by J M Guillen
I Spectre’d through the door. Delacruz followed an instant later.
The huge round chamber loomed above us, a tube that ran up through The Spire. For a moment I was somewhat reminded of the Chasm back in Ryuu Tower.
Only looking up.
Above, we saw the shining warble of the Breach, located approximately twelve stories up. The long dock we’d entered by had been shattered, detritus scattered about.
Look down, Delacruz linked. The floor was not the omnipresent metal of The Spire, but shiny black stone, mirror smooth.
It reminded me of obsidian.
Main chamber looks like a bunch of black nothing, I linked to Anya and Wyatt.
Copy that.
I don’t see any goons inside here. Are you certai—?
The entire world flickered, bent. Colorless light and sourceless wind buffeted against us.
About fifteen meters in front of us, an azure glow exploded into being. That light sang, shining brilliant and beautiful into my mind.
For just a moment, our packets flickered as well. Delacruz vibrated into existence and I regained solidity.
Oh… Delacruz linked.
“Where did that—?” I shook my head.
In the center of the light a graceful curving arc made of lapis lazuli shimmered in and out of existence. The stone ran with veins of gold and white against a sea of brilliant, primal blue. The column itself stood approximately six meters tall, square at the base, but curved strongly to my right.
It wavered, like a mirage.
“Gorgeous,” I murmured. The sleek piece of stone looked as graceful as water. Yet even this was only the centerpiece of the construct.
Look there! I pointed. Around the main column lay a semicircle of smaller stones, each a sandy white topped with pyramidal copper tips. Drifting movement tugged at my vision.
The entire thing vanished.
In that same moment, our packets fully re-engaged.
What the hell? I linked.
I didn’t see it all; I was checking out the hovering rocks.
I saw them. Several spherical stones had floated around the main structure. Like shimmering, orbiting planets, they drifted around the arc of lapis lazuli as if held in place by some force more fundamental than gravity.
I would definitely suggest fucking around with that thing. I felt her sarcasm drip through my mind. I’m bringing that up now, because I know that Michael Bishop is the kind of man who needs to be prodded into experimenting with dangerous, unknown technologies.
I am known as a man of caution. I crept forward. Seriously, Delacruz. What the fuck do you think this place is?
The Spire. Her response was almost sharp. And that’s all I need to know.
Light speared into the room from behind us.
“Spread out!” I recognized the voice of my masked ’migo right away. “There’s only two of them!”
Oh good, I linked. Them.
We’re gonna have to get rid of those boys. I felt Delacruz sigh.
I’m the only one with active weaponry.
I can still use the Gatekeeper offensively, she linked. Without the crossbow, believe it or not.
Oh, I believe you. I thought of Dhire Lith.
Let’s move further forward. Get far away from that door. That way, when it goes down, it’ll be further away from Guthrie and Petrova.
Smart. I nodded. Okay.
Together, we ran into the sable darkness.
Moments and meters later, a sourceless voice echoed from those shadows.
A Bound of Wind and Light
“I understand that,” a voice proclaimed out of nowhere. “I’m simply telling you, I don’t know how much more time you have.” The words rippled, sounding as if they echoed from beneath the world.
We have guests. Sofia’s link came across a touch sharp, even as she stated the obvious.
Indeed. I cocked my head. I hate that it seems like they’re invisible guests.
The others are still behind us, she linked, casting a glance over her shoulder. I’d say—
“Well, yeah. It’s an amazing discovery.” The voice sounded impatient. As I listened I realized I knew it, had heard it before.
But where?
“But it don’t matter how important a discovery is if we don’t know how to use it.”
Delacruz turned in place, searching all around us.
“—could be what we’ve been looking for,” the mysterious voice mused, little more than an echo. Still, my pulse raced at just the sound, made eerie by the apparent lack of a source.
I know that voice, I growled over the link. Before I could continue, the world undulated around me again.
Cerulean light burned and flickered, shimmering beauty. Again, that garden of strangely singing stone flared and quivered into being around us.
Now we stood right next to the uncanny stones. Again, my packet powered down.
Mike! Delacruz stared at me in horror, completely visible and un-Wraithed.
Michael, telemetry upticked sharply in your immediate region. The Principal Facets of Rationality all flared simultaneously.
I bet. Our packets went offline.
As you can still link, that should not be permanent, Anya replied. Hyper-Rationality is undergoing adjustment.
I’d guess these stones are the base of the Matrices?
Agreed. We have also lost contact with Catalyst DuMarque and Caduceus Gardener.
Lovely, I groused. How long before we have some direction?
Taking readings now.
Up close, the huge lapis pillar stretched over ten meters across. Small stones whirled in improbable orbits through the air. Around us, an umbra of sapphire light shone. The slightest wind buffeted us, a soft exhale.
“That’s it then.” This time, the voice sounded almost as close as my next breath.
Oh.
Slowly, I turned to Sofia. In the deepest pit of my stomach, I knew exactly who this was.
[Piece of shit.] Delacruz’s anger was like boiling mud in my mind. Think you can kill him this time?
Like I’m going to say no. I toggled the Adept and stepped sideways through the shadows. How’s this? I’ll do my damnedest.
Do better than that. I felt the grim glint in her dark eyes. He deserves it.
Copy that.
I pressed myself against the stone, edging my way closer to the voice. So far, I’d only heard the Padre speaking. If he stood alone, maybe using a walkie to coordinate, it might be a good moment for him to meet my katana.
I eased around a pillar and saw the Padre, his back turned to me.
I crouched.
“Maybe we should just blow the whole fucking thing.” The Padre paced as he spoke, gazing up at the construct from the opposite side. At his feet, a battery of mechanical devices sent long cables snaking around the stone construction. Behind him, in the shadows, I made out the silhouettes of other men.
The Padre continued to speak, though I heard no reply. Frozen in place, my eyes drank in every detail.
The Padre looked rough, with torn clothing and a wound on the side of his head. He’d apparently been through the wringer.
Offhandedly, I noticed that the sight of blood did not inspire poetic savagery in my heart.
He hasn’t seen me, I linked to Delacruz. He’s focused on the garden of metal and stone.
Cautiously, I shifted sideways again, careful to remain within the shadows. It was difficult with the azure-hued brilliance shining from the lapis stone, but it seemed as if the Padre were distracted by—
I stopped, my eyes wide.
In an instant, I understood why I’d only heard half of the Padre’s conversation.
“Of fucking course,” I muttered to myself, my eyes going hard at the sight before me.
There, on the other side of the column of lapis, stood a Drażeri war-cleric. He wore a long ceremonial robe and held an iron rod in one hand. Green fire danced along its length.
Our eyes met, and his gaze fille
d with midnight and madness.
A slow smile spread across his face.
“Oh fuck,” I breathed. Reflexively, I took a step back. Folks, we have a problem.
2
Hoss? My tone had apparently caught Wyatt off guard, as there was no teasing or playfulness in his link.
Drażeri. With the Sadhana agents, I linked quickly as I could. I watched the Drażeri turn to the Padre, most assuredly sending him telepathic love notes.
“Well now.” The Padre chuckled, ran a hand along the side of his face, and turned to me. “I think I remember you, boy.”
“I’m not interested.” I cocked my head to one side. “But don’t worry. You’re still pretty.”
“Heh.” The Padre glanced behind himself, at a man that, I now realized, wore a rebreather mask. “Didn’t we already kill this shithead once?”
“We did.” This time, the masked man didn’t hold one of the Calicos in his left hand, but a mean little Glock. “Asshole doesn’t know to stay dead.”
“A lack of manners is a shameful thing.” The Padre mused as he ran a hand over his smooth head. “That’s the problem with Facility boys. If you don’t handle things right the first time—”
A furious scarlet light and keening song came from beneath his feet where an aperture abruptly appeared.
The Padre swore viciously and lunged to one side at the first whisper of that sibilant song.
Everything exploded around me.
“It’s that fucking bitch!” one of the other men called. “Fan out! Shoot anything that moves!”
I couldn’t decide whether I should be pleased at the fact that they were no longer focused on me or irritated that Delacruz apparently struck terror into their hearts, while I’d been forgotten.
Lost from us, a wanderer in the wood,
Yet found again, far from true hearth and home.
The Drażeri’s words came with a hammer of mental images that pounded themselves into my mind one after the other.
Oh. Apparently, I hadn’t been forgotten.
Not all.
In my mind, I saw the distant and wild vista of Dhire Lith, the labyrinthine streets that stretched into forever, the walled terraces under the broken sky. I saw darkened caves beneath the world where thousands of the Vyriim came together to breed and consume the bodies of their most faithful servants.
Behind it all, I felt the whisper of a beautiful woman. I smelled vanilla and something muskier, more earthy.
For a brief, panicked moment, ten-thousand questions plagued me. How could he possibly recognize me? How could he know so much?
Then I realized.
The Unity.
In the darkened distance, I heard the cries of a man as he fell from an impossible height.
One of Sophia’s apertures glowed and sang somewhere overhead, but I couldn’t see where without looking away from the Drażeri.
He stepped toward me, darkness burning in his empty eyes. He held his iron rod out to one side as fierce green flames traveled along it and illuminated the forsaken script inscribed there.
The curving brands on his body pulsed a lurid red.
Oh. Oh damn! It was the only thing I had time to link.
He fell upon me, his weapon held high.
Thankfully, I’d toggled the Adept.
My katana clanged with the impact, keeping the rod above my head. The Adept allowed me to perceive and react to the strike, but it was still very difficult to defend against. To protect my sharpened blade from the impact, I had my wrist turned in an awkward pose as the Drażeri bore down upon me.
“Little far from home, aren’t you?” I spat as he pushed down, slowly bearing me to my knees. “What brings you out?”
The Drażeri’s grin was wicked, and his words were hateful knives:
Secret, hidden deep within the tower
A Bound of Light, Wind, and eldritch power.
He swung again, rudely choosing to not explain what exactly the holy fuck he talked about.
I leapt sideways and allowed the sharp blade to take the pounding of the thick iron.
The Drażeri knew exactly what he doing, stepping into me and pushing my blade aside.
Which was fine.
I drew my Stiletto, aimed, and fired. Siiiiuu, siiiiuu.
He leapt to the side, but I followed, driving him back toward the stone of the construct.
Every time I fired, the Drażeri leapt aside with what had to be psionically enhanced speed.
Mike! The panic in Sofia’s link felt like a burning, tangible thing. Behind—!
I spun just in time to see Rebreather Boy turn toward me, Glock in hand. When I tried dodging to the left, he turned with me, keeping me squarely in his sight.
He fired.
I engaged the Spectre packet. The bullets tore through me like shards of December.
Okay, that was bad ass! Delacruz exclaimed. An aperture opened beneath the feet of the Drażeri as he attempted to slip up behind me.
Just another day, I confirmed but turned serious. They have psionic capabilities. Spinning toward the masked jerkface, I disengaged the packet and caught him in the leg with my katana. Wherever blue boy’s coming out, he’s probably not falling.
Holy shit. The link came gilded with a touch of awe, and I assumed she watched the Drażeri in action. Copy that.
“Fuck!” That was Rebreather Ralph who, I just now noticed, happened to be wearing one of Sadhana’s clever little bracers beneath the flowing fabric of his shirt. As he pulled his sleeve up, I caught a glimpse of a brilliant, sky-blue fire.
“Let’s just end this now, shall we?” The smile on his face pulled manically at his cheeks, and his eyes shone wide and wild in the twilight glow of the room.
He activated his device.
A sea of lightning and agony exploded from his outstretched hand. It burned away my mind. I had never known anything like it.
I screamed forever.
The Sadhana operative took a step closer to me, holding the button down on his device.
An endless torrent of eldritch electricity poured through me. The resulting muscle spasms made me lurch, and I collapsed on my side and wailed in agony.
Mike!
I could hear Sofia but couldn’t respond. My heart burned its way out of my chest as electric torment coursed through me.
An eternity of pain burned and scorched my body. I felt my Crown vibrate in my skull.
Abruptly, blissfully, it stopped.
I gasped and my eyes flew open. For a long moment, I lay in place, trembling and twitching.
[Fucking asshole!] Sofia’s link felt sharp, laced with venom.
I blinked rapidly and glanced up.
Mere meters away, the Sadhana operative roared in pain, his fingers clenching around the bracer on his arm.
Lightning poured out of the device into an aperture that had appeared between us. The crackling force poured back out of another situated right above the man.
Torrents of electric power thrummed into him. His eyeballs smoked in his head as he screamed. His muscles clamped tightly, mashing the button down, his grip firm.
The scent of cooked flesh filled the air.
I’m… I wobbled just a touch but stood. I think I’m green.
Good. Her link held pleased malevolence. This [asshole’s] not.
The apertures closed, and the man fell to the ground, his body cooked through. Wild lightning coursed around him for a moment, but when he hit the ground, his dead hand released the device.
Fuck. Delacruz knew how to handle herself.
“Here’s that little Facility bitch.”
I didn’t recognize either of the men that had slipped up behind me; I hadn’t even heard them approach. Each wore a shining device of their own, although one of them wore it on a belt instead of an arm bracer.
“I’m so tired of killing you guys.” My voice sounded genuinely weary even to my own ears.
“You won’t have to do it again.” That was the one with
the belt.
I hadn’t even begun my next jibe when goon number two, a blond man on my left, disappeared into an aperture at his feet.
Blinking in surprise, I almost missed watching him fall to a grisly death.
I clicked my tongue at his partner, brought my Stiletto up, and followed suit. “As I was saying, getting tired—”
Blackened, razor-edged stars exploded in my mind as something hard struck the back of my head.
I stumbled forward, going down to all fours. The taste of blood filled my mouth.
“I understand being tired of killing the same motherfuckers.” The Padre’s dry tone held no humor. “Trust me on this.” He held a pistol in one hand and something dark in the other as he gazed down at me.
A dampening grenade.
“Fuck off.” I crawled forward, trying to push myself up.
As he pressed the button, Rationality rippled around him, a sweet silver song.
WHUM.
Delacruz faded into view between me and the Padre as the Wraith disengaged. The Gatekeeper augment went dark and fell from the back of her head to clatter on the floor.
She stared up at us, the yellow glow from the symbiont shining on her forehead.
“There’s my sexy little plaything,” the Padre leered. “We’re gonna have a lot of fucking fun, you ’n me.” Mirror-like luminescence flushed quicksilver within his veins, just as it had before. He stepped forward and hurled a booted kick at Delacruz, catching her squarely in the stomach.
She scarcely had time to cry out before he stepped forward again, delivering a quick jab to the center of her face.
Fast, I thought.
Her head snapped back and she went down, blood spraying from her nose.
The Padre glanced at the corpse of his rebreather-wearing cohort and then to me. His eyes narrowed.
“Fuck. First Rogers and now Fredrich?” He stepped over to me and delivered a kick to my ribs that crushed the breath from me. “Motherfucker, we ain’t friends. I hope you get that.”
“Got it,” I grunted as I rolled to one side, trying to absorb the kick. I toggled the Adept, but realized that when he hit me, I’d apparently dropped my Stiletto.
Fuck. Anya was right. I couldn’t hold onto a weapon for shit.