by Isaac Hooke
The dweller didn’t need the suit here in the Umbra, but obviously intended to return with Tane to his own universe. There was no other reason to wear it.
The ramp sealed behind the dweller, and G’allanthamas closed to within four meters. On Tane’s contact list, the dweller moved to the online column.
“All right all right, you convinced me,” the dweller said over the comm. “I’m coming. But only because you insisted.”
Tane glanced at Jed, but couldn’t see his face: the LIDAR-generated wireframe displayed the helmet as a flat polygon. He had no doubt the Volur didn’t approve, however. Even so, Tane felt slightly relieved. Yes, he could definitely use G’allanthamas’ skills in the Essence, and his wisdom regarding all things dweller. But because of Tiberius’ memories, he also regarded the alien as his friend, and Tane was glad to have him along for the journey.
“Someone’s wishy washy,” Sinive commented.
“Yes, I expected a demeaning remark of some sort regarding my change of heart from the likes of you,” G’allanthamas said. “Be warned. I will be keeping a careful watch on you, Human. If you threaten the Doomwielder again, you will regret it.”
“As will you,” Sinive told the alien.
“You two should get a room or something,” Jed quipped.
“You know, I often wondered if Volur’s were a-holes,” Sinive said. “Now I know.”
“Yes, you are an a-hole as she says,” the dweller added. “She and I are entirely different species. A room. Humph!”
“Oh, so you got that joke,” Jed said. “I thought it would go over your head. Considering that you claim not to understand human humor, and all.”
“Oh, I understand most of it,” G’allanthamas said. “You forget, I accompanied a human for two hundred years. I just don’t find it funny.”
“Tiberius lived to two hundred?” Tane said. “Not bad.”
“More,” G’allanthamas said. “But I only knew him for his last two hundred.”
“Not sure why anyone would want to live that long,” Sinive said. “Me, I plan to go out in a blaze of glory long before then.”
“Don’t say that,” Tane told her. “Especially not now. You’re going to live a long time.”
“Yeah, guess I shouldn’t jinx us or anything, huh?” Sinive said. “By the way, how long can you last in that suit, Dweller? If you expect to come with us, you’ll be wearing it for a long time…”
“I can wear the suit indefinitely, basically,” the alien replied. “It’s not like the primitive gear you wear, requiring you to haul around heavy oxygen tanks that need constant replenishing. Our suits recycle everything we need, except for our food source. But one Dirac can last me for six months, if I ration it.”
“That’s certainly convenient,” Sinive commented.
“Yes, though admittedly uncomfortable,” G’allanthamas said.
The four of them walked onward in silence.
Tane tried to share his LIDAR feed with the dweller, but G’allanthamas refused. Either his suit had its own multi-echo LIDAR capability, or the alien was using Night Vision.
Tane glanced at the dweller, and at that environmental suit. There was a Dark Essencework that could create a protective environment for a dweller, but maybe G’allanthamas didn’t know that particular work. He couldn’t ever remember the dweller using it in any of Tiberius’ memories. And like the Volur, the Amaranth hoarded their Essenceworks, and didn’t give them out freely. Tane was lucky that Tiberius had set up dark artifacts specifically for the purposes of granting knowledge to the future World Bender.
Or maybe G’allanthamas simply preferred the suit, because Protective Environment required a maintenance stream of Dark Essence for its upkeep, similar to Persistent Flame of the White.
Tane reread the information about the protective work on his HUD. It was available at level six of Dark Siphoning:
Protective Environment. Surround yourself with a protective environment. Allows you to exist in the void, or incompatible atmospheres, without a spacesuit or pressurized battle armor. Initially lasts for two hours, though at higher levels the duration is longer. Stamina drain: medium (a small stamina hit is continually taken thereafter for the duration the environment is active). Creation time: twenty minutes.
A useful ability to have if one was thrown into the void or one’s suit was breached while in a hostile environment. It was just too bad the creation time was so high. He supposed that he could just hold a Protective Environment in a reserve slot at all times, ready to activate at a moment’s notice. Though that meant giving up a slot that could otherwise provide him with an extra weapon in a time of need.
Speaking of reserve slots, the two fiery globes representing Fingers of Ruin and Melt Metal continued to float above him, waiting to be released. He was glad he didn’t have to continually Siphon the Dark Essence to keep those active.
The party didn’t encounter any TSN scouts and reached the city wall without incident. Like in Durahepte, that wall served the dual purpose of keeping the jungle out, as well as generating a field to protect the city when the storms came. The upper canopy of the trees reached right up to the border of those walls, ensuring that the party was shielded from any LIDAR the orbiting TSN craft were likely beaming into the city.
“Wait here,” Jed said.
The Volur approached the wall, and began to climb it.
“Someone has a high climbing skill,” Sinive commented.
“He cheats,” G’allanthamas said. “His battle armor has specialized attachments, if I’m not mistaken.”
It took about ten minutes for Jed to reach the top and climb down again.
When he returned, the Volur warrior shared the recordings he had made. He hadn’t used LIDAR or echolocation—doing so would have potentially given away his location. Instead he’d relied on the night vision ability of his armor faceplate to enhance the dim light sources scattered throughout the city. As such, the video that played back on Tane’s chip was colored green and black.
“As I feared, there are TSN shuttles on patrol,” Jed said. “And mechs and robots searching the streets.”
Tane studied the green and black representation of the city that played as Jed spoke. The view panned left to right. Like the previous city, the structures were all silos with ornate carvings and frescoes. Even more of those silos had bird wing ornamentations near the tops than Durahepte. That was a capital city for you, Tane supposed.
He saw the outlines of TSN shuttles roaming the skies above those buildings, and of mechs and robots patrolling the streets below.
“Have you confirmed whether the TSN is beaming down LIDAR from orbit?” Tane asked.
“They are,” Jed answered. “They have the city under complete surveillance.”
“Gall, you told us earlier you could blur us from LIDAR?” Tane said. “And that it works great at night?”
“Certainly,” G’allanthamas said. “From afar, you will blend into the darkness. But get too close, and it won’t fool the AIs. The same is true with security cameras.”
“So we’ll still have to avoid any patrols we come across,” Jed said.
“You will,” the dweller agreed. “It will require some time to set up.”
“See, this is why we need you,” Tane told the alien. He had a sudden thought and turned toward Jed. “But Lyra was able to hide my face from robots at customs with her blurring.”
“Hide your features, you mean,” Jed said. “Your face was still visible. Blurring your features is a different thing than trying to obscure your presence entirely, which is what our alien friend is trying to achieve.”
“We might not have to hit the streets,” Sinive said. “I’m looking at the city blueprints. The sanitation system cycles sewage out through the walls. There’s an outfall nearby. The tunnel leads through the wall and underneath the city, and connects to a pumping station, which is itself connected to the underground pedway system. Once we’re in the pedway system, we can use it to get as close as possible
to wherever the inter-dimensional lens is located.”
“I don’t have the blueprints...” Tane said. His surface map data didn’t include the sewer system.
“Sharing now,” Sinive said.
Tane accepted the sharing request and reviewed the new map data. He nodded behind his faceplate. “She’s right. Assuming we can actually get out of the sewers at the pumping station, the pedway system will take us all the way to where we need to go.”
“We’ll be able to get out of the sewers.” Sinive’s wireframe patted the pistol she held. “My trusty friend will assure it.”
“Or mine,” Tane said, patting his own beam hilt. “Well, Gall, I guess you don’t have to blur us after all.”
“Not so fast,” Jed interjected. “The underground pedways will have robot patrols, too, at the very least.”
“And I’m sure there are security cameras in the pedway system, and the concourses beneath the buildings they connect to,” Sinive added. “Will they be active?”
“Likely,” Jed said.
“But without working AIs in the Umbra, we won’t be detected by any facial algorithms,” Tane said. “And the RFID readers scattered throughout the city and pedway system are also useless without a central AI to process all the data.”
“Yeah but this is the TSN,” Sinive said. “They’ll have taken along their own AI cores to plug into the security center downtown, and with the robots to man it. Trust me, I know how the TSN works.”
Tane turned toward the dweller. “Gall, I guess you’ll have to blur us after all. That will handle the security cameras, but what about the RFID readers? Sinive and I have spoofing going on, but that won’t cut it here. When we’re the only humans showing up in an otherwise empty city, it’ll be obvious who we are. Can you do anything about that?”
“The magnetic resonance from the blurring should prevent the readers from picking us up,” G’allanthamas said. “Assuming we don’t get too close to them. As in within two or three meters.”
“Okay, good,” Tane said. “Jed, I’m highlighting the sewer tunnel in the city wall that will take us to the pumping station. Lead the way.”
Jed guided them through the white wireframes that represented the thick foliage along the exterior of the wall.
“You know, I have to admit I’m a bit surprised they still use such an outdated waste management system here,” Sinive said. “I guess the residents of Sigma 231 have never heard of in-apartment sewage processing.”
“Not everyone likes to drink their own waste water,” Jed said. “Recycled or not.”
“Yeah, well, get them to live on a starship for a few weeks, and we’ll solve that problem real fast,” Sinive said. “We’re all crap drinkers, here.”
“That’s disgusting,” Tane said.
“Yeah, but it’s true,” Sinive said. “You just never stopped to think about it.”
“This type of waste management is also part of the belief system here,” Jed said. “The Sigma 231-ians believe they’re giving back to the environment by returning their processed effluence to the river.”
“Weird belief system,” Sinive said.
“Not to mention expensive,” Tane said. “It’s far cheaper to process sewage at the residence level. Just as it’s far cheaper to provide electricity via solar energy.”
No one answered him. Apparently they didn’t want to discuss the pro and cons of different electrical and sewage infrastructure systems at the moment. Tane didn’t blame them: his inner engineer often yearned for intricate technical discussions at the most inappropriate of times.
Two minutes in:
“Whoa, your LIDAR representation just vanished,” Sinive said.
“Whose?” Tane asked.
“Yours.”
“I’ve finished applying the blurring to Tane,” G’allanthamas said. “I’m working on the rest of you.”
“Oh wait, I see him again,” Sinive said.
“That’s because he let you get too close,” the dweller said.
Tane moved a few more steps away from her.
“And he’s gone again,” Sinive said. “So I’m curious… what was your plan, Mr. Volur, if we didn’t have the dweller here to blur us? Could you have hidden us the same way? Or can you only make yourself invisible?”
“Just myself,” Jed said. “And blurring against facial recognition and thermal detection algorithms is a different thing than invisibility.”
“But Lyra could blur…” Tane said. “She did it to me, and to our getaway shuttle when we fled the dweller ship after rescuing Sinive. For a few seconds anyway.”
“I’m not Lyra,” Jed said. “My plan was simply to move quickly. Very quickly.”
“Nice plan,” Sinive said. “Somehow, I’m glad we ended up not going with it.”
“We still have to move fast,” Jed said. “Even if we’re coming in through the sewer system.”
“Yeah well, I’m not sure how fast you can move when you’re knee deep in crap,” Sinive said.
“An experience not entirely unfamiliar to you?” Tane quipped.
“Oh yeah,” Sinive said. “Me and crap, we go way back. Sometimes, I wonder why I’m always the one getting dumped one.”
“There are two kinds of people in this life,” G’allanthamas said. “Those who take the dump, and those who get dumped on. Be the one who takes the dump.”
“Now I’m getting philosophical advice from an alien,” Sinive said. “With a metaphor about excretion. Wonderful.”
“Humans seem to listen more attentively to advice when it involves their excretory systems,” G’allanthamas said. “It is a metaphor you humans can more easily grasp with your crude minds.”
“Glad you think so highly of us,” Sinive said. “Tell me again why Tiberius allowed you into his inner circle?”
Every two minutes, another one of them dropped from the wireframe display, until finally they were only visible on the overhead map, thanks to location sharing. They all stayed under five meters away from each other, as per their reduced transmission ranges.
“This is it,” Jed said. He stood beside an arch that had been carved into the bottom of the wall. Below it was a half-circle gutter that extended away through the jungle, where it would eventually meet up with other “trunk lines” from the city before arriving at the sewage processing site, where the effluent would be treated before being released into a river. That none of the cleared undergrowth had regrown near the sludge-filled tract spoke volumes.
“If we didn’t have fully pressurized suits at the moment, I don’t think we’d be able to stand here without throwing up,” Sinive said.
“Now you know why I donned my environmental suit already,” G’allanthamas said.
“Yeah, that’s right, try to pretend you knew we were coming this way,” Sinive said.
“I knew we’d be passing through the bowels of a human city one way or another…” the dweller said. “And I knew it would stink.”
“Whatever,” Sinive said.
“The sewage doesn’t seem to be moving,” Tane commented.
“It’s not,” Jed said. “This universe creates snapshots of our own, remember… any moving liquids from our universe will be treated as stagnant pools.”
“What would happen if we came across a waterfall?” Tane said.
“It would still exist,” Jed said. “But the water wouldn’t be flowing. It would seem to defy the laws of physics, just floating in place.”
Jed leaped down, splashing into the liquid.
Tane followed, and the sludge buried his leg assembly up to the thighs. He waded forward, entering the cylindrical tunnel underneath the wall. Sinive followed behind him, and G’allanthamas brought up the rear. The dweller had to draw in his eight legs and crouch low to fit, especially with the added bulk of his suit.
“You know, this isn’t as disgusting as I thought it would be,” Sinive said. “I guess it helps that it’s pitch black. With the wireframes provided by the LIDAR, and our space
suits to protect us, we might as well be wading through thick water.”
“Thick water,” Tane said. “I like that. Good euphemism.”
Tane activated his shield generator, and the energy field only activated in a half dome around him, above the sludge.
Jed came across a set of bars that were illustrated as thin white lines on the LIDAR feed. Those bars blocked all access forward. “Engineer, probably easier if you handle this.”
Tane edged past the Volur, unclipped the beam hilt from his belt, and stepped into the Essence through the device to activate his ax. The whole area lit up, thanks to the white beam.
Tane cut a horizontal line through the bars as close as possible to the top of the tunnel. When that was done, he sliced the energy blade through the bottom portions, which he couldn’t see through the sludge as neither the LIDAR nor the light from his weapon penetrated it. He simply estimated where the floor was and aimed the blade just above it. The Essence weapon passed through the liquid like it wasn’t there, and the bars toppled in turn, sometimes clattering as they struck the surrounding tunnel walls, and other times squishing into the sludge. A couple of them hit Tane’s shield before bouncing away.
Finished with the job, he deactivated the beam hilt and secured it to his belt once more. Then Jed led the way inside.
Following the blueprint, Jed guided them through the labyrinth of the sewer system without issue. They moved from the trunk line, to an expansive catch basin, and then turned onto a local sewer line that wound underneath the streets. At times they were able to travel along walkways that bordered the sludge. At other times they had to wade directly in it. None of the kraals were present, despite the fact that some of the tunnels were rather cavernous in nature.
At one point they came across a couple of small sewage waterfalls inside. Tane momentarily activated his head lamp to observe them on the visual band: like Jed had said, the liquid wasn’t flowing. It just floated there, defying the laws of gravity.
“Gross,” Sinive said. “Turn that off, please.”
Tane deactivated his headlamp and moved on. Still, he had to chuckle. “Never thought I’d ever find myself trudging past frozen waterfalls of crap.”