Science and Sorcery Box Set

by Ryan Tang

  The white and gold Paragon was nothing but a shell. The creature snaked out from the side and poured from the back, an endless mass of snaking tongues, snapping teeth, rising smoke, and shifting tendrils.

  At the push of a button, her blue Paragon drew the rifle she'd forged with her parents' story.

  When Stock screamed, his voice was much higher than normal, it cracked and shrieked, alternating over and over between high and low, high and low.

  The librarian gritted her teeth and battled back the fear.

  She needed her battle-mind.

  Her first shot had stopped Stock’s attack when it was inches away from Jared's back, and her second blast had blown a hole in his chest.

  But the black rain poured, and his injuries vanished.

  There was another black geyser, and the surge of deathly black ink screeched toward her.

  The pistol in Stock's left hand swung into place.

  It spat out black globules of ink, faster and lighter than the shots from the cannon but nearly as deadly.

  The controls sang and danced in her hands.

  Alex swerved and twirled, avoiding the first salvo of attacks and then the second.

  Stock fired and fired, trying furiously to pin her, but the arc at the back pushed her machine forward with absurd speed, a speed far faster than she'd ever experienced in the simulator. She was moving so fast her mind was struggling a little to keep up with it. In her simulator battles, she always had time to plan ahead, time to think about what she’d do when she reached her next destination.

  In this machine, she simply thought of where to go, and then the blue machine was there.

  The missed shots exploded behind her with deadly force, leaving cracks even in the Eternium Spire.

  When she could not avoid the black gunfire, she raised her rifle and fired. Blue lightning screamed from the guns, instantly evaporating the liquid bullets.

  A twirl to the right.

  A dive down.

  A twist to the left, accompanied by two shots of her rifle.

  A sort of jilt from side to side.

  And then a massive flood of black surged straight towards her. Alex barely raised her rifle in time. The shot evaporated mere feet from her cockpit.

  Stock laughed.

  “You might have gotten lucky once. But real life isn’t a stupid simulator. No way for you to cheat now.”

  She saw a chance, and the sights fell over her head.

  She had a chance for a headshot.

  Her finger tightened on the trigger.

  From so up close, Alex saw it was a human sitting at the crest of the machine.

  Alex remembered how she’d cut off the boy’s head, the boy who Stock had dissolved into a puddle of flesh and blood.

  She hesitated, then jerked her gun and fired at the other arm instead.

  She shot, again and again, carving a massive hole on the side the monster lurked.

  Blue lightning cracked and cracked.

  Smoke billowed from the devastated joint.

  Stock's arm dropped to the ground like a stone. She continued firing as Stock screamed and screamed.

  His other hand dissolved. The massive gun shattered against the floor.

  Stock staggered, both arms missing.

  She'd disarmed him.

  The librarian glanced down at Jared and was just about to turn back to help him when another shot flew straight toward her.

  She brought up her rifle just in the nick of time.

  Stock smirked.

  The weapons had regrown alongside his hands. The black barrel of the sniper cannon gleamed in his mottled hand.

  “Look away? You think you can look away from god?”

  Alex turned, and a cold certainty centered her heart.

  She had no choice but to kill him.

  The thought was painful and frightening.

  She thought she might have been able to avoid it.

  But her students, her friends, and all the people Jared brought with him were trapped in the Spire.

  Stock's brainwashed army would kill them as soon as they breached the door.

  Alex soared towards Stock, pushing and pushing at the doubt and guilt in her mind.

  There was no other way.

  She had to do this.

  She had to do this for everyone.

  Alex fired and fired.

  The Eternium machine responded to her half-trigger technique, shooting blue blast after blue blast.

  She aimed for Stock’s body, which loomed out of the machine like a crest. But he leaped in the air, and the shots pierced his chest instead.

  He screamed, and his voice echoed with a chorus of tortured thousands, but it was no use, not in the long run.

  The black rain poured and poured. Soon he was whole again.

  He giggled.

  “Didn't you hear me? There's no way to cheat now!”

  Stock's bullets were so fast and so powerful that they were almost impossible to avoid.

  Alex continued streaking towards him, and the cyborg continued shooting, alternating powerful blasts from the cannon and rapid bursts from the pistol.

  The disjointed and haphazard pattern made it impossible for her to get into a rhythm.

  The pressure mounted, squeezing her brain tighter than any vise.

  Left. Then right. Then left again.

  Lift her gun and fire at Stock.

  Fall back and shoot through an unavoidable shot.

  The rain poured down, growing heavier and heavier. The massive drops covered parts of Alex’s cameras. The world grew darker and darker as the rain grew heavier and heavier.

  Squeeze off a shot for a counterattack.

  Curse as the black rain healed all of Stock’s wounds.

  Streak higher still into the sky to dodge another round of wet black gunfire.

  Alex flew and flew, winding and twisting through the endless barrage of eldritch bullets.

  A shot came so close to her that black drops sprayed into her machine, and the cockpit turned icy cold. She hesitated for just a moment.

  The next shot hit her straight on. Her machine spiraled to the floor.

  Stock hooted.

  "I'm god! I'm god!"

  Her cockpit turned frigid as it shook and shook.

  Alex gnashed her teeth. She fought furiously with her controls, trying desperately to turn her machine back upwards.

  She couldn't let go of the Eternium triggers.

  She couldn't lose this fight.

  She drew her sword, and the book-forged blade sang as she raised high into the air.

  After what seemed like an hour, she righted herself.

  Stock flinched as she dove towards him.

  She was close. She was almost there.

  All of a sudden, there was a disgusting hacking noise that pierced the core of her brain. It was the sound of thousands retching at once.

  A flurry of shots smashed into her side, sending her machine rocketing towards the ground. Alex whirled. Black cannons had sprouted like monster's tongues like tumors.

  The tendrils splayed themselves wide, stretching out so the guns pointed in all directions and from every range.

  She had no choice but to take the attack head-on.

  Alex fired again and again, frantically trying to clear a path for her machine to fly forward. The black bullets mangled her machine.

  The rocking was worse than anything she’d felt in the simulator, worse than the quakes, worse than Stock's horrible fingers-and-nails Paragon.

  The retching and screaming grew louder and louder, an endless barrage of grief that curdled her blood and chewed at her heart. It was the sound of the panicked messages on the Forums the night of the quakes, the sound of desperate survivors after a horrific Paragon crash.

  The disgusting noises reverberated mercilessly in her brain. It like her mind had been thrown into a pan of sizzling oil.

  The torrent of black rain grew thicker and thicker, and her screen became so dark
she could only see the shots when they were directly in front of her.

  She could hardly see.

  She could hardly hear.

  But she was there.

  She brought her sword back for the final cut.

  Just one slash. One slash straight through Stock's body, and then the fight would be over.

  Her blade hit nothing but thin air.

  Jared’s cry was a faint whisper.

  “No! Alex! No!”

  Stock cackled.

  "Missed me! Missed me!"

  He drew his swords with a flourish.

  The monster surged forward.

  And then Alex had nowhere to run.

  ____

  The black tentacles with their horrifying guns stretched out as wide as they could. By now, the cannons had gnashing mouths of their own.

  The wings became first a wall and then Alex's whole world.

  She could see nothing else but smoke and ink and teeth and tentacles. She couldn't even see the Spire.

  Stock giggled. He rubbed his swords against each other. The Eternium sang triumphantly.

  “Hold her in place. Hold her there. I'll teach her to show an attitude to god!"

  "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

  The sword lashed down.

  Stock's haphazard attacks had been shoddy and ineffective in the simulator, but now, when she was cold and tired and could barely see in front of her, his relentless ferocity was far more dangerous than a measured attack could ever be.

  The blades seemed like they were everywhere at once.

  Alex twisted and turned.

  Her sword hacked left and right, shearing effortlessly through the creature and briefly forcing Stock to pause as he yowled in pain.

  She fired her rifle whenever she could, clearing holes in the creature that immediately regenerated.

  But the tendrils slowly tightened, giving her less and less space to maneuver.

  Alex thought she saw a chance and made a desperate stab at the crown of the machine, but Stock brought his blade up just in time.

  He retaliated with a brutal chop.

  Alex twisted her torso just in the nick of time, but the sword passed so close to her cockpit that she heard the wind whistle.

  Even so, the narrow exchange scared Stock enough to call off the fight.

  "Eat her! Just eat her!"

  The goddess let out a guttural roar that threw Alex’s mind clean off its foundation.

  There was a hoarse chomp, and then her entire sword arm was swallowed whole by a deluge of tendrils.

  The sword vaporized any part of the creature it came into contact with, but even that was no use.

  More and more tentacles spawned, biting and chewing before dying. The creature viciously shook her back and forth.

  Alex tried pushing back, but there was nothing she could do. Her thrusters were already set to their maximum strength, but her machine wasn't moving an inch.

  Hungry red tendrils slowly crept forwards, taking in more and more of her machine, staining the pristine blue metal. The teeth chewed on the air in preparation for the feast to come. The tongues whirled back and forth, licking non-existent lips.

  A horrific scent blew into her open cockpit as the monstrosity slowly oozed forwards. The smell was so foul that no words could describe it. Her nose shriveled with every breath she took. Her tongue withered in her mouth.

  Alex cried out and forced herself to ignore it all and fight. The creature was assaulting every fiber of her person, every one of her senses.

  But she had to win.

  No matter what, she still had her courage.

  She was colder than cold, colder than freezing. It felt like her blood was icing over inside her veins. Her stomach had turned into a frigid rock.

  Stock roared as he hastily rejoined the fight, both swords held high over his head.

  He slammed them directly at her cockpit.

  “Die! Die! You lose! You lose!”

  Alex was thrown back so hard her organs felt like they were going to fly out of her skin. Her teeth rattled relentlessly in her jaw.

  The swords created a massive dent in the blue wall.

  The panoramic view collapsed inwards, and then blew apart.

  A flood of black rain poured onto her face.

  Somehow, the cockpit grew even colder.

  Somehow, the smell of salt and rot became even worse.

  Stock's swords had stopped just before they killed her.

  He roared angrily and brought his weapons back again for the fatal strike.

  The creature's wails echoed in her ears, the cries of misery and torment of countless generations.

  But Alex was a pilot, and her hands stayed at the controls.

  She angled her rifle precisely between their two machines.

  She was firing from the hip. She couldn't see through the sights.

  But she'd used this rifle so many times before.

  She knew exactly the motion she had to make.

  It was a fast jerk followed by a slight coaxing twist.

  She was careful to keep it away from the monstrous tendrils.

  She aimed right at Stock’s face and fired.

  The blue lightning crackled through the air, and her opponent melted before her eyes.

  Alex surged forward, flying through the devastated cyborg.

  He screamed as he died, and the monster screamed with him.

  The cacophony of high and low, high and low, threatened to split Alex’s ears into pieces. Her tortured brain rattled inside of her skull, insisting over and over that this couldn't possibly be real, that people shouldn't ever be screaming like that.

  Before long, Alex started screaming alongside the chorus.

  She brought her rifle around and fired as she flew straight through the dying corpse.

  As Alex collided with the white and gold Paragon, it shattered to pieces. The tendrils released her with a whimper. Her cockpit filled with red smoke and ink as she blew through it. The monster's guts splattered into her cockpit. The teeth and tongues snipped and snapped, scrapping against the Eternium even in their death throes.

  A pale and decaying tongue desperately tried prying its way into the cockpit until Alex reached out and slammed the door shut. The tongue snapped off, then plopped onto the ground. It flopped maliciously for just a moment longer until it withered away, leaving nothing but a tiny red splotch on her cockpit's floor.

  Alex pierced clean through the other machine, flying out to the other side.

  There was no hint of Stock, no hint of the goddess, no hint of the white and gold Paragon.

  Alex whimpered. She was flooded with a torrent of feelings she couldn’t quite describe, a horrifying mixture of guilt, disgust, anger, and shameful triumph.

  The monster's voices echoed endlessly in her ears.

  She panted and sobbed as she looked down at the courtyard.

  The black rain was still pouring.

  They were still picking away at Jared’s machine.

  Alex dove to the floor.

  “Jared! Jared!”

  The closer she flew, the louder the hands picking apart at the metal grew.

  It was so dark it was almost impossible to tell, but Alex thought she could see gaps inside the cockpit.

  She thought she could see Jared sitting in his chair, a look of fear and determination plastered on his face.

  She wanted to tell him to use a book, but where would he find one? How would he know which one was right? She shone her gun on the crowd, but none of them responded to The Familiars. And there were many brainwashed victims, so many more than there'd been in the Spire.

  “Jared! Jared!”

  Her friend let out a feeble scream.

  ‘Behind you!”

  Stock loomed behind her, laughing as he prepared to swing his sword.

  “Almost got me there!”

  A window opened in the Spire.

  CHAPTER 32: ONE OF THOUSANDS

  Alice leaned out, holding a t
ablet proudly aloft in her tiny hands.

  “This is how we can beat them! It’s the tablets! Ms. Alex knows! She studied this! It’s the stories! She knows!”

  Other windows opened.

  The survivors pulled out their tablets, pointing them at the monstrosity at the sky.

  Stock turned and sneered as he stomped toward the Spire.

  “Gnats! Gnats!”

  He reached down and grabbed a fistful of his brainwashed drones and threw them haphazardly at the tower.

  “Gnats! Gnats! Stop it with the attitude! Gnats!”

  Most of them splattered and died against the tower, but a few broke in through the windows.

  “Kill them! Kill them all!"

  He threw more and more of the soldiers into the tower.

  Her friends bravely continued shining their tablets, but it wasn’t any use. The tiny shreds of light were nothing compared to her rifle. The rain immediately patched up the holes.

  Alex realized their last and only hope.

  She flew straight for the sky.

  If she destroyed the sky, her friends could finish the job for her.

  Her Paragon flew higher and higher, streaking toward the dome of lies that enveloped the colony.

  Her sword was broken, and her story-forged gun was no use against something like the false sky.

  Her only hope was to crash her machine.

  She could barely see a thing. The black rain poured into her cockpit, splashing all over her face and clothes.

  Cold.

  Rotting.

  It was all she could do to fly higher and higher.

  Her fingers grew numb.

  She pushed the thrusters forward for all she was worth.

  She didn't need to be precise, not for this. She just had to hit the sky.

  Soon the librarian was so high that she was level with the Spire.

  And then she was beyond it. She was so close to the false sky she could see the faint black lines in between the panels. The black rain slowly oozed through the gaps as it dripped to the floor.

  Stock cried out in terror when he finally realized what she was doing.

  “You! You! Stop! Stop now!"

  The black rain poured faster and faster through the cut in her cockpit.

  It lapped onto the books and drowned her models, violating her pure blue sanctuary.

  But that was okay.

  Her machine wouldn't last for much longer.