn buildings apart without a care. They’d reveled in the destruction and saw no need to put any of it right.
That had changed. The buildings now were crude, little more than slabs of stone propped up against each other, but they were serviceable. There were even rows of telekinetically tilled ground for farms, although so far nothing grew.
I’d signaled ahead that I’d be arriving in one of my mechanical science drones.
“Emma, are you here about my request?” Jade asked.
I was there about another request entirely, but given that I wanted something from her I’d need to listen.
I said, “You want to set up more advanced systems in your structures. Lights, sewage, comms. It’s about time you stopped living in your own filth. I can schedule a repair drone to visit and assist.”
“No drone. I want my people taught,” Jade said.
This was different. That was also more difficult, if time was a factor, and time was always a factor.
“I’ll send a drone, but I’ll also provide instruction on what they are doing and why, for your people to review,” I said.
Jade considered that for a moment. “That will do. Weird, isn’t it? Trying to put together the stuff you’ve broken and not knowing how. I guess you know that better than anyone. How can you hope to fix the world, when you can’t even fix this city?”
I wasn’t looking for her opinion. I was doing my utmost, but I only had so many drones.
“Crystal needs one of your people for two days. I think she is hoping to dig out some of her basement facilities.”
“Of course. She can have three. Why didn’t she come to me directly? I’ve had them just sitting around,” Jade said.
That wasn’t hard to answer. I knew exactly why Crystal hadn’t asked directly, she didn’t trust Jade. None of the District Lords really trusted each other, and I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t trust them either.
I hadn’t realized quite how bad it all was with all these smaller problems. I’d been so focused on getting the Central District up and running, and acquiring supplies for the entire city, I hadn’t been paying enough attention to the needs of the individual districts. Perhaps letting some easy fixes sit idle where I could be helping. It was worth investigating, at least.
I transferred into a biological body, called Heloise, before I sought out my next District Lord. Heloise was one of my combat model drones who I’d made exceptionally durable. I’d need that just talking to Tara.
Tara was a former member of the Righteous and she’d helped us out greatly in the past. Most recently, she had torn the Amplification crystal out of Sylax with the aid of a source orb—then both had wound up fusing into her body and magnifying her power-dampening abilities enormously.
It gave me a headache just to get near her, and it was best not to mention what a constant inconvenience her district’s systems were to the city.
I’d renamed her Blank befitting her new, greater powers. Making her a District Lord seemed clever at the time. In retrospect it was maybe one of my more questionable decisions and I had to find a way to deal with that.
At least her district was beautiful. Where the others were ruins, both hers and Hot Stuff’s had been remade by the last remnants of the city’s original power supplies to match their personality.
Towering white buildings adorned with balconies overlooked stone pathways winding through fields of flowers. Pretty, yet somehow a bit cold, it sui
ted her.
“You could do with a bit less frowning,” Blank said, as she motioned Heloise into her penthouse office. “But then I guess smiling doesn’t really work for you either.”
Great, I was being analyzed.
“You seem to be settling in,” I said.
“I’m doing what I can. We’re short of people. You know that,” Blank said.
We were short of everything.
“Is that a we as in all of us together, or are you going all Ophelia on me?” I asked.
Blank gave a tiny smile. “Being an abomination suits me Emma, more than I ever thought it would. Ophelia was weak, I’m not.”
For a time Ophelia had housed three personalities in her head: The source orb, a version of me named Amy, and Ophelia herself. To my knowledge Blank should only have two lurking around in her own skull.
“You could describe Ophelia as that when she first bonded with the orb. Why is that?” I asked.
Blank turned her gaze out the window and her lips pursed. “How to define it? Source orbs have the potential to put the world back as it was. To bond one together in a host with a power crystal will ultimately corrupt it. Rob it of that power.”
That fitted with what I knew about source orbs. They were greatly prized by the Righteous. No other faction seemed to value them except for whatever the Righteous might trade for them.
“We could figure out how to extract it, if you like. Leave you with just the Amplification crystal,” I said.
“No, I like what I am and you’ll not change it,” Blank said.
“Do you need anything then? Most of the other Lords are full of requests.”.
“I need lieutenants,” Blank said.
Didn’t everybody? With the toll the war had taken, we were critically short of the unpowered.
Manufacturing people suitable for that process was proving difficult. There had been a few successes at granting them abilities, but the transmission rates were far lower than with the general population.
“I’ll see what I can do. While I realize the life of the isolated hermit well suits your social ability, would you care to take a walk with me? I want to talk with Flicker,” I said.
Talking to Flicker was one thing Blank proved good for.
151
Flicker’s district was badly out of sync with our reality. I’d gotten there in the past with the use of a jump drive and through some skillful reprogramming of the teleportation gates.
With Blank none of that was necessary. I sent notice of our arrival and we made our way to the boundary of her district.
Flicker met us there. A shimmer of barely sensed presence solidified into a girl as Blank drew near. Flicker looked to be in her late teens, unkempt and with wild hair.
Power crystals were a mixed blessing to most that got them. Flicker was more unfortunate. Hers tore apart Flicker’s dimensional stability.
I’d had a drone bring a crate of orange soda. She was obsessed with the stuff.
I’d gathered she didn’t exactly eat or drink in her own dimension.
“Hi, Flicker. I’m just going around to all the District Lords and seeing if there is anything I can help them with. Do you have everything you need? Well, I mean besides a fashion consultant and several high-powered showers with hot water?” I asked.
“C43L18K25,” Flicker said, enunciating each letter and number between lousy slurps of soda.
It wasn’t quite gibberish. We’d been working to bring her district more in tune with the city. If we could master Flicker’s dimensional shifting, it might provide a powerful level of defense. As it was now, for most practical purposes it was almost like being short a district.
She could deploy wire golems into the real world, but her forces were much weaker here than in her host dimension.
The sequence she provided was a calibration. Her space was always shifting and I was still working on determining a consistent pattern to it.
I keyed in the changes and behind her buildings flicked into a more solid view.
Then they exploded.
Flicker doubled over, crying out in pain.
What was wrong?
The timing was no coincidence. Was it a problem with the sequence? My systems?
I tried to turn off the dimensional adapter and it ignored the shut-down sequence. No, not ignored—it wasn’t receiving it. It was out of phase with me and it shouldn’t have been.
That was a clue as to what was going on. Any changes should be happening purely on her side. If my own dimensional equipment was phasing, it meant I was getting feedback of some kind.
It had to be a matter of resonance. The dimensional shifts were having an impact on each other and sending a dimensional wave back and forth between them.
For anyone else this might have been catastrophic. Fortunately I’m brilliant—and I had just charged up the main reactor. I keyed up a dimensional gate and opened it into Flicker’s dimension creating a third harmonic.
Her screeching continued for a few long moments and then stopped.
Flicker looked behind her, glared at my drone, and drank another soda.
It was good to be helpful.
This actually was good news. I was narrowing in on what made her dimension unique. Being able to build a harmonic like this could be just the tool to allow easy traverse between them.
“Why does something explode every time you try to be helpful?” Blank asked.
“Explosions and SCIENCE go together. A woman of your limited understanding will never understand that,” I said.
Blank shrugged. “It keeps things interesting. But blow up something in my district and I’ll be cross.”
I had no intention of blowing up anything in her district. Already, I was more interested in how the other newest district of the city was doing.
Bronze and Obsidian were the main building materials of Hot Stuff’s district. The city had shaped itself partly around her personality and partly around her abilities.
The result was an absurd number of bronze erotic sculptures, flowing streams of magma, and opulent flame-retardant palaces.
“Hey bosslady,” Hot Stuff said, when I arrived to meet her. This time my drone was one with the Fire Matrix built in and temperature-resistance upgrades as well.
Hot Stuff had acquired the ability to toggle her fires off and on, and right now they were off. It let her wear mundane clothing. Otherwise even the fire-resistant stuff tended to burn away after no more than a few hours.
There was an easel set up and a selection of oil paints.
“You’ve taken up art? I didn’t think you were that complex,” I said.
Hot Stuff grinned. “I didn’t either. I’m not very good, but I’m having fun failing.”
“How have you been? Have the Wolves been giving you any problems?”
Of all the districts hers had the highest surviving population after the battles, but they were mostly the forces of James Wolf, who had died at Sylax’s hand.
“Oh, the Wolves are dead. Just Flames now. We only lost about forty percent in the process, most were smart enough to learn to play,” Hot Stuff said.
That wasn’t bad, relatively speaking. Of those actually willing to share in her power, about one third died receiving it.
“Enough to have them start aiding on operations? We could use some heavy-hitters scavenging for supplies,” I said.
Hot Stuff glanced over and tapped her fingers upon her thigh for a few moments. “That means ones that I trust not to go feral and destroy whatever it is you’re raiding. Their discipline is kind of shot with the Big Dog dead, but I can get you a few that I think will hold it together.”
That would do. I wished I could use her for more. Hot Stuff could possibly be the perfect solution to our power problems, but although she burned intensely it was still on far too limited a scale.
Before I could dwell on that too much I was getting an alert notification from one of my remote teams. It was going after a rumored crystal refinery, and t
hey were meeting some serious resistance.
“Care to do some killing?” I asked.
“Hell yeah, I want to do some killing,” Hot Stuff said.
Making her a District Lord was something I had zero regrets about.
152
I didn’t want to keep relying on the city’s teleportation gates. The power expenditure was huge and I’d much rather save that energy for any city-threatening emergency.
Still, I didn’t want to lose a whole team either. I gathered a force of two dozen combat drones in heavy battle armor. Hot Stuff joined us with three of her lieutenants and we stepped through.
It was an inferno. Our portal had opened into a spray of fuel and the Flames triggered it at once. While the fire was of no danger to them, my combat drones were another matter—including myself.
At least I knew who our enemy had to be. With this level of preparation and prediction it meant King Boreas and his forces. We must have taken them by surprise the first time and they rewound.
The team we were coming to rescue was already down. Now that we were close I could sense that properly. All of my drones had regenerative healing abilities, I insisted on it, but they didn’t have temperature resistance.
I signaled them to get clear as best they could and turned to Hot Stuff.
“Give me a full burn,” I said.
“Real party huh,” Hot Stuff said, stepping forward as the fiery aura sprang up around her. Ashy remnants of clothing blew away in the wind, fortunately she wasn’t shy.
In the past, Hot Stuff had burned bright at full power even before becoming a District Lord. Now?
Now it was overpowering.
It took around half an hour for my drone to heal into a state where I could properly observe the surroundings. Whatever was here had been swept clean, the ground blasted into glass.
Hot Stuff disabled her flames and reached down to help me up. “Welcome back, bosslady.”
Only two of the drones had survived, and they weren’t healing as fast as the one I’d selected. Of the enemy there were only a few badly charred skeletal remains.