Submantle- The Alpha Key

by Patrick Lane

  Dysuss had relayed his strategy to the fool, feeling his own hands involuntarily clenching into fists as he watched him scratch away with his stylus. Golworth’s suggestions, which were many, made it clear he’d received next to no military training. Dysuss had felt the Rangers slipping between fingers with every correction from Golworth’s mouth.

  Even now, after all that had gone wrong with the attempted capture of the Rangers both here and at the docks he looked down at the two bodies before him , he couldn’t help but feel a nagging sense of disgust at everything that Golworth embodied.

  “Stop,” Dysuss ordered as the soldiers dragged the bodies onto the stretchers. “What is the status of these two men?”

  “Both alive sir.” The Still—warrior, seems to have stayed clear of the ice. There are some bruises and scratches, and he is covered in some kind of stinking filth, but nothing serious. The other has two broken legs, broken ribs and hasn’t yet regained consciousness.”

  Dysuss stared at the two men. The Stillness should have made short work of the Rangers. When he’d asked the surviving soldiers about the skirmish, it had been clear that Golworth had kept the soldier in check. The fool had been attempting to capture them even after that valence hyena had torn through his men like paper dolls.

  Golworth’s cowl was pushed back on his head and he presented a tempting target for Dysuss’s metal shod boot. He pulled back for a kick but stopped when he noticed the earpiece wrapped around the Minder’s ear. It resembled the new communication devices that had recently become available to his men.

  As Dysuss leaned closer he could see that, unlike theirs, the Minder’s piece was fitted with a dozen tubes that were imbedded into his skull.

  Dripvein’s pulse surged, his mind almost fracturing as he recognized a dangerous opportunity. This was the device that connected Golworth to the Stillness.

  He dropped to a knee, closed his eyes and focused his concentration on the Minder. With his senses quietened, he slowed his breathing and drifted into a kind of trance. His mind swam towards the fragment of the Quantum that had been inserted into his memories by the machines of the Monitors years ago. He drifted past that nagging motivation to do the Quantum’s will, on through to the understanding of the will and the agreement his logical mind made to see the Quantum’s work completed. This brought him to the knowledge of ancient technology and understanding of the universe that had been placed in his memory.

  As indicated by the glyphs lining the side of his face, Dysuss had been granted fourteen quadrants of Mergence from a possible forty-seven for complete integration with the Quantum. The Minder had possessed eighteen and each Monitor no less than twenty-six.

  Dysuss pushed these thoughts to the side and as he focused on the earpiece a plan began to formulate in his mind.

  “Bind the Stillness and his Minder, bind them well,” he ordered, without fully understanding the reasons why. His need was controlling him now, his logic slowly getting buried.

  The soldiers rushed to do his bidding, and in moments the Minder had been bound and the Stillness encased in thermosilk rope.

  Dysuss opened his eyes and crouched atop the Minder as he felt the Quantum’s knowledge guide his hands towards the man’s face. He could sense that the second part of the Stillness’s control interface resided within Golworth’s eye so he made no effort to resist as the fingertip of his gauntleted hand penetrated the man’s socket, plucking the orb from his head.

  This was enough to wake both of the prone men, eliciting cries of rage and pain. He was forced to bury a knee into Golworth’s throat as the man struggled to free himself.

  He had mere seconds to complete the next sequence or the Stillness could die.

  “Secure him!” he yelled, pointing at the Stillness who was jack-knifing his body in an attempt to protect his Minder.

  Soldiers piled onto the flailing man as Dysuss dug his fingers around the minder’s earpiece.

  “No, Dripvein, please, no,” Golworth choked, his one good eye dilating in terror.

  In his haze Dysuss ignored the pleas, even as he realized the man had said his name correctly for the first time. With a sharp rip he tore the earpiece from his head. A whimpering sob was all that Golworth could muster before falling back and blubbering incoherently.

  Dysuss examined the tendrils hanging from the device and knew it would be impossible for Golworth to survive more than an hour without a stasis chamber, considering the trauma incurred by the removal. He flipped the crescent shaped earpiece in his hand and depressed three buttons along its ridge. At once the tendrils retracted inside. In the same moment, he felt the eyeball, cupped in the palm of his other hand, pulse. The liquid metal hidden inside the eye ejected itself from the orb and reformed, flattening itself into a disc.

  Feeling like a passenger in an unwelcome dream, Dysuss held the disc to his own eye and set the crescent around his ear as he depressed the buttons once more. Power surged though him, and a pain, a dreadful pain that would have brought him to his knees if he weren’t already there. Blackness clawed in around him, threatening to overwhelm his senses.

  He knew what was happening but didn’t know how he knew; that was so often the case when one delved into the Mergence.

  The disc liquefied again and entered his eye, penetrating its wall to access the optic nerve. He could feel the tendrils from the earpiece searing into the side of his head, accompanied by the smell of burning meat— the device never to be removed without serious consequences.

  The pain suddenly ceased and he became aware of another presence in his mind—the Stillness. The device transmitted a readout of the man’s battle readiness directly onto his optic nerve, and it was now displayed at the edge of his vision. The earpiece somehow transmitted the physiological functions of the Stillness, piggybacking on Dysuss’s own senses.

  Dysuss forced himself to his feet only to be dropped once again as a remnant Golworth’s memory, or the man’s Mergence, he couldn’t tell which, intruded on his thoughts, as if it had somehow been trapped inside the tendrils of the earpiece.

  He knew at once why the Monitors wanted the Keys. Actually, that wasn’t quite correct, something was missing in the information he was receiving. It wasn't entirely clear, but he knew that Hadron Drake—a man, a machine, or something in between—wanted the Keys.

  Dysuss struggled with his sanity as he realized the scale of their plans.

  A vision of the Gears flashed into his mind along with their true purpose. They had been designed as a safeguard to raise the Bastion Helixes to the surface of the earth in the event of a cataclysmic seismic event. The Monitors needed the Keys to the machine rooms, all of them, so they could set into motion a plan that would culminate in the raising of the thirty-two bastion Helixes into the world of their topsider ancestors.

  But why?

  The Mergence took hold of Dysuss once more and he allowed himself to be taken. He felt himself agreeing with their plan as various logical components forced themselves into place in his mind.

  Good, I now have something to work with, he thought as his heart slowed and his mind cleared.

  He took a few deep breaths and attempted to rise again, this time successfully.

  The Stillness stopped struggling at once. Gathering his senses, he looked around the courtyard. The work had ceased and his men were staring at him with something akin to horrified awe on their faces. Dysuss didn’t care.

  “Clear the courtyard,” he growled.

  No one moved.

  “Now!” he roared, sending his men into a kind of panicked efficiency, none eager to be the focus of his wrath.

  He pulled a knife from his hip and energized its cutting edge, feeling the Link as he sliced through the Stillness’s bindings. The man was on his feet in an instant, standing to attention in front of Dysuss. His heart-rate was slightly elevated but other than that the feedback from the earpiece indicated that the Stillness was intact and ready for action.

  Dysuss checked the display furthe
r and discovered that Golworth had locked down every combat function the Stillness possessed with the exception of the vortex-drill. Flicking his eye across the display he unlocked every restriction and safeguard that had been limiting the Stillness.

  “Remove your helmet please,” Dysuss ordered, having yet not seen the man’s face.

  The soldier complied, removing the filth-covered headgear to reveal a shock of vibrant red hair. Dysuss smiled as he evaluated the man. The augmentation to Stillness would have given him extra size and density, yet despite this there was no doubting this man’s origin.

  “Name and origin?” Dysuss asked for confirmation, stepping closer to stand eye-to-eye.

  “Conrad Crankston. Citadel City, Rocktower Helix.”

  It began deep inside Dysuss Dripvein’s chest, a sensation he hadn’t felt in months. His body began to rock as amusement coursed through him.

  How fortunes change.

  He fought the urge to laugh out loud as he crossed the courtyard from where the soldiers had dragged the bodies. With just a brief search he found what he was looking for and plucked it from the ground. He returned to the Stillness, who was still standing over his previous minder. Conrad’s face was an unreadable mask as he watched Golworth twitching in agony.

  “I think it best if we take care of him and put him out of his misery,” Dysuss said.

  The Stillness reached over his shoulder for his sword.

  “No,” said Dysuss, before the man’s hand reached its pommel. He held out Golworth’s stylus and added, “Dispatch of him with this.”

  The Stillness hesitated for the briefest of moments, and Dysuss swore he could see the beginnings of a smile on the man’s face as he gripped the stylus and leaned over his old minder.

  Then the real screams began.

  Nothing means anything, Dysuss thought as he watched.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “It’s about time,” Scotty said as Nifty and Lulu entered the docks.

  Cordon’s Break was an abandoned repair yard on the fourth ring of Ragnatex, most of its habitable buildings covered in vegetation as the forest fought for ownership. The few settlers that lived there managed to eke out a living repairing the most disreputable of disreputable mantle vessels.

  The old Ranger was accompanied by Belle. The short, stout woman wore full battle garb, complete with a power pick and helmet. They were joined by Belle’s mount Gouge, a pushsnout, and Lulu’s mount Scale, a rip-tailed pangolin.

  “Let’s not waste any time with a drawn out goodbye,” Belle ordered, rather severely, as they stopped on the ramps between trains. “That dreadnaught didn’t arrive at Textermire by accident. We need to move.”

  As Nifty turned to thank Tatum, he was faced with nothing—the great beast had already left. No goodbye. No nothing.

  Typical. He thought to himself.

  “She left a mile back, I think,” Lulu said as she dismounted Buttar, bowing briefly to the haughty beast before crossing to her own mount. The rip-tail mewled excitedly, its broad-bladed tail kicking-up a terrible commotion as it wagged furiously.

  Still looking exhausted, Scotty nodded to Nifty as they neared. “Casualties?” he asked, no doubt seeing something in the younger Ranger’s eyes as he came closer.

  “Dart,” he replied, her death replaying in his mind, trapping a lump in his throat. He felt like punching something.

  “Blaze it, lad,” Scotty replied, shaking his head. “She was a good girl, even for all her keenness with the dusting.”

  With only the briefest of goodbyes, culminating in a long and thoughtful look from Lulu, they boarded their respective delve-trains. Protocol dictated they travel together back to Rocktower for security reasons, and both trains remained in tight formation as they exited the docks back into the mantle proper.

  Scotty joined Nifty in the cockpit as he guided the train out. “I’m torn whether to reprimand you for not staying with the train or congratulate you on kicking up such a whip wasp’s nest of enemy activity,” he began, already sounding exhausted.

  Nifty shrugged, focusing on the viewer, searching for signs of the dreadnaught. He had anticipated that Scotty would not be happy and he chose take his lashing in silence.

  “These greenbacks Belle told me about—were they the ones we saw at the Gears?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we should be cautious and alert Rocktower engineering that our vessel is being tracked somehow,” Scotty said. “Plot our course accordingly, but stay close to Belle’s train; she’s the freshest of us all. Do you need any rest or can you manage this by yourself?”

  Nifty, somewhat surprised by the question, just shook his head. He could manage for at least another day or more.

  “The well-bed didn’t quite take—I feel like a scrub brush with no soap, not quite up to the task of facing the council. I need my wits about me by the time we reach home.”

  “Sorry,” Nifty sighed. “I take full responsibility for all of this. I will file a report to that effect once we reach Rocktower.”

  “Yes, you will,” Scotty said, letting out a sigh as he reached up to pull at one side of his silvered mustache. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. These greenbacks would have attacked any Rangers at any time, I suspect. We just happened to be in an unsanctioned Helix for unscheduled repairs with no backup other than a single team that was there by coincidence.”

  Nifty nodded once more, realizing he was getting off easy.

  “Enough of this for now lad, there be time for talk later.” Scotty rose from his chair. “The engineering crew at Textermire managed to free up her rudder and cover the damaged engine, so barring any unforeseen action the train should make it home in one piece. I don’t think the dreadnaught followed us out of the Textermire port. I think the green-back forces were completely focused on you and Lulu.”

  “About Dart...” Nifty began as Scotty turned to leave.

  “Later, lad, later,” Scotty said, holding up a gentle hand. The heavy lines under his eyes saddened briefly before he turned and left Nifty alone with his thoughts, his boots clanking heavily as he disappeared back to the medi-bay.

  Nifty returned his attention to the viewer, marking the course of Lulu’s train as it entered the outer stanchions of the Helixes mantle space and joined a sparse procession of transports leaving Ragnatex.

  He’d been navigating the train for several hours and had more than enough time to think about their predicament, awash in conflicting emotions. Yet even now, with all that had gone on, he was reluctant to open the files Ink had transmitted to his watch. Dam Ink and this path she’d set him on.

  Setting the Eos to autopilot he nestled back into his seat with a sigh and finally delved into the wrist piece.

  It took him several minutes to make sense of what he was seeing as thousands of files streamed by in a mass of whirling confusion.

  He finally settled on a group of files labeled “Hellstamp". They had the look of journal entries. Most seemed muddled and confused but one entry, which felt like a personal letter and was dated less than ten years ago, gained his attention.

  When Hadron Drake—The Quantum, as his Hadrian and greenback sects. have come to know him—was captured some fourteen hundred years ago, he was in my master’s Helix, now known only as Hellstamp. He had successfully stolen a piece of Jax tech stored in my machine rooms. The alarms of course alerted Rion’s Ring. They pursued him into the Helix, eventually trapping him inside a damaged battle cruiser. In desperation he activated the tech he’d stolen. It was a rudimentary mind transfer macine, a prototype of sorts. It allowed his essence to be transmitted to the cruisers data storage units even as the process destroyed his body. Unbeknowenst to Rion’s Ring, his mind was imprisoned inside his battle cruiser. The Ringm retrieved the tech and assumed rightfully Hadron perished.

  This was a mistake. His essence infected the cruiser, mutating it, allowing him to expand his influence. He now controls the bottom five rings of Hellstamp Helix and dominance has
been growing mile after mile as his power increases.

  By the time I realized the scale of his resurgence it was too late. He has created an army of beasts and machines not seen in Submantle since before the Scourge. Rion’s Ring and the Ranger corps will face full-scale war and potentially the release of another version of the Jax virus if we face him head on.

  And yet he waits. Why?

  Well, that’s just great. Nifty thought to himself. No wonder the Ranger Corp. avoided Hellstamp, even though it was the closest of the Bastion Helixes to Rocktower.

  He hadn’t really thought about it before but it probably also meant that Rion Jax had been exiled to the surface directly above Hellstamp. If the Jax lineage had persisted, it made perfect sense his ancestors had left a deep genetic marker there. Nifty realized finding the Jackmen could be easier than he first thought. For once, Nifty hoped he wouldn’t have to go halfway under the globe to complete a mission.