by J M Guillen
“Well, I suppose we should all be glad for Alabama Slim’s stasis fields.” I jerked my chin at Wyatt. “If I remember correctly, those only last while he’s busy tapping on keys and math-matizing?”
“Heh.” Wyatt gave me a shit-eating grin. “As it happens, I’ve poked into that. Figured out how to power the damn things on gravity.” He waved a hand dismissively in my direction.
“Gravity, huh? So it’s permanent?” I chuckled.
“You wouldn’t understand. Too much math.” Wyatt said.
“Does that also mean our way back is blocked?” I arched an eyebrow at him.
“Fallback position is your responsibility.” Wyatt sighed as if bored. “I am an artist.”
“Asset Guthrie can easily untangle the field’s underlying—”
“Easily! See?” I gestured toward the Preceptor. “Anya can do your job better than you can.”
“You two need to shut it. Honestly.” Rachel glared at us. “If I’d known rescuing Bishop in Cincinnati meant I’d have to listen—”
“Assets.” Gideon stopped. “We’re at Locale One.”
The hatch looked nothing like I’d expected, but Gideon had to be right. Bands of obsidian and crimson surrounded a hexagonal depression in the wall. Misshapen stones sat around the design with no apparent pattern or purpose.
When I touched the center of the design, the stones pulsed a soft, multicolored light. In my mind, I heard the barest edges of dark, bent words I’d never heard before.
“It is a complex device.” Anya peered at the design, but I felt certain she actually studied the axiomatic weave around it. “Alpha, there is no mechanism to physically open it.”
“What?” Wyatt ran his own diagnostics, slower and less exact than Anya’s, but his oculus gave him more data than I had. “Oh hell. She’s right.”
“It may be designed to open to certain psionic frequencies, but hundreds of axiomatic bonds stretch from the hatch and connect somewhere on the other side.” She arched one hand out to her side and plucked at axiom strands I couldn’t see. “Yes. I would posit this is a door specifically for the Vyriim.”
“Damn it,” I swore but then had a thought. “Couldn’t Wyatt replicate the frequencies with spikes? Some fancy mathematical fakery?”
“Possibly.” She peered more intently. “However, the device has several small nodes within it that bear significant energy of an unknown type.” Anya traced her fingers along one of the stones. “It seems reasonable that there is an offensive payload contained within the hatch, perhaps intended to fire if the hatch is opened incorrectly.”
“We can’t exactly go back, either.” Wyatt ran his fingers through his hair. “I mean, I can take the field down, but we don’t know what kind of nasty we have on the line back there. It’d be a fight, either way.”
“I feel as if I must apologize.” Anya’s soft voice dropped even softer. “It was my error to assume this path—”
“That’s foolish, Anya. Don’t second guess yourself.” Gideon studied the mechanism. “How much of this area is the hatch?”
“What do you mean?” She blinked at the device.
“I assume if you can see the payload, you can see the axiomatic workings of the device. At what point is it just a mundane wall?”
“I do not understand.” She canted her head, just a touch. “What significance—?”
“We can still get in.” Gideon ignited the Seraph, bathing us all in its golden glow.
“Fuck yeah, we can.” Wyatt grinned widely.
“You intend to incise a new doorway.” Anya almost smiled.
“I doubt anyone planned against that strategy.” Gideon said.
The Preceptor set to work, fingers twitching. In a few moments, she nodded.
“I have it.” She turned to Gideon, her blue eyes certain.
“Well?” As the Seraph sang softly, Gideon gazed around at us. “Are we ready for this?”
A larger question loomed within his words.
At that moment, my cadre was tech adrift in a horrific, alien realm. Every single step took us deeper into hostile territory, and it seemed imminently possible that, like Liam, we would die beneath strange and drifting stars.
This moment mattered. This choice might shape the rest of our lives.
“Ready, Alpha.” Rachel adjusted the Stinger.
“Ready.” Wyatt and Anya spoke at the same time.
“Let’s go, Gideon.” I nodded at him. “Whenever you say.”
That was the strength of Gideon DuMarque. We absolutely knew the man would crawl through Irrational horror for any one of us. Fearless, he always had the next plan at the ready, always knew exactly what to do.
It felt impossible that we could fail. Gideon could lead us anywhere, and he would always get us home.
We would follow the man into hell.
“Good.” He turned to Anya. “Give me some telemetry, Preceptor.” He smiled wickedly. “Show me where to cut.”
The Broodwell
It only took the Seraph a few minutes to slice hole through the wall.
This manner of entrance held neither poetry nor stealth, unfortunately. The moment Gideon slid the blade against the surface, it created the sound of shattering ceramic as the metal crumbled to a fine, oxidized ash. Though satisfying to watch, the more he cut away, the more we saw of the organic horror in the room beyond.
Lurid red light swathed the room in dim shadows. I peered forward, but immediately withdrew, frantically wiping at my nose.
“What is that?” Wyatt snorted. “Smells like Bishop’s socks.”
In fact, the chamber smelled worse than rancid pork. The place stank like rotten, inhuman afterbirth left to cook in the summer sun. The moment Gideon opened the room, humid fumes poured forth, greasy on our skin.
“Humidity is over 97% within that chamber,” Anya’s quiet voice choked. “Both chlorine and formaldehyde gasses permeate the atmosphere.”
“That sounds unhealthy.” Wyatt began to tie a black handkerchief over his mouth.
“Deadly.” Rachel adjusted the settings on her device. “I’m tasking available mecha to produce oxygen so you won’t need to breathe. They will also protect your eyes and mucus membranes and target toxic gasses for elimination.” She gave us each a sharp look. “Even though it’s instinctual, avoid breathing while inside.”
“If we’re not breathing, we’re not talking.” Wyatt cocked his head. “And we can’t link. I’m starting to think this is an elaborate scheme to get Bishop here to shut up.”
“Just take it easy. If you need to speak, don’t breathe deeply. No inane chatter.” Rachel stared directly at Wyatt and then at me. “Your mecha will be under heavy use every moment you have contact with those gasses.”
“The atmosphere is just part of the problem.” Gideon stepped back. “Cycle the optics of your Crown down a wavelength or two, then take a gander inside.”
“We weren’t supposed to use optics?” I questioned Rachel.
“You weren’t supposed to use optics,” she confirmed, turning to Gideon.
“You said ‘for long periods.’” He gave her a wink. “I’d assume we can peek, just for a moment?”
For the space of a breath, Rachel thought.
“A moment,” she relented.
A symphony of horrors awaited us within.
The hatch wasn’t the only entrance of its kind; I actually spotted a few of them, the only spots of bare metal in the room. The walls and ceilings had been created from the same material, presumably, but we couldn’t see a bit of it. The entire chamber felt damp with sticky vapors, and tendrils of mist clung to the corroded floor. Red, sourceless light shifted and thrummed in the room, like a diseased heartbeat.
Vyriim clung to the walls and ceiling, thousands of shining black tentacles, writhing and knotting together. A thick, yellow mucous dripped from them onto a crust on the floor beneath.
I couldn’t tell where one Vyriim began and another ended.
“Optics
off,” I muttered. “Gladly.”
“The hatch.” Anya hadn’t stepped inside, but she peered in around the corner. “The hatch is connected directly to them. That is why those axiomatic bonds exist.”
“Like a psionic alarm,” Wyatt mused. “If we’d walked through the door, they’d instantly be aware.” He swallowed.
“So because we just sliced our way through, they haven’t responded?” The whole thing seemed strange to me.
“Fuck. Me,” Wyatt breathed, taking in the whole scene. “We can’t go in there. There’s no way—”
“They don’t care that we’re here.” Gideon’s quiet voice held steady. “We certainly made enough noise with our entrance, but they haven’t responded at all.”
“How do we even know which is which?” I turned to Gideon. “It’s not as if the good guys are wearing T-shirts that say ‘Team Ts’otha.’”
“There are good guys?” Wyatt arched an eyebrow.
“I don’t think it matters much.” Gideon sighed. “The Ts’kekegoth should know us by what we’ve brought. But I would assume the Ts’otha will as well.”
“Still doesn’t explain why they’re ignoring us.”
“They have to know we’re here,” Wyatt protested. “They’re aberrations, not stupid.”
“Asset Crowe’s packet explained this well enough.“ Anya regarded us, her cool eyes glittering. “These two variants engage in psionic hostility—supposedly for weeks now. One must assume their entire attentions rest on one another.”
“Regardless, the mission remains the same,” Gideon growled. “Carry in the vessel. Kill the Ts’kekegoth once and for all. Go home.”
“That sounds easy,” Wyatt grumbled.
“If we could see the Broodwell from here,” Gideon continued. “Then Bishop would have it in hand. But we can’t.”
“Right.” Wyatt slumped. “We have to go in.”
“Well, now, let me at least try to take a look.” I swallowed and glanced at Gideon. “I can still use the Corona to peek around, even from right here.”
“Well, yes.” He tilted his head after a beat. “I’d considered that myself, but we don’t know if flaming apertures will alert them.”
“I’ll probably need them sooner or later.” I shrugged. “I suggest we poke around a bit before heading in.”
“I like that.” Wyatt smiled. “Maybe the well is closer than we think, but we just can’t see it from here.”
“Do it, Bishop,” Gideon ordered in a stronger tone. “Anya, I want to know the moment telemetry changes.”
“I am specifically monitoring the T-43 subset of energetic emanations,” she informed him. “This is one of the wavelengths the Vyriim communicate upon, psionically.”
“Very good.”
I pulled back from the chamber, pleased I didn’t have to breathe those awful vapors. Rachel may have mecha on the job, but the atmosphere of the Broodwell still made my eyes burn.
I set the first aperture flush with the wall, about two meters from the place Gideon had sliced into the chamber. Then, regretting the loss of the gatekeeper bow, I stepped back to the chamber’s opening, and placed another one as far into the mists as I could see, only about eight meters.
“Okay. I’m igniting the secondary aperture.” I gave my cadre my full attention. “With only two, they’ll automatically link. We’ll have an immediate view.”
“Do it.” Gideon nodded, and I ignited the sphere. For a moment, our visual remained obscured by acidic mist and lurid light.
“Is that…?” Wyatt’s voice trailed off as he leaned closer to the aperture.
“Oh, God.” Rachel’s hand went over her mouth.
Over a dozen naked Drażeri hung suspended, held in place only by the Vyriim that slithered inside them. The thick tentacles hung from knots on the ceiling and squirmed into the bodies of the dead. Sometimes, the tendrils dug in at the skin of the neck or back, slicing neatly through. With others, the Vyriim had pushed through the eyes or into the mouth. In more than one instance, tentacles hung from the bodies as well, writhing and dangling from much more private orifices.
“Just fucking kill me.” Wyatt turned to Rachel. “I choose the Primary Protocol if it even looks like that’s only possibly about to happen to me. Shut my shit down and fry my remains, nice and quick.”
“Agreed.” Rachel trembled and forcibly turned away.
“Let’s reposition the aperture,” Gideon ground out tightly.
The moment he spoke, I closed the distant fissure and went about setting another.
It didn’t get any better.
Though fewer bodies hung in this direction, the view was no less visceral. If anything, it was more so. No more than half a meter from the aperture hung a young Drażeri woman, her corpse twirling slowly. A thick, violet-black tendril slid wetly into her mouth while her eyes stared, vacant and dead.
Even above the thrumming song of the aperture, we heard the wet, squishing sound of the Vyriim as it slid through the body.
“I don’t think we’re getting past this,” Gideon snarled. “Set another and scope around. Keep in mind that unless you see the Broodwell itself, we’re walking through that nightmare.” He stepped away, leaving the pleasure of scouting around to me.
“Will comply.” I took a deep breath.
Two apertures later confirmed our Alpha’s concerns: dozens of Drażeri dead within the room, all inhabited by Vyriim, all hanging from the ceiling. They hung in various grotesque positions, most with Vyriim extruding from their lower orifices, the tendrils twitching hypnotically.
“What could they possibly get out of it?” Wyatt demanded. “The Drażeri are dead. What’s the point?”
“This is unlike any intel we have on Aberration 45171R.” I thought Anya sounded over-analytical and I wondered for a moment if it signaled a coping mechanism. “We have no answer to the why. It is valuable intel, one way or another,”
“It’s nauseating.” Rachel couldn’t bring herself to even glance at the apertures. “I knew they were aberrations. I knew they were inhuman. But this—!”
“It could be the enemy dead.” Wyatt regarded Rachel. “Those might be the Drażeri that defended this place, the ones beholden to the Ts’otha.”
“I just…” Rachel trailed off, sickened.
“My visual picked up a bit more light from aperture three.” I flipped through the phaneric record of my Crown, trying to identify anything that would let us pick our way forward and get away from this fresh, new hell. “I’d say that one looked most promising.”
“Reposition aperture three and prepare for entry.” Gideon cleared his throat. “Then, when you step through, make another, further in.”
“Step through?” I recoiled, but then I realized his plan. “Oh.” I nodded. “I remain inside for just a second to create a third aperture. After, I return here and link the last two. Get as much of a feel as possible. Like in the Court of Brass.”.
“Right.” Gideon gave me a tight smile. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in striding through the Vyriim Garden of Drażeri Corpses.”
“I’m more interested in setting the entire room on fire.” Wyatt paused. “You sure we can’t just immolate the whole thing?”
“I hate to agree with inbred people, I do.” I glanced down to where I still held the crystalline vessel. “Honestly, this entire place needs to be put to the torch and the earth salted afterward.”
“That’s enough.” Gideon peered into the scarlet hellscape, disgusted. “Let’s get this done.”
Because my system saved the most recent Crown augment settings, it only took a moment to realign the Temporal Corona with the third aperture. Once I did, I took a breath, my head held as far away from the fumes of the chamber as possible.
I stepped through.
Aperture three had been positioned in a small cluster of the Drażeri, but that didn’t interest me. My record showed a small shift in the light in this direction. I searched for the source of the viscer
al red glow. It looked like light filtered through a living membrane. No luck, but it seemed to brighten a bit to the left, as if nearer the source.
As I passed through, the rotten, fertile scent of the mist overwhelmed me. I bent over and retched before remembering I didn’t exactly need to breathe.
“Easy, Bishop,” I muttered. “We’re cool here. It’s all cool.”
On the ceiling above hung one of the convoluted knots, wriggling together, issuing soft, moist sounds. Easily two dozen Vyriim squirmed around up there, coated with yellow ichor that drooled onto the floor.
I stood under a small gathering of them, with Drażeri corpses hung limply beneath.
If the Vyriim noted my presence, they gave no indication.
As I watched, my mind snagged. These were different than the other Vyriim I’d seen.
As a species, an individual Vyriim comprised a simple strand. These creatures varied from the length of a flatworm all the way up to the monstrous, anaconda-length strands we’d seen earlier today. Those monsters had twined together into larger entities, each strand with different adaptations: small hooks for combat, maws for consumption, even rudimentary eyes.
Not a one of these Vyriim held any adaptations.
I peered closer and wondered if the ichor simply constituted an adaptation I hadn’t seen before, when I movement caught the corner of my eye.
I froze in place, then slowly turned.
One of the Drażeri corpses gazed at me with eyes that sang of the unending vista beyond death. Its head moved slowly, as if in slow, dawning comprehension.
“Oh. Oh no, no, no.” I took a step back, prepared to hurl myself through the aperture. With less than a thought I ignited another in the distance, in the direction of the slightly increased light.
PLEASE LINK FISSURES IN DESIRED ORDER
“Okay.” I quickly juggled the fissures together, all the while remaining alert to those lost, mad Drażeri eyes. I glanced around to make certain the Vyriim hadn’t broken loose and started swimming toward me.
They hadn’t. But as I watched, another Drażeri body slowly turned its head toward me, a jerky, marionette-like movement.
Her black, empty eyes contained a vast void that couldn’t be filled by whatever visions the mad and the damned saw.