by J M Guillen
“Okay.” I folded my arms.
“But that Rachel chick does not. And expecting you to grow up just because Gideon’s gone…” She paused. “Life’s not a made-for-television movie. There isn’t some cosmic screenwriter who can make you see the light and change your stripes.”
“Maybe.” I frowned. “But I can try to do right by us.”
“You will try, I know. You’ll work hard.” She tilted her head. “But I think your friends, the people who know you, won’t expect you to change overnight. They won’t assume you’re suddenly a responsible adult because the Designates made a few changes.” She shrugged.
“Huh.” I said.
“Just food for thought.” Without another word, Sofia Delacruz turned and walked into the Corvus.
Women. Wyatt came up behind me. You done getting your head messed with?
Fuck. I blinked. Yeah. I shook my head as if to clear it. You ready to fly this contraption?
I am. He gave me his rebel’s smile. Well, that or blow the thing up.
Awesome. I like my odds. I stepped into the Corvus.
You don’t know the odds. He chuckled. Too much math.
I know the pilot. I know what we’re up against. I paused for a moment to take in the incredible craft. I smiled as I turned back to Wyatt. Let’s roll those dice.
8
Cadre must be secure before ignition may complete.
“Really?” Wyatt strapped himself in while his right hand fiddled with one of the crescent keyboards in front of him. “Because it’s Facility business whether a man has his seatbelt on or not?”
Safe operation of the vehicle is an intelligent precaution, Anya linked as she buckled herself in.
“’Course it is,” Wyatt muttered. “I just don’t appreciate the implication that I’m a poor driver.”
“The last time we let you drive, we crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, if I remember right.” I snapped my restraint secure.
“Not the point,” Wyatt said haughtily.
“I’ve noticed our docking bay isn’t quite as long as the one the Rook used.” Rachel slid into her seat after handing me a handful of type V syringes. “Is that right? Do we need more space?”
“We don’t.” Wyatt reached over to his left and tapped three keys in succession. “The Tangler B has the capability to hold pre-configured alogos. That means I’m not havin’ to do so much math while we burst through space-time.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “We should break through a lot faster.”
As he spoke, he hit an additional button. The entire ship rumbled before settling into a high-pitched hum.
It’s rotating. Sophia gazed out the port window at the circular array that hovered around the stern of the craft.
As Wyatt configured his keys, it began to spin faster. Three separate arms stretched out from the array and aimed forward.
The turrets. I grinned, happy to know their location.
“Check it out,” Wyatt interjected. “Right in front.”
I turned and squinted my eyes against the brilliant mote of furious energy approximately three meters in front of the ship. It blazed with no obvious source or fuel.
Is that the aperture? I leaned up in my seat and tried to get a decent view. Or where the aperture will be?
“You think I know?” The large man chuffed. “I’m just along for the ride, same as you.”
That’s encouraging. Rachel sat back in her seat. I think I’m just going to close my eyes, if you don’t mind.
Wyatt hit another key and then grasped a lever over his head. As he eased it back, the realmship shuddered again, as if loosed from some invisible mooring.
Okay. Wyatt glanced at me, a sickly smile upon his face. We’re ready.
Let’s go, Artisan. I nodded at him, attempting to project confidence. You absolutely have this.
With that, we drifted forward.
Just as on our first journey within the Rook’s skiff, it didn’t feel as if we glided through space. Instead, the ship seemed to somehow grasp space around us, as if tethered to a rope that dragged us across the chamber faster and faster. After a matter of moments, brilliant, multicolored sparks burst at the edges of the ship and cascaded around us.
“This is okay.” Sofia nodded a little too quickly. “This is absolutely okay.”
“Oh God.” Wyatt’s quiet voice filled with the beginnings of panic as he typed like a madman. “Come on. Come on.”
“You got this, Guthrie.” Instead of closing my eyes like a sane person, I stared forward, focused on the brilliant fury of the light in front of us.
As if fired from a Facility slingshot, the Corvus exploded toward the far wall of the room, while the world became a fractured, singing, a blur of wild, cacophonous color.
“Do not like!” Sofia gripped the arms of her chair. “Very mu—!”
The realmship and everything we knew shattered into a painful symphony of color, light, and sound.
It burned around us, riotous.
As befit my new station, I did not scream like a six-year-old as existence itself burst around us.
No. My screams held dignity. Grace.
Space undulated around us as the surface of the realmship burst into furious, insane hues. The very matter of the ship fragmented and drifted apart, only to be followed by our own.
“No.” Sofia shook her head wildly and moaned, “No, no, no…”
Nanoseconds drifted into eternities. Light howled through us, carried us away. Everything in existence blended into a synesthesia where colors had sounds and tastes, where memory itself unfolded like molten ecstasy within my mind.
“—ot it!” Wyatt yelled and reached for some controls. “Hang on! Just hang—”
We were through.
“—on!”
Cruising in a vast emptiness between two infinite planes of gloaming, mist-like darkness, occasional lances of scarlet lightning echoed in the vast, unforgiving distance.
The Maelstrom raged around us.
“[Mother of God!]” Sofia peered at the infinity of thundering darkness outside.
I understood exactly how she felt. Even though I’d known exactly what to expect, I found it impossible to stare into that shadowed eternity without vertigo. The vastness of it all made my stomach lurch.
“Infinitely small.” Rachel also gazed out the window, her voice tiny. “It’s just as awful as I remember.”
The Maelstrom echoed with an eternity of sundered matter and energy, all violently thrashing around us. In the center, an infinity of incomprehensible darkness burned.
I glanced down. As Anya stared out the window, her blue eyes wide, she had clutched my leg with her right hand.
Anya? I smiled at her. Everything okay?
What? She met my gaze, glanced down, and realized what she had done. Oh. The tiniest flush came into her cheeks.
She pulled her hand away.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Wyatt drawled. “We’re headed right back through.”
“I don’t think I like the Corvus as much as I thought I would,” Sofia whispered.
“You get used to it.” I gave her a smile. “After a time or two, it isn’t so bad.”
“Hang on tight.” Rachel clenched at her handholds.
“Here we go.” With that, Wyatt swerved violently to port, and sparks of brilliant, unearthly hues ignited around the realmship again.
As we clung to our seats for dear life, Wyatt veered violently back through the constraints of space-time.
Regardless of what I’d said to Sofia, it remained exactly as terrible as my very first time.
The Necropolis
With an explosion of variant shades of insanity, reality whiplashed around us. The Corvus violently imploded into Rationality.
“—me sideways!” Wyatt yelled and wrenched the craft to starboard.
Each of us lurched forward as the realmship came to an abrupt halt.
“Ow!” Rachel blurted.
“What the hell?” I gla
red at Wyatt. “Did you have to stop the thing on a dime?”
“I just input the coordinates, Hoss.” He coughed and pulled the restraint back from his neck. “I suppose momentum doesn’t apply. You arrive at the coordinates and just… stop.”
It may be typical of the design. Anya sat up primly and began to unfasten her restraints. For all we know, this is exactly what happened last time; we simply stopped in the troposphere.
“And then fell.” I nodded. “Bravely.”
“Where are we?” Rachel peered out one of the turquoise-tinted windows. “Underground?”
I will know more shortly. Anya’s right hand twitched. The local network is syncing with my Crown.
“We’re approximately fifteen meters below the surface.” Sofia’s Crown augment pulsed as she retrieved the information.
“Why would we be underground?” I leaned forward and peered through the main window. Only darkness lay beyond, so I triggered my optics.
Slowly, things came into view.
A tunnel, scarcely large enough to hold the Corvus, greeted me. Crumbling masonry made up the walls, and trickles of runoff water flowed from both sides. Light filtered in from above, although from here I couldn’t see its source. In the distance, shadows loomed.
“No idea, Hoss.” Wyatt over-enunciated and accentuated his accent as he continued, “If’n only one ’f us had a channel to th’ Designate-in-Charge, mebbe we could fin’ out.”
“Heh.” Sofia chortled.
“Crown links are significantly weaker around assholes.” I glared at him.
“I don’t know how you ever link with anyone then.” He chuckled.
In that moment I decided Alphas probably didn’t punch their Assets. “One moment, I’ll call her up.”
Designate? I accessed the proper channel and sent the query, leaning even further forward to peer out the window. We didn’t exactly discuss the dossier beyond showing up in Italy and beating up Amir Cadavas.
Designate systems currently unavailable. A click sounded, somewhere around my right ear. Rerouting to available locus.
No. That isn’t what I want. I sighed. Please connect me to my Designate. I am Michael Bishop, 108.
Greetings, Michael Bishop. The system sounded almost friendly in my mind.
“That’s right,” I muttered to myself in satisfaction.
Designate systems currently unavailable. One more click sounded, again around my right ear. Rerouting to available locus.
“Problem, Hoss?”
I think I’m on hold, I linked to my cadre.
“Super,” Sofia groaned.
I’ll have access to the network in less than four minutes, Anya reported. We should gain quite a bit more information at that point.
Reroute complete. My Crown whirred. Then it clicked twice, and I felt my system mesh with another.
But not the Designate.
This link felt unlike most other links I’d experienced. Recently I’d learned why. Ninety-eight percent of the time when my Crown linked with a Facility system, I linked with one of three things: another Asset, a Designate, or one of the Facility interfaces.
Yet linking with a Facility Liaison felt entirely different. I just didn’t trust something about the link, even though as far as I knew, the man on the other end had never once dealt me wrong.
Good afternoon, 108. Are you well? The link felt smooth in my mind, confident. I couldn’t help my sigh, just a bit, as the words drifted through my mind.
Damnit.
Afternoon, Stone. I’m attempting to reach my Designate-in-Charge.
Hmm, he linked. Designate channels seem to be unavailable. I just received an automated message that you’d been rerouted to me.
That struck me as strange. I wondered if Stone knew why it had happened.
I have no idea why it happened, he continued.
I assumed the system didn’t recognize me, I snarked. Gianni Stallone isn’t an Asset-in-Play.
Oh, Michael. Stone’s chuckle felt like smooth jazz in my mind. Are you still using that same alias?
I—I don’t get to choose… I trailed off with the realization that it was impossible to strangle someone over the link.
I’m afraid I don’t have time to create another alias just now, Stone apologized.
Why would you be on-link? I queried. Even if the Designates can’t be reached, why would I link up with you?
Well, I’m not currently me, he explained. I’ve been placed as one Cardinal Giovanni De Luca. I’m overseeing recon teams as they place resonator relays throughout the Vatican.
You’re here? But undercover?
We needed a church official to get the resonator relays in place.
Oh. That actually made sense.
I assume the Designate told you all about the Citadel project. He paused. I’m your onsite Liaison, Alpha.
So I try and connect with the Designate, and I’m rerouted to you? I didn’t like to consider that Stone might be above me in this particular pecking order. If I weren’t truly the Alpha, I needed to know it.
Until you arrived, I was the highest ranking Asset. I assume we’ve been put in contact to coordinate. You’ve received a dossier, yes?
No. There’s no dossier as far as we know. We were put into play rather quickly.
That is… I felt his confusion. Unusual.
We’re here because Amir Cadavas is here, Irrational 3302. We couldn’t receive a patched dossier because our systems were receiving the Citadel updates.
I see. As soon as Anya sets up her relay and syncs into the network, she’ll be able to pull up the Huntsman mecha and see his exact locale. Stone paused. He’s somewhere beneath the Vatican just now, in the tunnels.
We might be as well. I waved one arm, and Wyatt stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. Our incursion has placed us beneath the Vatican, I think. We’re in some tunnels, either way.
You were to be positioned within the old passageways beneath the necropolis, as far as I know. The idea was to catch Amir before he left the city.
That’s exactly what I needed to know. I couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t often we actually received clear direction.
I’ll keep trying to reach the Designate. He paused, and I felt his genuine concern. If I reach them I’ll let you know. I don’t like the idea of you being without a dossier.
That… I felt a touch taken aback. That would be a major help.
I’m here if you need me, Michael. I’m your man. Until then, I’ll keep the recon teams busy.
Understood, Stone. I paused. Thanks.
2
Data incoming now. Anya stopped calibrating her telemetric packet to link, It seems as if we have most of the city online.
“That’s what Stone said.” I turned to the rest of my cadre. “We’ve got recon teams setting up resonators all across Rome.”
“Stone?” Sofia gave me an odd look. “Demetrius Stone?”
“I thought you called up the Designate, Hoss?”
“Designate channel is down.” I shifted out of my seat and stood. “That means we technically don’t have a dossier.”
“That isn’t good.” Rachel stood next to Sofia and calibrated her interface. “How are we supposed to do this if we don’t have a dossier?”
We could standby. Anya’s link felt completely reasonable. Itis standard practice to hold all actions while awaiting Designate approval.
“Absolutely not.” I turned first to her and then to Wyatt. “You remember what the Designate said. We have a very brief window of time here.”
“But we have no idea what to do.” Sofia stepped back to the window and peered out. “We know 3302 is somewhere in the Vatican, and we’re stuck underground.”
“Demetrius had a lot to add.” I slid past Wyatt and made for the door. “Amir is somewhere beneath the Vatican, near the necropolis. His intel said we were to be inserted somewhere in the necropolis. From there, Anya’s telemetry should soon pick up Amir’s location.”
“Necropol
is?” Rachel cocked her head. “Seriously?”
“Huh.” Sofia curled a dark lock in one hand thoughtfully. “There’s a whole city of the dead down there. Supposedly Peter himself is buried beneath the Vatican.”
The soft Spanish curl of Sofia’s words made me consider something I hadn’t previously thought about before. It was entirely possible that Delacruz had been Catholic, at least before the Facility came into her life.
“I don’t like the idea of Irrats playing fuck around inside an honest-to-God necropolis,” Wyatt grumbled.
“Me neither,” I admitted. “Not to get all superstitious on the topic—”
“But you’re saying we’re just gonna go in and get the fucker.” Wyatt’s words didn’t lilt up into a question, but I felt their querying nature.
“Yes.” I gazed at each of them. “The Designate is offline for reasons unknown. We have been informed that our target is beneath the city, and there is probable reason to believe our time is limited.”
“Those things are true.” Rachel chewed the idea over. “It’s also true that just yesterday you were eager to, as I recall, ‘murder the target to death.’”
“Heh.” Wyatt grinned.
“Is it possible, Alpha, that we should wait?” Rachel didn’t challenge me, not in any way. She simply asked a question that showed her concern.
“I don’t think so.” I quirked up one side of my mouth. “I’ll admit, I want to lay 3302 out. But the thing that concerns me is how intent the Designate seemed on our timeframe. Technically, I should still be in torpor, yet here I am. Whatever is happening must be time sensitive.”
I need to set up my personal telemetric relay. Without it, I will be unable to locate 3302. Anya closed her pack, then her gaze met mine. With the permission of my Alpha, I’d like to step outside the Corvus so I can finish queuing my telemetry.
“Yes.” I gazed at all of them. “We should all step outside. Get our bearings.”
“I’ll be right there.” Wyatt gave me a wink. “I need to gear down the Corvus. It’ll take a moment.”
“Understood, Artisan.” I gave him a thumbs up and stepped outside.
From outside the realmship, our position seemed far more cramped. Two stories overhead, light trickled down through the grated ceiling. Even with my optics, I couldn’t make out what might lay up there, but the grating gave more than enough light to illuminate the situation in the room.