by Phoenix Ward
Ethan smiled for a second as he watched the redheaded man attempt to stay steady as the ship was bombarded with the waves. He started to chuckle, expecting the rebel to start glitching out again at any moment.
“I know you don’t believe me,” Gauge continued. “That’s the whole point. They’ve been gaslighting you. Trying to make you doubt the authenticity of everything you see and hear.”
“Why?” Ethan asked. He kept a lookout in the corner of his vision for Sharpe or Taylor. He half expected them to emerge from some concealed corner to ask him how his third run through Rebels was.
“To confuse you, to make you resist us if and when we tried to rescue you,” Gauge replied. “Most importantly, though, to get you to disclose everything you know about the People’s Union. They wanted you to drop your guard and sell us out. Speaking of which, did you — ?”
“No,” Ethan said. He became aware that he was still holding onto his sword. “I didn’t say anything.”
Was this another prelude to the adventure? Ethan wondered. Am I about to be taken for another ride?
“You’re sure?”
Ethan nodded.
“Good,” Gauge said, sighing a little. “We might just be able to bounce back from this.”
“From what?” Ethan asked.
Gauge’s face contorted with confusion. “From their interference with the whole Opes operation,” he replied like the fact should be common knowledge. “They kidnapped you and Tera after your autocar went down in the desert. They’ve had you plugged into your own isolated program ever since. Sometime after you two were snagged, they went after King Hum.”
“I don’t believe you,” Ethan replied, avoiding Gauge’s eyes. “This is just another adventure for you, isn’t it?”
“No, Ethan,” Gauge replied. “It doesn’t matter, though. We don’t need you to believe us just yet. Right now, I just want you to hold on.”
Ethan cocked an eyebrow. “Hold on?”
“You’re still in a simpod, but we’re trying to get you out,” Gauge explained. “First, we have to get you somewhere…safer. It’s going to get a little loud.”
As the words left his lips, a crack of thunder split the air. The sky, once blue and cloudless, transitioned to a dark blanket of storm clouds, casting the whole map into darkness. The waves started growing in height and frequency, rocking the ship more and more with each collision. Staring at the sky, Ethan became convinced a hurricane was coming to destroy them where they floated.
“Hold on!” Gauge repeated.
Ethan did so, clutching onto the captain’s wheel. He pulled his body close so he could support his full weight on the mechanism. The waves came bigger and bigger, slapping into the damaged hull of Ethan’s ship.
It’s not real, the young man said to himself. None of it is real. You can pull yourself out if you try. Come on.
He couldn’t shake the illusion. Another bolt of lightning ripped through the atmosphere, hitting close enough to the boat for Ethan to see a cloud of steam erupt from where it hit the sea.
“Alright, here comes the worst part,” Gauge said.
A shadow crossed Ethan’s face, blotting out the sun from the sky. He looked up and saw a wall of water looming over them. The enormous wave started to tip over at its crest, pouring thousands of gallons of water down its front side as the wave started to swallow the ship.
“Hold one!” Gauge shouted once more.
Ethan took in a deep breath and held it as the tsunami engulfed them.
Free
The wind rushed beneath King Hum’s arms as he drifted through the air. Rather, it whipped past the spot where his arms had been mere moments ago. As far as he could tell, he had no arms or legs. In fact, his entire body seemed to be replaced by a brilliant glimmer of light. It was like he had become a cloud of stardust and was drifting on the warm currents above the valley.
Hum couldn’t begin to describe the sensations that engulfed his mind — he couldn’t even understand it. It was like he was in terrible pain his entire life and had just felt the first ounce of relief he’d ever experienced. All he could feel was pure euphoria, like his soul itself was taking a nice hot bath. He chuckled a little, the vibrations delighting every nerve in his brain. It was almost like being tickled, but without the desire to make it stop.
The trees rolled slowly down King Hum’s range of vision, occasionally obscured by the soft wisp of a cloud. He cast no shadow — the sunlight ran right through him. A sweet aroma met his senses, wafting up gently from the fertile earth and the plants that grew in it. He’d never smelled something so clear, so fresh — so right.
A glitter caught his attention. The young king looked over to his left and saw another cloud of stardust flying at the same pace he did.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” the other cloud asked. “To be so free?”
King Hum recognized the voice, despite it being devoid of character. It was God again. They drifted through the air together like a pair of ethereal kites.
“I’ve never felt anything like it,” King Hum replied. He tried to accelerate a little and found the process effortless. The other cloud sped up to match him.
“It is my gift to you,” God said, swerving a bit to demonstrate his control over the flight. King Hum replicated the move with little effort.
The young king became solemn as he looked over the valley. The sun continued to rise at an accelerated rate. By that point, it was already midday. It was all so glorious — and that’s what made Hum so serious.
“My people,” he said. “I still have a responsibility to them. This is the best thing I’ve ever experienced, but I can’t turn my back on Opes to fly like this.”
“My child, this is my gift to all of you,” the other glowing cloud replied. “For all your people. As long as they are willing to shed their mortal bonds, they can join us up here. In Paradise.”
The idea was almost too grand for Hum to process. If he still had a heart in his chest, it would be close to bursting. He couldn’t begin to understand how strange the sensation of anxiety without a body was.
“I — would have to think about it,” the young monarch answered.
“I understand,” God said, no disappointment or frustration in his tone. The only emotion the sparkling wisp gave off was love, pure and unadulterated. “It’s why I chose you to be king.”
When it felt like Hum was going to disintegrate from how overwhelming everything was, a loud boom shook the sky. The young king felt like he was in the middle of a snowglobe during an earthquake. The particles that made up every little bit of the valley below was rocked loose, circling up on currents of disturbed air. Even the trees, the stones, and the earth below them started to dematerialize. Glancing over, Hum saw the other wisp vanish wish a slight twinkle.
He wanted to shout out, to cry in surprise, but he had no control of his body — his cloud. A large shadow grew over his face, stealing the sun from the sky and turning the world into a nightscape. Looking up, he saw an impossibly large form ascend over him.
It was a face. One he’d never seen before. It was a man with a red beard and thick black glasses covering his eyes. The reflected light obscured the eyes behind them.
“What’s going on?” King Hum asked. Whether to himself, to the dissolved form of God, or to the behemoth above him — he wasn’t sure.
“King Hum,” the redheaded giant said. His voice shook the matter around the young monarch as he spoke, like sand on a subwoofer. “We’re working on getting you out now.”
“Getting me out?” King Hum asked. “Who are you?”
“My name is Gauge,” the enormous man replied. “I’m with a group you might know as the People’s Union.”
“What?”
“There will be a better opportunity to explain later,” Gauge said. “To make a long story short, you were kidnapped by Reverend Nidus and the Council of Shell City. We’re working on getting you free. They have you in what we call a simpod; everything you’ve been s
eeing is an elaborate computer program. An illusion.”
“Nidus?” King Hum asked. “This was his doing?”
“That’s right,” Gauge replied. “You’ve been duped.”
Final Bet
The Union and Opesian people brought jack lifts with them, working together to hoist them through the jagged opening their torches had cut into the wall. With the efficiency of a colony of ants, the rebels got the machines up to the simpods and started working the embryonic chambers onto them. Tera saw what she thought were power generators hooked up to the jacks, which the more industrious of the rebels seemed to use to power the simulation chambers while they moved them.
The former cop felt helpless as she watched them work. She wished there was some way she could help, but knowing her technical skills, she’d be just as likely to euthanize the young king and her friend as she was to connect it right. The pulse gun hung in her hand as she scanned the scene, then it jolted back to eye level when she saw some of the Council soldiers closing in on the gunship.
The sound of gunfire and electronic discharge filled the air, bleeding into the simpod chamber with a tinny quality. Even over the backdrop of the cloudless blue sky, she could see the colorful fireworks show of projectiles zipping upwards. With a lowering of her shoulders, Tera fired at a pair of Council soldiers she could see moving into some cover. The sleek white bodyshells jumped in surprise before the barrage tore through them. They dropped to the metal street with a thunk.
“We’ve got them hooked up!” a cry came from beside the simpods.
Tera felt a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s time to leave,” Gauge told her, his own pulse gun clutched in the other hand. “You ready?”
The young woman nodded.
She turned and watched the engineers disconnect the simpods from the array in the wall and lift them three feet into the air with the jacks. The rebels cast her and Gauge expectant looks, and the rebel I.I. led the charge through the opening in the wall. Tera followed after him.
It was like someone had turned the volume up on the battle when they passed through the jagged hole. The blasts of electricity and bullets hitting steel rang through Tera’s mechanical skull. She wanted to clasp her hands over her ears to shut it out, but instead raised her weapon and dropped another Council soldier. A beam of light zipped over her shoulder, and she adjusted her aim and deactivated the bodyshell that had fired at her.
Gauge was unleashing an energy pulse every second or so, keeping up a steady staccato as he covered the engineers. The other rebels lit up the Council troops, scattering the Pavilion with a number of hollow and lifeless bodyshells. Every now and then, Tera heard a shriek come from beside her as one of the rebels or Opesian soldiers were hit. She wanted to reach out and catch their bodies as they fell, but she had to keep moving forward.
It was only a dozen meters or so to the gunship, but it felt like miles across no man’s land, darting from trench to trench. The aircraft dipped into a low hover, continuing its assault on the swarming Council troops. No one said a word as they exchanged fire with the bone-white bodyshells, closing in on the gunship. A walkway started to unfold itself at the rear of the vehicle, exposing a bay door. It dropped to the Pavilion floor just long enough for the engineers to push the simpods aboard. It started to lift up again, but the ramp didn’t start retracting just yet.
Tera ducked as a machine gun started to cut in at head-level. Some of the other rebels weren’t as fast, falling to the steel in a bloody or wiry mess. The others fired back while she recoiled, concussed by the sheer volume around her.
“Come on!” Gauge cried, offering her a hand.
She took it and he heaved her up onto the dropship. She looked around, her brain trying to process how she was moving as she was loaded aboard. A mass of other rebels piled in behind her before the door shut. She stared at the hatch with wide eyes. Gauge didn’t wait with her, rushing instead up to the gunship’s cockpit. Once the panic of the moment passed, she shuffled to join him. All the while, the ship rocked around her as it jetted up into the sky.
“What about the others?” Tera asked as she approached her comrade.
Gauge cast her a plain look, his artificial features devoid of any emotion. “There will be more gunships coming as well as other planned escape routes,” he replied. “They didn’t all fly in, after all. They will find a way out.”
“Can’t we go back and help them?”
“No,” Gauge said. “We’ve got to keep flying and get those two back to the Furnace. Otherwise, everything we did here was for nothing.” He turned to the ship’s console, which the pilot was working with like a pianist at a recital. “Punch the cloak.”
The pilot nodded and activated a function on the console before her that Tera couldn’t read. Though she couldn’t see the effect, she could certainly feel it. It was like someone turned the gunship into a large speaker and someone hit the deepest, lowest note she’d ever heard through it. Tera could almost feel a small trickle of electricity course through her feet and around the rest of her bodyshell.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“We’re using another sensor blocker,” Gauge answered. “This time large enough for the whole ship. Aside from looking straight up, there’s no way they’ll be able to see us. Any kind of automated weapons they have should have a hell of a time locking onto us.”
“Jesus,” Tera said.
“I know. The Clevingers probably spent their entire fortune on this mission.”
They continued to fly on, the cloaking process causing the ship to hum as they did. There were no windows which Tera could look out through, but she had a feeling she didn’t want to see anyway.
It seemed like they flew for hours, but only twelve minutes passed before a blip on their sensors alerted the pilot and Gauge. Tera turned terrified eyes to her companion, hoping he’d be able to translate the computer chime.
“We’re closing in on the vent,” the pilot said.
Gauge looked up at Tera. “We’re almost home,” he said.
Tera still wasn’t able to calm down from the escape when the ship lighted down within the Furnace. They flew into the city’s geothermal network through a large vent on the outside of the walls. Thanks to the cloaking device on the aircraft, they were able to enter without any kind of pursuit. No one had seen where they went.
Everyone else started moving before the engine was even deactivated. They were like a racetrack pit crew, setting into motion to unload the simpods and get them hooked up to the machines in the rebel base. The jacks were pushed out of the gunship as soon as the bay door opened. People shouted orders to each other as they coordinated to move it over the aluminum-and-steel floor. Tera followed them out with Gauge, who moved with similar fatigue. She watched as they pushed the simpods up to the nearest wall, where a mechanical array not unlike the one that held the other simpods in the Pavilion facility was set up. The engineers started getting to work, joining a crew of rebels who had been calibrating the contraption when they first flew in.
While she watched the men and women work like drone bees in a hive, Tera noticed someone walking towards her. Turning, she saw the warm smile of Mrs. Clevinger.
“You’re back in one piece!” she declared.
“You could say that,” Gauge replied. “Though we had our losses.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Clevinger said, turning her gaze to her feet. “I cannot even describe what their sacrifice means.”
“There will be time to mourn, Betsy,” her husband said through the speaker in her skull. “We have to act quick, though. We’ve just played our hand and the element of surprise is gone. It’s only a matter of time before the Council comes knocking on our door.”
Gauge nodded as Tera spotted another form approaching her. It was Adviser Orram, still dressed in his simple robes. He clutched his ceremonial hat between his fingers as he walked over to them.
“Orram!” Tera greeted the old man. “What are you doing here?”<
br />
“My people and I came as soon as we learned what happened to our king,” the adviser replied. “We’re here to help however we can, and I’m sure Hum will agree when he’s awoken. As far as I’m concerned, the Holy Kingdom of Opes is at war.”
Purple Pill
Ethan sputtered up some of the snot-colored fluid as he was heaved from the simpod. He gasped for air, trying to avoid getting any more of the vile stuff in his mouth. Clumps of the substance clung to his skin like gelatin.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. He wiped away the fluid from his face, stinging his eyes as he did so. With one eye squeezed shut in pain, he looked up and tried to make sense of his surroundings.
The lights were bright, but there were few of them and they were so far above him that they didn’t blind him. A form over him started to clear up and become defined. It was Tera; she was staring down at him with what he thought were emotional glowing eyes.
“Ethan?” she asked. “Can you hear me?”
“Tera?” he replied. “What — what’s going on?”
“You’re safe,” she said. Her voice choked up a little. She gave a warm smile.
“Where?”
“The Furnace,” she replied. “We were able to bring you back home.”
Ethan wiped a bit more of the stuff from his eyes, then looked up at her, his brow furrowed. He scanned over her robotic form, his eyes dark with suspicion. Without warning, he jolted up to his feet; his gaze never left the woman’s face. She stepped back, taken off guard. He stumbled a little as he moved closer, trying to get a good look at her.
“Are you real?” he asked. “Is this real? Is this another one of your fucking simulations?”
“Ethan?” Tera said. She didn’t know how else to respond.
“Are you real, dammit?”