by David Moody
“Citizens?” Arridon asked, confused.
“You keep using the archaic term ‘gods,’ and I think you mean Citizens of Eo. Only races that the citizens spawned or alien races use anything like that backwater phrase now. If you were the children of citizens, you’d be using different terminology,” she explained.
“My mother was what we called a god on my world,” Arridon said. “Maybe she was a citizen, by your definition.”
“I don’t know where my citizen lineage is, but yeah, we’re half-blooded at best. Arridon has powers; I don’t, but my sister might, if that helps.”
“Congratulations. How were your powers awakened, Arridon? By a Citizen? Another higher-order being? Thaumaturgical engine?”
“Yeah, that last thing.”
“That’s a great story,” she said, seemingly genuine in her happiness for him. “You’re welcome to visit one of the Thaumaturgy Priests in the central hub to awaken your powers, Derrick Morrison. It’s a painless process, and you never know what will get unlocked.”
“Noted. So how do we find our sisters?”
“Place your hand on this slate in my desk,” Aduwabeh said, indicating a smooth piece of black glass. “It’ll assess your identity and load it into a system that can search the multiverse for the proper match for your sister.”
Derrick windmill slammed his hand on the slate with a loud slap and stared at her. “Ready.”
She raised an eyebrow in surprise, and soon after touched the edge of the plate with a single finger.
Derrick yelped as a searing flash of pain consumed the skin on his hand. He yanked his hand away to look at the burnt, molten flesh, but…his hand was fine, and the pain fast receding.
“It’s generally been best to not forewarn people about the pain,” Aduwabeh said. “It takes quite awhile to explain the whole process, and the anxiety provoked just isn’t worth it. Arridon Frost, place your hand on the slate.”
Derrick looked at her with shock that tipped towards rage. As he held his wrist, Arridon put his hand on the slate without hesitation.
“Not nervous?” Aduwabeh asked him, surprised. “Second scans are usually where people hesitate.”
“I made a promise to my sister I’d stay by her side. A little pain isn’t going to stop me from keeping it.”
Aduwabeh touched the slate before Arridon had the chance to switch his stance on the impending experience. The same nerve-wrecking burst of agony hit his fingers and palm and he too jerked his hand away from the invisible flame.
“Fuck,” he snapped.
“Yeah it hurts, man,” Derrick said, laughing nervously as both sufferings faded.
Aduwabeh waved her hand over the slate and a pair of rotating DNA helixes appeared, real enough that they looked like they could be touched. She waved her hand again, and the helixes grew and expanded until they were several feet tall. Tiny pips of glowing light appeared sporadically along their length, looking like windows with lights on the inside.
“Here are your root genetic strands,” she said as she continued moving her hand near the slate and the display. “And here is a gross approximation of your Aural imprint,” she added after a motion with her other hand.
A new transparent helix appeared, clutching to the original DNA strand like a halo of armor. It sparkled and shimmered like a Fata Morgana.
“What?” Derrick asked.
“Biochemical genetic markers are just one way to identify you. People leave auras, resonances, imprints in a psychic manner. Disturbances to both time and space can be measured as well. When fighting a force that is an unending apocalypse, we must be very thorough in making sure we’re right about citizens, and their descendants.”
Derrick turned to Arridon. “I was the smart kid. People asked to copy my tests in school. I know a lot. I’m smart, okay? And ever since this bullshit started, I’ve never, ever felt dumber.”
“Have you ever experienced anything from the 4th dimension?” Aduwabeh asked.
“No, that’s not possible. We exist in a three dimensional universe,” Derrick answered.
“But with technology and magic, citizens are able to transition between layers of the multiverse. We can shift our entire existences to alternate realities with more, or fewer dimensions.”
“I can’t even wrap my head around that,” Derrick muttered.
“And that’s not your fault. Feeling inadequate when you’re faced with information and situations you couldn’t possibly have learned about, or prepared for, is nothing to be ashamed of. No one would expect you to know how to make coffee in a two dimensional universe. How could you pour it if you can’t lift the pot? Just like no one would think that you would understand how to become coterminous in a four dimensional reality,” she added a shrug.
“So that’s nice and all, but will this help us find our sisters?” Arridon said, leaning forward in his chair towards the desk with the carvings that blew in the wind that wasn’t.
“It will find them,” Aduwabeh said, leaning forward to study the spiraling columns of new matter and light. With graceful eyes, and a patient, analytical mind, she poured over each level of the data the test had given her, looking for their two needles in the haystack of the multiverse.
“Anything?” Derrick asked.
“There’s an old expression: I have good news, and I have bad news,” she said, pausing the simulation’s rotating pattern. As the boys leaned forward in their seats, she continued. “They’re both in the same dimension, on a moon, protected by a substantial energy barrier. Safe, and alive—if only temporarily.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific when you say temporarily,” Arridon said to her, jaw set.
“Their reality; has been breached very close to their positions by the Bleed. You’re familiar with the Bleed, right, Arridon? You know they are in grave peril.”
“Yeah that’s fine,” he said back. “Give us a map or something and we’ll pop in and rescue them.”
“That’s the worst part of the news,” Aduwabeh said. “We cannot allow any transit from Eo to the dimension your sisters are on. It’s too great a risk to the Last City.” She waved a hand through the upright columns of their spiritual and genetic information, and they disappeared. The screen flashed red and then went blank.
“Not good enough,” Arridon spat, balling up his fists. “Show us where our sisters are.”
“Please,” Derrick said. “We need to help them. We won’t come back here. We’ll go somewhere else. You’ll never see or hear from us again. We’re begging you.”
“It’s done,” she said. “The results of the query here automatically locked all of the transit abilities from Eo to the moon where they are. I can’t help you. I wish I could, but I have no control over the system that protects this city from the Bleed.”
Arridon leapt to his feet and screamed at the wall. He unleashed the full force of his Godlike powers, fueled by his familiar rage.
Derrick felt the tremendous surge of power in the room—no different from when the air rushed into the airlocks back at his home on the moon—but nothing happened. Arridon’s screams of fury continued as his attempts to find release were stymied by something.
“All individual powers are neutralized in this city cell,” Aduwabeh said. “For reasons you can see and feel right now.”
“Tell us where they are, or I’ll rip this entire city apart,” Arridon threatened.
“I understand you believe you mean that, but you can’t possibly follow through on that threat,” she warned. “Millions of full-blooded citizens are here, and their powers are equal to, or greater than yours. You’d be dead in minutes, or worse, sent somewhere to die slowly. Take this knowledge, and run with it. Leave Eo, and find help somewhere else.” Aduwabeh produced two small, transparent vials filled with a sparkling, luminescent fluid. “This is all you need to locate them. Leave Eo, find a transit room in a different dimension without an Armageddon Protocol, and plug this into the socket. It’ll take you as cl
ose to them as you can get. As far as getting away from the endangered moon after you get to your sisters, well, you can figure that out, if you got here. I’m so sorry.”
Arridon’s eyes were tightened, stretched thin and red with anger, but he had resumed somewhat controlled deep breathing. Derrick leaned forward and took the ampoules from the bald woman and stood. He beckoned for Arridon to follow. The halfsie with the golden eyes glared at Aduwabeh for a moment and then stormed out of the office, back into the lush hallway.
He screamed again, punched the wall to no effect, then collapsed to his knees. Tears streamed down his face as sobs took over. He clutched at his midsection, wrapping himself in a hug as he rocked and cried.
“I promised her. I promised her we’d be together. She’s alone right now. And I know she can protect herself, but I promised her. Dad’s dead, and I promised her, Derrick.” He sobbed, “I miss her.”
Derrick looked on as his new friend let the frustration and fear out. He eventually stepped forward and placed a hand on Arridon’s shoulder. Arridon looked up and nodded in thanks.
“Thistle isn’t alone, Arridon. She’s with my sister. And knowing that they’re together is the only thing that’s keeping me sane right now. We’re going to figure out whatever that woman meant when she said Armageddon Protocol, and we’re going to go get our sisters. Right? Nothing is going to stop us.”
“Right,” Arridon agreed, and kept crying, but now it was different.
Derrick let tears leak from his eyes as well, and the two stayed just like that; crying in an empty hallway, in a floating city the size of a continent, filled with gods who didn’t seem to care about the unstoppable horrors of the universe. They took their time, and when they left, they had something of a plan.
It wasn’t much, but they worked with what they had.
30
EO
“Go ahead,” Derrick said. “Pop the tube.”
The two men departed the mountain-sized section of Eo and returned to one of the even larger multi-pronged star constructions towards the city’s radial center. They’d ascended to a level that occupied a thin piece of a tower, still larger than any building either had seen, and took up a spot on a balcony with a glass retaining wall, under the stars. If they looked up, they seemed to be floating, and their view of the gargantuan God-city, the nearby planet, and the ascending field of stars above begged to take their breath away, but Arridon and Derrick had no air left to give.
Arridon pulled the stopper off the smoke-filled tube Timtar gave them, and whispered into the open top. “Timtar, we’re on a balcony on the three hundred and thirty-third level of a tower they call ‘Epsilon Prime.’ We need more guidance on how to get to our sisters, if you can spare us the time.”
The moment he finished his simple message the smoke issued upward, escaping into the air above. It wisped away into the thin, manufactured air, and diffused into nothingness. Arridon corked the tube. They looked at each other and waited. Derrick sipped a drink out of a glass cylinder a machine had dispensed for him earlier, when they were trying to find a quiet spot away from the pedestrian traffic and the halberd-cannon wielding guards.
…I’ll be there before the city orbits the planet below…came into their space, whispered through a dancing gossamer tendril of smoke that appeared in the air above. When the words finished, the smoke glided downward and tapped and bounced around the cork of the bottle in Arridon’s hand. He opened it, and the mist wormed its way back inside.
“I’ll go get more drinks,” Derrick said, and he did.
Lord High Spatial Adjudicator Timtar Wrothson entered the balcony through the public stone portico without fanfare. He kept his leather duster, adorned with gadgets and rune-carved items, pulled tight, and he kept his goggles fronted, face pointed down. He wore a hat Derrick recognized as a fedora in what looked like an attempt to remain inconspicuous, or at the very least, out of the front of someone’s attention.
“Some fifties noir stuff going on here,” Derrick muttered. “That can’t be good.”
“What’s fifties noir?” Arridon asked.
“Arridon of House Frost. Derrick Morrison,” Timtar said quietly. He slid to the balcony’s transparent wall and leaned on it. He kept his face averted from the entrance, in case any of the sparse passersby stole a glance in their direction.
“Why are you being so…sketchy?” Derrick asked him.
“You’re in a real Iron Maiden,” Tim said. “Put yourself in a bad way.”
“How so?” Arridon challenged him. “We did what you suggested. We followed their rules and got screwed.”
“Since when has following the rules ever benefitted anyone? I didn’t say blow a gasket and threaten to demolish the city,” Tim shot back, turning to face them with his round, large goggles. The stars reflected on their surface, swimming in the fishbowls he peered through. “You fucked yourselves. Your sisters, for sure, are about to go right into the meat grinder that is the Bleed, which means they’re persona non grata. And with your little temper tantrum in front of the retrieval officer, you flagged yourself as dangerous.”
Arridon tried to apologize, but a lack of actual desire to do so coupled with Tim continuing stopped him.
“Oldros has been brought in. You have any idea how bad that is for everyone involved?”
“Who’s Oldros?” Derrick asked.
“A shit headed pacifier that wants to placate the Bleed instead of fight it. Won’t even take a stand, spineless turd eater. He wields power in this city unlike anyone else, and he’s got a whiff of your scent,” Tim whispered, then looked around to see who heard him. “Scuttlebutt is that the prick has picked a handful of worlds and their universes to give to the Bleed to get them to go away, and your sisters are right in the middle of the bullseye. He won’t appreciate any meddling, and sense you gave the retention people your names, not to mention your DNA scans, he’ll be able to track you down. And boys, if he thinks you’re gonna screw with his plans, he’s stomp you into oblivion and mail his shoes to the Bleed for it to lick.”
“What the hell do we do then?” Derrick asked. “If you came here to tell us this, then you must have an idea. Am I right? You wouldn’t have risked your life just to tell us we’re fucking bent. A smart man with something to lose would’ve walked.”
Timtar’s lips curled into a smile, revealing his fangs. “It so happens I do have something to lose, and yet I’m still here.”
“Oh shit,” Arridon said. “We got ourselves a hero, don’t we?”
“Cockroaches flee when the lights go on and heroes step forward when danger presents itself,” Tim said with a quiet laugh. “,But I wouldn’t call myself a hero. I do fucking hate Oldros, though. He’s a pompous prick that’s had far too long to meddle and ruin everything. His attempts to feed the Bleed have only served to give it more power and make it even hungrier, but his unwavering conviction that it’s helping, he can’t see the big picture. Those of us who want to take the fight to the Bleed know the truth.”
“And helping us is taking the fight to the Bleed?” Derrick posed. “Not sure that’s what I signed up for.”
“If we can save one soul, just one soul from being consumed by the seething, world ending hatred of the force that’s trying to destroy everything, then yes. Yes, we’re taking the fight to the Bleed, and we may not win, but there are a lot of us who can’t stand by and let what’s happening, happen. The gods aren’t the ones paying the price for their folly. The Bleed destroys or subjugates everything in its efforts to get to the gods.”
“So what do we do?” Arridon asked the half-demon.
“Best case, we find a helpful god that can hop dimensions without a room, but those are as rare as zombies in heaven. And when I say those, I mean helpful gods. Instead, we’re going to transit to a dimension that doesn’t give a shit where people or monsters go to when they leave.”
“Do you have any specific places in mind?” Derrick asked. “Because I’m still trying to figure out w
hat a spatial adjudicator does, and especially one that’s half demon.”
Another smile bared the fangs. “To say anything more than that I explore would do myself a disservice. Certainly, being fathered by a demon creates job opportunities, but I am more gifted at traversing certain environments than others.”
“You know your dad?” Arridon asked, afraid of the answer.
Timtar took in a deep breath, and out spilled a considerable amount of unimpressed word-bile. “His name is Kalandar. The Breaker of Dimensions, Destroyer of Worlds, Third Conqueror of Aradinia, Soul-Eater of Ghouls, the Right-Hand Demon to the Possessor, first of his kind to go forth into the wilds and return.” He took a noisy, long inhale. “He is the Bringer of Chaos into Order, the Slaughterer of Bazzaros, second kin to Denderia, (she of the famed raid on the heavens).” He cleared his throat and continued: “Fabled Defender of the Red Witch, whose exploits are so legendary they span multiple tomes. He who has borne witness to the descent and will be present for the ascent. His might so feared, his skill so dreaded, and his knowledge so vast that entire prison realms were erected to keep him trapped. He is the chain breaker, a gargantuan among gods, the one so feared he was removed from Hades. All that stand before him quake in awe. He whose name alone strikes foreboding into the hearts of his enemies. There are none alive now or ever, who could stand before him; those who would oppose him are impotent in their challenge, yadda yadda and so on and so forth.”
Arridon and Derrick watched and waited for him to catch his breath and say more.
“That’s basically his whole schtick,” he said. “And all of it, as idiotic as it sounds, is basically true.”
“You’re like, demon royalty,” Arridon said.
“You’re god-royalty,” Tim said with a shrug. “You can see what that’s done for you.”
“Fuck-all,” he said. Tim smirked and nodded.
“Okay, my dear lords of the sisterless lost and uneasy, what’s next?”
“Well, you brought up my dad. He hates the gods, and if we make our case to him that helping you somehow screws them over, then I think we can count on his assistance.”