by Liam Clay
I have found the Medivalians at last.
Putting my shoulder to a wall, I watch as the soldiers approach a type of vehicle I've never seen before. It resembles an old gas tanker truck, with an armored cab connected to a steel cylinder a full thirty meters in length. The soldiers open hatches on its side and stow the bodies within, each in its own cavity. Dread claws its way up my throat; am I witnessing the birth of fresh Null?
There are eight soldiers in all, and just one of me. And I have the squad to think of as well. They will be waiting at the rendezvous point, possibly under fire. The smart move would be to pick another road and bypass this scene entirely. But those are human beings out there, about to be turned into something less. I can't leave them behind. And I might have a shot. The soldiers are carrying heavy loads, their weapons shouldered. If I can catch them all in the open at once, I might be able to kill the lot. So I wait.
But the right moment is slow in coming. Four of them are streetside now, while the others are inside the warehouse. And then it's two, and then six - but never eight. Time is flowing away like sand through an hourglass. So I give up on the perfect moment and just go for it.
Turning the corner, I sprint straight for the soldiers. Then I drop to one knee and squeeze off a line of bullets at head height. Of the six Null in view, three are instant casualties. The others pull up and go for their guns. I run to the right, firing as I move. Another Null goes down gutshot, and then I'm diving behind the tanker's rear wheels. Bullets tear into rubber, and a lucky shot takes a piece out of my shoulder plate, which is hanging loose without my chest gear to anchor it. While I'm checking the damage, a young woman - just a kid, really - comes sliding under the tanker like a runner into home plate.
“Fuck me.” I say aloud. Dodging her first shot, I plant a foot against a tire and throw myself at her. We crash together, and my elbow comes down on her windpipe, crushing it. God, this is hard. At least there are only three left. But my element of surprise is gone now. Hearing footsteps circling the tanker, I climb a ladder attached to its side and lie down flat. But the last two soldiers have taken up positions at the warehouse doors, and they open fire immediately. The angle is wrong and they can't hit me, but steel chips fly off the tanker, choking the air with flak.
The third soldier's head pops up over the edge. I aim a kick at him, but he deflects it and swings a baton at me. I raise my shear, expecting it to cut his weapon in half. And it does, but he uses the moment to plant a knife in my quad. The muscle jerks spastically, ripping the handle out of his hand. So I pull the blade free and hammer it into his temple.
The last two soldiers have stopped firing. I can't hear them either. Then an explosion rocks the tanker. The vehicle lifts off the ground and then crashes back down, sending me over its side. I land on my feet, but my bloodied leg gives way and I drop to my belly. Flames scour my armored back, superheating the shunts in my neck.
From this position, I can see the soldiers rounding the cab. But I am hidden from them, cloaked beneath a wall of fire. I depress the trigger, and they vanish in a haze of red. Then I crawl away from the tanker, no longer caring if anyone else is still alive. Being on fire will have that effect. I black out, color back in and roll over, breathing heavily.
I desperately need rest, but the wicked don’t get any. So I push to my feet. The front half of the tanker is still burning, but the rear is almost untouched. I limp over to it. The cylinder is a curved expanse of burnished steel, devoid of signage or any other indication of its function. One of the hatches is ajar. Moving closer, I open it with shaking hands.
A Medivalian woman is cocooned inside. Tubes run to various points on her body, which is wrapped in thick white gauze. Her head is shaved to the skin, and the surgical incision above her ear is still weeping blood. She is gazing at a screen built into the pod above her head, eyes wide as they will go. I bend down to get a better look. But the screen is dead black except for a distorted yellow shape at its center. I watch it for almost a minute; but aside from growing slightly larger, the object remains unchanged. Then, without warning, the woman's eyes snap to mine. She sits up. Tubes rip from her body with an angry hiss. Audio buds fall out of her ears, and I hear a voice speaking in a low monotone.
“... is inevitable. The only...”
I flinch away as she reaches for me. The other hatches are opening now. I'm too late to help these people. Some are burning alive inside their cocoons, and the rest have been turned into Null. So I run. My entire body hurts, but the tears on my cheeks have nothing to do with the pain. They are caused by shame, at leaving these people to their fates; and rage, at what the Architect is doing to them.
I pass through empty streets, feet marking a red trail, until I reach a new district. The houses here are ornately carved, with slender minarets protruding from their roofs. All are locked and shuttered. And then, in the distance, I see the statue. It depicts a mother goddess, face raised to the sky. Her arms are held up as well, as though she is embracing the skyscrapers suspended above. Using her as a reference point, I press onward.
CHAPTER 28
A few hundred meters out, the houses give way to a broad square paved in oak. Shallow streams flow through grooves that pass between granite planters. Halfway across, I realize that my rifle is out of ammo. I've just finished reloading when the entire city shudders. Then a huge section of the pyramid's roof collapses, leaving a rent of blue sky behind it. The section plummets down and strikes the highest point of an arching bridge. There is an echoing boom. Both masses disintegrate on impact, and the air fills with debris. All I can do is crouch beside a planter and pray for salvation.
Blackened chunks of banyan start to pulverize the square. One of them strikes the goddess. Her right arm is torn off, but she remains defiantly upright, facing the rain of death. For some reason this heartens me, and I take off across the square. Passing the last planters, I see a group of people huddled together at the statue's base. A final frantic dash, and I'm in among them.
They're all here, thank god. Francis, Tikal, Lucy, Peace and Delez - the only friends I've got in this world. No one is unharmed, but I am probably the worst off. Which is a miracle, really. Tikal and I share an embrace. Her face is streaked with blood and dirt, but I have never seen her so beautiful.
“What took you so long?” She says, trying to sound playful.
“I'll tell you later. What's our status?”
“You're looking at it.” Delez says. “We're here, and we're alive. That's about all we know. I'll bet the Architect has some answers, though. So how about we go find her?”
“Sounds good to me.” I reply with a grin. The world may be falling down around us, but that matters less when we're together. “But I want you all to promise me something first.” I add.
“What's that?”
“The next time we do something this stupid, let's do it as a team, okay? No more of this splitting up shit.”
“Agreed.” The Fractal says. “I mean come on: giant mantises? I thought I'd lost my mind when they attacked me inside the banyan. And some backup would definitely have been nice.”
“That's what those clacking things were?”
“Yeah. The Medivalians and the Gravs may be enemies, but they're both hard into biotech. Now can we please go?”
We can. Passing the statue, we travel down a paved ramp with earthen walls to either side. A trellised roof of white flowers obscures the destruction above. It grows warmer. The ramp levels out, and we enter a natural canyon that has been turned into an outdoor spa precinct. Walkways branch off the main path, leading to sculpted hotpools that give off a fragrant musk. Then we reach the houses. The neighborhood with the minarets was upper middle class. But now we are surrounded by pure wealth. Each home is palatial and unique, the properties terraced and rambling. Mist from the pools cloaks the sky, and tropical birds fill the air with color and song.
“Where is everyone?” Francis says after a while.
I haven't told the others about w
hat I saw in the warehouses, but Francis isn't talking about the Medivalians anyway. He means the Null. If the Architect is here, shouldn't we be fighting for every step?
At one point I catch movement in a fourth floor mansion window. But when I look back there is nothing to see, and I can't climb that many stairs to double check. The canyon narrows gradually into a ravine, finally ending at a vaulted concert hall. The structure has no walls, just an inverted V of a roof canted down into a wide depression. By now we're all sure this is the wrong spot, and so we approach openly. Stepping inside, we find ourselves looking down on a sloping auditorium.
“Oh shit.” Delez says softly.
The stage below us has been turned into a command center. Null aides sit at portable screens, coordinating the war effort. And watching over them is the Architect herself. In the flesh, this time.
“Bring them here.” She says without looking up from her tablet. I turn. Over twenty soldiers have emerged from the surrounding rocks. Francis raises his gun... and gets shot in the foot for his troubles. He drops to one knee without a sound, dealing with the pain from second to second.
“Throw down your weapons or we will kill you.” The Architect calls out. “You know I am not bluffing.”
We have no choice but to comply. My mind is struggling to compute what just happened. How did we walk into such a simple trap? As usual, there is only one possible answer. Arrogance. We truly expected to wade through a sea of Null and take out the Architect, all by ourselves. The soldiers push us down the steps and into the presence of our enemy. There is nothing gloating in her expression, but that comes as no surprise.
“I want you to know that this is not your fault.” She says. “These events were set in motion long before you interfered with my efforts to locate the Kogi space station.”
Peace gives her a nasty smile. “You have no proof that was even us. And by events, do you mean the Gravs stealing this city back from you?”
The woman shakes her head. “Did you see the pyramid's roof collapse before you entered this canyon? That was the work of my airborne division. They arrived ten minutes ago, and are confiscating the Grav Gardens as we speak. Doing so here was more efficient than chasing them across the wetlands one at a time.”
We stare at her. “So you... baited us into attacking?” Tikal says at last.
“I baited the Gravs into attacking.” She corrects. “You didn't factor into my plans at all. But then we came across a certain media artifact...”
She raises a hand, and her soldiers push me to the ground. My thoughts fill with images of gauze-shrouded bodies, and I start to thrash wildly. But it does no good. The Architect rises from her seat and moves to my side. Holding her tablet in front of my face, she studies the results it gives back to her.
“It's true, then. You really are him.”
“Are who?”
“Anex, aka the Live Soldier. We assumed your feed was a fabrication, and yet here you are.”
“Why should you care about my feed?”
“Because it presents me with new options. Through you, I can send a message directly to your leaders.” Bringing her face close to mine, she looks straight into my linked eye. “Shion and Kalana, please listen carefully. We have one other task to complete, and then we are coming for you. When that happens, you can save millions of lives by surrendering to us. I doubt you will listen to me though, which is why I am sending the Live Soldier and his accomplices to negotiate on my behalf.” She pauses to draw breath. “Except for one. Because of Anex's feed, this ‘squad’ is currently the most influential entity on the planet. And if they can be induced to accept my orders, many of your own people will follow them - whether you like it or not. So I am going to keep the beating heart of their group as leverage.”
At her gesture, Null soldiers wheel a cylindrical object onto the stage. It looks like a miniaturized version of the tanker I encountered earlier. Dread settles over me, and I start to struggle again. They're going to take Tikal. She is our leader, and our only true tactician. It has to be her. But when the Architect points to her victim, it isn't my girlfriend.
It's Delez. Peace fights like a mountain cat as the Null take her husband, but she is punched into submission. He reaches out, trying to touch her hand one last time. But their fingers miss by centimeters, and then he's shouting, “I love you!” over and over again. The Architect opens the cylinder's hatch. The soldiers force him into it, and begin to prepare his body for nullification. This can't be happening. Delez could never become one of them. Have his emotions stripped away, his feelings for Peace wiped out? Impossible. He can fight against it, surely.
But thousands of people have probably thought the same thing about their loved ones. And there is nothing special about us, no reason why we should be different. The Architect has just proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Before the hatch closes, I lock eyes with Delez. The angular planes of his face are etched, not with fear or grief, but with defiance.
“Promise me you'll keep fighting them!” He shouts. And then my friend is gone, trapped inside a coffin of cold steel.
And now Peace turns into a mad thing. She claws at her captors, trying to take out their eyes, screaming and cursing and crying all at once. Lucy has an arm free and is throwing punches, but they aren't landing. Francis hangs limp in his captors' arms, injured foot oozing blood. And Tikal stands razor straight, staring at the Architect with a cold rage that sends icicles down my spine. If she makes a move, they will kill her.
“Stop!” I shout hoarsely, and everyone freezes. Turning to the Architect, I say, “The nullification procedure. Can it be reversed?”
She nods. “If you cooperate, he will be returned to his former state. You have my word.”
“What do we need to do?”
“When the time is right, convince your people to open their gates to us. We will take what we came for, and then we will leave. Otherwise your home will go the same way as Medival.”
“If we do this, will you promise not to harm anyone?”
“Our purpose has never been to kill. If the Gravs had consented to give up their Gardens, no blood would have been spilled here today.”
“Then we accept.”
Tikal rounds on me. “Anex, we all want Delez back. But you don't have the right to make this decision.” And then to the Architect, “I’m not sure about Kalana, but Shion will not listen to us. And based on what we've seen, he will put down any attempt to undermine him as well. So you're setting us up to fail.”
“I suspect that you are right. Nonetheless, this is my offer.”
“Why can't you just tell us what you're looking for?”
“Because that would reveal our purpose, and you are not capable of handling its ramifications. Your people would be more likely to destroy the thing we seek than to hand it over.”
“Try us.”
“Absolutely not. This conversation is over. We will escort you beyond the city walls, and leave you to find your own way back.”
“And the Gravs?”
“Any who abandon their Gardens will be spared.”
“They will never do that.”
“We know. Unaltered humans are all prey to their emotions, which is why we are a necessary evil.”
“So you will kill them all?”
“Yes.”
And then she's turning away, already immersed in other tasks. Her soldiers hustle us out of the auditorium, leaving Delez in his tomb. The sky is truly falling now. Swathes of banyan have destroyed most of the mansions, and the hotpools are overflowing their bounds, making a boiling river out of our path. As I struggle through the knee-high water, it feels like my mind is breaking as well. I can't focus on anything. The loss of my friend, the noise and the violence, have all become too much.
Leaving the canyon behind, we climb back up to the city proper. The mist fades, and Medival's demise is made visible once more. The upper half of the pyramid's living roof is gone. The chasm's edges are on fire, sending black cloud
s into the atmosphere. Of the solar sail array, nothing remains. And framed within the inferno is the Null airborne division. The smoke makes it impossible to see the ships clearly, and so they are reduced to shadowy agents of death, firing down upon the few Gardens that are still functional. What have we done?
The statue of the goddess becomes visible up ahead. She has been decapitated, just like her city. My gaze is held by the sight, and then it slides downward. A group of Gravs is waiting for us at the entrance to the square. It's Hera, with Pon at her side. A spark of hope jumps through me. If they can defeat our captors, there might still be time to save Delez. Maybe we can even catch the Architect before she leaves.
But then I see Hera's face. She is looking straight at me with rage in her eyes. Oh no.
“Traitors!” She bellows, shaking her nanovax sword in the air. “You break bread with my people, lead us into a massacre, and now I find you protected by the enemy? You will die for this.”
“It's not like that! They've got Delez, and -”
But the Grav woman is already charging, with her people close behind. The Null rush to meet them, leaving a handful of guards to watch over us. Shaking off my horror, I throw an elbow into a Null face. Then I grab his gun and shoot him with it. Another soldier tackles me from behind, and we fall into one of the shallow streams that crosses the square. From glimpses stolen as we grapple, it looks like Hera's people are winning the fight. But more Null are coming up the ramp. In less than a minute, the Gravs will be hopelessly outnumbered. Straddling my adversary, I beat him with armored fists until he stops moving. Then I rise to my feet.
“Hera!”
Ten paces away, the woman turns.