by Liam Clay
I desperately want to answer, but the anesthetic mask is coming down. I reach for the surgeon's wrist... with a hand that isn't there. The rubber muzzle closes over my mouth, and I sink into darkness.
BOOK 3: DARK ARMY
CHAPTER 1
Starbursts of fractured glass are embedded in my cheeks. Blood wells as I dislodge them with the hand that remains to me. Then I open my eye. Barren sky stares back. The top of the white pyramid is gone, vanished into oblivion. So, too, are the surgeons who put me to sleep.
And they left without finishing the job. My stump has been cleaned and cauterized, a flap of skin sewn over the raw flesh. But the stab wound in my leg is untouched, and my linked eye is still a horror of mangled tech and creeping rot. I can feel the infection there, eating away at the inside of my face. Despair rises. But then Sophie's words return to me, and I force the feeling down. Keep fighting: that is my only job. Everything else is beyond my control.
I roll off the operating table and onto the floor. A hot wind tears across Worldpool's broken summit, carrying screams and gunfire with it. Finding my feet, I weave between overturned medical equipment and charred furniture until I reach the pyramid's edge. Its ivory facade sweeps down and away from me. The greenhouse city surrounds the arcology, with the nanovax moat encircling both. And beyond that, spread across the desert basin, is the Null war machine.
The Architect has been busy. A floating bridge of modular decking spans the moat now, and soldiers are streaming over it in their thousands. As I look on, a missile turret blows the structure apart. But the turret is destroyed in turn, and two new bridges soon replace the wrecked one, allowing the onslaught to continue.
In the streets between greenhouses, war rages. The Bridgers are strangers to the Real, and to the authentic brand of physics that prevails here. But Worldpool is their home, and they are fighting to protect it as best they can. The two armies form a single mass that surges back and forth, like the tide chasing a moon gone mad. The sight is mesmerizing. But slowly, inexorably, our side is being pushed back.
“My fellow Bridgers.”
It is the Colonizer's voice, speaking straight into my brain via the neural shunts in my neck.
“You have acquitted yourselves well, but this battle is lost. Return to your stasis tubes and prepare for cryosleep. The Deep Cold protocol will initiate in ten minutes.”
Turning as one, the Bridgers flee toward Worldpool's main entrance. The Null aren't far behind. Someone needs to delay them, or the Bridgers might not make it back to their tubes. The pyramid's sides are steep. But with a little luck, I should be able to slide down without dying at the bottom.
I prepare to launch myself over the edge. But before I can, something crashes into me from behind. And now hands, small but incredibly strong, are twisting my arm behind my back. Fury mounts within me... and then ebbs away to nothing. I did my best - no one can say I didn't. Now I get to die.
“Anex...” A voice says into my ear. “What have they done to you?”
My arm is released, and I roll onto my back. Amy is kneeling over me. Her expression is stricken, and tears run down her young face. The moment hangs in balance, and I suffer an inexplicable urge to apologize for my appearance. She is the first to recover.
“You're messed up pretty bad - I get that. But suicide? I thought you were stronger than this, man.”
“Not suicide.” I whisper. “We need to help the Bridgers. They're getting slaughtered down there.”
Amy blinks, and then she lets out a surprised laugh. “Were you seriously planning to slide down the pyramid? Even for us, that is a supremely stupid idea.”
“But it's the only way.”
“To die, you mean? Come on, let's go.”
And now she's dragging me toward the elevator. I try to resist, but she barely seems to notice. The doors close behind us and we start to descend.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
“The Colonizer. He pulled me out of stasis himself, and told me where you were.” She glances at my stump, looks away - and then forces herself to confront the sight.
“The Architect?” She guesses.
“Friendly fire, actually. But it still comes back to her in the end. It all does.”
“Tell me.” She says.
So I do. About healing the Threshers, about our alliance with the Gravs, and about the failed assault on Medival. But when I try to describe the look in Hera's eyes, and the nanovax sword as it descended, my tongue rebels.
“It's okay.” Amy says softly. “You don't have to talk about it. I'm just happy you're alive.”
“How are Balthazar and the Kogis?” I ask, eager to change the subject.
“Fine, although they will be wondering where I went.” Her eyes take on a faraway look. “You should see the archipelago now, Anex. Even in wartime it was beautiful, and with the improvements I've made... it has become a true paradise. And you wouldn't have to be crippled there, either.” She stops. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”
But the damage has already been done, and we both know it.
“Where are the others?” Amy asks to cover her lapse. But this is another painful topic. She doesn't react when I tell her that Peace and Tikal are gone. Instead, she latches onto Francis and Lucy.
“We have to find them before the cryobunker floods.”
“So you think the Colonizer will really go through with it? Lock his entire society inside a block of ice?”
“What other choice does he have?”
“Probably none. But what good will it do? The Null will dig them out eventually.”
“Yes, but it should buy the Bridgers a couple of months. And time passes faster in virtual, so that could mean years or even decades of added life.”
The elevator comes to a stop. The doors open, and our conversation is instantly forgotten. The Icebox is in chaos. Thousands of Bridgers, many of them injured, are pouring from the tunnel that leads to the outer pyramid. They are pushing and shoving, fighting each other for access to the catwalks. We stumble into their midst. When Fabian wheeled me through here a few hours ago, I was a grotesque in a world of conformity and order. But now I'm just another member of the walking wounded.
We start to scour the throng for Francis and Lucy. But they find us instead. Both have seen heavy fighting; and between them, they carry the Colonizer. He has been shot twice through the stomach. Francis balks when he sees my untreated eye, but the Bridger's injuries take precedence. We bring him to a quiet corner away from the raving mob. A toothed join breaks the wall here. In a few minutes it will split open, and ten million cubic tons of water will flood in. Laying the Colonizer down on the floor, Amy and Lucy go to work on him.
But their efforts have little effect. The Bridger's breath comes fast and heavy for a time, but these exhalations gradually slow until his chest is barely moving. He cries out once in an unknown language, and then goes silent. The Icebox has grown quiet as well. The last Bridgers have cleared the ground floor, and most are already cocooned inside their stasis tubes. The tunnel doors have been closed with the Null on the outside. But we are just minutes from inundation now. When it becomes clear that the Colonizer is beyond help, Lucy craters in on herself.
“What is the point of all this?” She sobs. “The Null don't even need to break in here. They can just disconnect the servers in the outer pyramid and shut the whole thing down.”
“That's not true.” Amy replies. “The server farm will have built-in failsafes. If the Architect tampers with them, the virtual bridges connecting the Worldpool network will shut down.”
“And you think that's what she's after?” Francis asks.
“What else could it be? We're talking about 60 virtual worlds, populated by millions of minds. She could trace their access points back to the Real, and send battalions to conquer them.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“Because I've spent the last eight years of subjective time managing the Kogi world. Networki
ng is what I do.”
“Eight years?” I say. “My god, Amy. You could be a totally different person by now.”
“I'm going to be a totally dead person if we don't get moving. When he pulled me out of stasis, the Colonizer mentioned an auxiliary access tunnel on the far side of the Icebox. If we can find it, this might not be the end for us.”
We all look down at the Bridger. He's still alive, but only barely I think.
“We can't just leave him here.” Francis says.
“But we can't take him with us, either.” Amy replies. “Let's put him in a stasis tube. At the very least, it might give him a chance to make his goodbyes.”
And so we spend a few precious minutes carrying the Colonizer up onto the catwalks. And a few more finding an empty tube. But for all his flaws (his treatment of Jinx and the other migrant laborers, for one) this man deserves whatever aid we can give him. He helped free the Kogi world; gave us the tools to cure the Threshers; took us in when no one else would. The tube's glass front closes over him. I take one last look at his face, trying to engrave it in memory, and then we're gone.
But we've only just reached ground level when a new alarm goes off, this one deafeningly loud.
“Warning. The Deep Cold protocol will initiate in one minute. Seal your stasis tubes immediately.”
With Amy in the lead, we start to cross the inner pyramid. But progress is slow. My injured leg is giving me trouble, and I'm still learning how to move without my arm. Francis's foot hasn't healed either. Lucy is just generally beaten up, and Amy's body has been in stasis for months. Not so long ago, we were a squad of eleven. But now that number has been reduced to four.
Reaching the far side, we turn left.
“The access hatch is built into the floor next to the wall.” Amy says. Her voice is strained, and not just from exertion. She sounds scared. Eight years of love and purpose have given her something to lose, and time is ticking by. We pick up the pace, but still there is no sign of the hatch. The alarm increases in tempo, and then stops abruptly.
“Deep Cold protocol commencing.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Francis shouts at the disembodied voice. It obeys, but a deep groaning sound takes its place, coming from the unseen heights of the enormous chamber. The roar of rushing water follows it. Looking up, I see a torrent of clear liquid tumble from the heights. Others join it, until we are lost in a mist-choked world of pounding waterfalls. The spray quickly soaks me to the skin. The floor is submerged now. The overhead lights cast a shimmer across the water's surface, making it hard to look for the hatch beneath. Then a new waterfall drops out of the sky directly in front of us. Francis is in the lead; and although the torrent doesn't hit him, it is enough to knock his feet out. He falls into the flood and is swept inward, away from the wall. I'm about to go after him, but Amy waves me off.
“Not this time, Anex.”
She dives in after our friend, her lean frame cutting the icy waters. Lucy grabs hold of me, and we weather the storm together. The artificial tide is at my waist by the time Amy returns, dragging a choking Francis behind her. We waste precious seconds while he evacuates his lungs. Then he signals his readiness, and we're moving again.
Twenty meters on, we find the access hatch. We're swimming now, and Amy dives down to take a look. But she comes up shaking her head.
“It won't open! The flood is like a weight resting on top of it.” She turns to Lucy. “Give me a grenade.”
The poker player is too tired to ask questions. Hefting the device, Amy vanishes for a second time. A current picks up. Francis loops an arm around a pipe fixed horizontally to the wall. Lucy grabs one of his legs, and I latch onto one of hers. Seconds pass, and then an explosion boils up below us. We fall into a cavernous air bubble, and then we're being sucked through the blown hatch and into a tunnel lit by high-strength fluorescents. The tumult carries us through an open steel door. Amy is the last to reach it. She grabs the doorframe, finds her feet, and heaves the portal closed.
CHAPTER 2
We are left lying in ten centimeters of dirty water. It laps against the bare concrete walls, tamed and harmless now. My eye socket is full of burning needles, my leg is numb, and I've hit my head somewhere along the way. But none of that stops me from laughing out loud.
“What's so funny?” Lucy pants.
“I was just thinking that I might hold the world record for most times getting blown up.”
“You are pretty good at it.” She says with a weary smile. “And so much variety, too! Underwater explosions should count for bonus points.”
It feels good to joke around a little - almost like old times. But we are still far from safe, and a moment later Lucy is all business again. Climbing to her feet, she begins to inspect our surroundings. This is no simple access corridor we've found. The walls are lined with shelves filled with supplies of all kinds. About fifty meters further on, the hallway widens out into a small room. After checking to make sure the door is sealed shut, we go to investigate.
And hit the jackpot. This chamber contains more supplies, including guns and crates of vacuum-packed food. But the piece de resistance is the solar powered dune buggy that fills the space. It has six seats, is painted the color of sand, and looks brand new. (The Colonizer may hate the Real, but he was prepared for it.) There is a temptation to stay right here, though. With any luck, the Architect thinks we were killed by the Gravs during the battle for Medival. And with the cryobunker about to freeze solid, this place might remain hidden for a long time. We could live here for weeks or even months.
But there is Delez to think about, and Peace and my daughter, and the millions of innocent civilians living in Opacity and the Hive. I don't want to think about Tikal, but hiding here would erase any chance of her finding us again as well. Which means that we need to go back out into the world. And if we're going to do that, it has to be now, before the Null create a surveillance cordon around the pyramid. I can tell from the squad's body language that they are thinking the same thing.
“Anyone want to take a ride?” I say with a lightness I do not feel.
“Are you okay to travel?” Francis replies uncertainly. “It looks like those surgeons bailed on you halfway through. I mean, your eye...”
“Is fucking gross, I know. But I'll survive for a few more days.”
Francis turns to Amy. “What do you think?”
She shrugs. “We need to get out of here. And if Anex says he can make it, I believe him.”
“Alright then.” He brightens. “And Anex is like, superhuman and shit. Maybe his arm will just grow back!”
“Can we please not talk about my arm?” I ask quietly.
“Shit, sorry man.” He closes his eyes. “It's just so unfair, you know? After everything we've done trying to help other people, one of them does this to you? It makes me so fucking mad.”
“Hera thought we betrayed her.” Lucy says. “Any one of us would have done the same thing. And Tikal already killed her for it, anyway.”
Francis grimaces. “I've never seen anything like that before. The way she took Hera's sword off her, like it was the easiest thing in the world. And what she did with it afterwards...”
Sickened, I say, “Maybe let's not talk about that either.”
Lucy nods quickly. “Whatever you like, Anex.”
But now, the absences in the room begin to weigh on us. Without further discussion, we start to load supplies into the buggy. Or the others do, anyway. I keep trying to pick things up with both hands, and my depth perception is off as well, to the point where I am constantly misjudging my movements. And the pain is like sediment, layering over itself until I can barely concentrate. In the end I just climb into the buggy and let my friends get on with it.
This thing is no GTV, but it does have a railgun mounted to the roof. Within minutes, we're ready to go. I'm in the back with Lucy. Francis has taken the passenger seat, and Amy is driving. She revs the engine. Tires squeal over slick concrete, and we burn out o
f the chamber, leaving black skidmarks behind us. The tunnel continues for another couple of kilometers at least. At no stage does it alter course, although we do track gradually upward. We eventually reach what looks like a flat concrete wall. A light on the buggy's dashboard flashes red, and the edifice slides to the left. I have to cover my eye against the desert glare. We are well outside the nanovax moat now, in the dunes surrounding the salt basin.
“Everybody ready?” Amy asks. Nobody answers.
“Good.”
She floors the accelerator, and we surge out into the open. The solar cells to either side of the railgun protect us from direct sunlight, but the heat is still intense. Sand spits from under our tires. Amy follows the curve of a dune, intent on pushing deeper into the desert. Twisting in my seat, I look back. The Worldpool basin has become a sprawling military encampment. Dark shapes move within a wavering heat haze, making it difficult to judge distance. But nothing is actively chasing us, so that's something at least.
We pass between two dunes, and the Null army is hidden from sight. But its location is marked on the sky by the carrion birds circling over it.
“Where are we going?” Lucy asks a few minutes later.
“To the mountains.” Amy says shortly. “We can regroup there and decide our next move.”
“Why not head straight home?” Francis asks.
“Because there’s no guarantee we will be welcome there. Or not in Opacity, anyway. If what Anex told me is true, Shion is an enemy now.”
“He will be if we do what the Architect wants.” I say.
Lucy looks thoughtful. “And if we did convince the Opacians to surrender, do you really think she would cure Delez?”