Debris of Shadows_Book II_The Forgotten Cathedral

by Tony LaRocca

  “Do you mean actual healing, or a cleansing by fire?”

  Semantics.

  “You didn’t answer the question,” said Asher. “I think that you’re trapped here, inside of my head. That’s got to suck for you.”

  There was no reply.

  He thought of the crown’s skeletal remains. Had it once been a living thing? If Tish had worn it but was no longer here, did that mean that she had “woken?” And if he woke from the dream as well, would he be free of the all–consuming purple ice and flames?

  He crawled back to the featureless bowl that had taken the place of the catacombs. The crown lay at its bottom, a few feet away. He scrabbled towards it, and reached out his pitch–black hand.

  He cried out as everything below his pelvis fell dead. No, said the voice, I think that we’re just going to lie here and wait.

  Asher tried to wiggle closer, but his legs refused to move. He could feel the numbing paralysis work its way up his spine. He dug his fingertips into the smooth depression, and pulled with all of his strength. He managed to slide a few inches closer to the crown, and touched its calcified ring with his outstretched, pitch–black fingertips. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, and slid it onto the top of his scaly head.

  Nothing happened.

  Look, he thought, his fingers still pressed against its surface. Look at it through the Magistrate’s eyes.

  The history of the crown appeared before him. He sped back through its past, through all of the Chosen Prince’s comings and goings. San Domenico rose, San Domenico fell. Phoenix rose, Phoenix fell. Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles… city after city, resurrection after resurrection, came and went. Roger, Ralph, Helen, Tish… they all lived, died, and returned to life, over and over and over.

  Concentrate on the crown, he thought, other mysteries will have to wait. He rewound faster along its time line until he found its schematics. He did not try to understand them. All that was necessary was that he rebuild it. He opened his sacs, and changed his song.

  He could feel his wasps retreat from his nervous system as they exited his body. They began to devour and rebuild the ring of bone. No longer hindered by their interference, the wave of crippling paralysis shot up his torso.

  His diaphragm went still.

  He tried to suck air into his lungs, but it was impossible. He could feel the agonizing numbness creep up his ribcage towards his heart. It did not matter. If the repair did not work, then he was dead.

  “Magistrate Id — t — fied,” a voice echoed throughout the tunnel as his children finished their work. “Automatttttic Admin priv — lges accepted. Enter comMANnnnNnnnND, or say, ‘Menu.’”

  Get me out, he thought as the darkness enveloped him. Wake me up.

  “Do you mean, ‘Exkxxkxxkxxit?’”

  No! bellowed the Magistrate. Security override.

  A few seconds passed. “Conflicting instruckckckctions. Pppplease repeat.”

  Asher’s heart fluttered with wild spasms, and stopped. The crushing pain of its muscles’ failure brought with it a rush of adrenaline. Exit! his mind screamed. Exit, exit, exit!

  “Compppplying. Exiting Sage.”

  Asher tried to hold onto consciousness, but it was too late. Black, blossoming stars smothered the only universe that he had ever known as its colors, sounds, and smells swirled around him, and vanished.

  Matthew forced himself to stand. He looked down at his glowing flesh. He still wore the guise of his father, but there was no doubt that he was healing. He fought to catch his breath, and made his way down the hall. Something in the ceiling beeped. He glanced up.

  A camera and turret stared back at him. How easy would it be for his pursuers to use them to find him, and mow him down? The question was, why was the security system even there? Presumably, no one but the first generation Cylebs could reach this level of the Sage. Who were they protecting themselves from? Perhaps they had simply modeled the building after the Cathedral’s original base in all of its detail. If so, then how close was the representation?

  The florescent lights flickered and dimmed. He half–ran, half–staggered for the elevator, and pressed its call button. With a ding, the doors slid apart. He stepped inside. According to its display, he was on the fifth level of the sub–basement.

  The lamps in the hallway winked out as the door to the lab flew open. Talya stood within its frame, silhouetted by her own blazing white light. She stared down the corridor at him with eyes that were unforgiving scarlet suns.

  His limbs felt heavy, as if they were turning to stone. He held his hand up to his face. He could see the points of calcified spikes pushing out from his bones and into his flesh. He threw his body to the side, and pressed the button marked “close.” The doors slid together with agonizing slowness, cutting off her pestilential rays. He jabbed the button for the first floor. With a slight jerk and a groan, the lift began to rise.

  He prodded his aching ribs, and felt their spikes retract beneath his skin. His mind spun. Despite the antics and revelations of his first–generation forbears, he still had a mission to accomplish. Perhaps, as Talya had said, the mutants could not be truly controlled or destroyed from this Sage. But if he found some way to cut off its transmissions, then some of them, if not all, might lose interest in the shield wall. Left to their own devices, they might turn upon each other, as colonies of starving wasps were known to do. WesMec itself was a wasteland, there was nothing left to lose.

  The elevator dinged its way through the floors. He rubbed his arms. His bones had almost returned to normal, but his punctured muscles were still sore. Was Talya pursuing him in another car, or was she taking the stairs? Why didn’t she simply create a portal to his location, as the Cylebs did throughout the Sage in NorMec? He was not sure. Her control over the Cathedral seemed to be haphazard, if not subconscious.

  He thought of Zeta. He had no doubts that the woman trapped amidst the Sage’s vegetation was his birth mother. He swallowed. He had no idea how to help her. He only wished that he could talk with her once more.

  “Focus,” he muttered as he rubbed his temples. “You have a job to do.”

  The elevator dinged again. It would reach the first floor in less than a minute. He looked at his glowing skin, and back at the control panel. He placed his hand on its maintenance port, and flowed his consciousness inside. The more he practiced his father’s tricks, the easier they became to perform. He stopped the lift between floors, disabling its locator and alarm.

  He brought up a service diagram of the elevator bank. Another car was ascending from the sub–cellar laboratories. He accessed its security system, and peeked through its camera.

  Talya was its only passenger. She no longer glowed, but a spiderweb of cracks marred her once perfect face. It looked as if someone had dropped a china doll, and glued the pieces back together. Some parts did not quite line up. She wrapped her arms around her chest, and shivered.

  He cut the power to her car. It screeched to a halt. Her head shot up. Her eyes were no longer aflame, but they burned with contempt.

  “Go ahead,” she said, the intercom picking up her voice. “Why don’t you just drop me? I always knew that you would kill me one day, Lyubimiy.”

  Matthew let his breath out in a long sigh. Was she so smothered by hatred that she had forgotten where they were? He sent his mind through the circuits of the security system. He found the lab, and peered through its camera.

  Brandon’s chair still lay on its side. His pupilless eyes stared into space. A trail of pinkish drool dribbled from his puffy nose and lips. Matthew could not help feeling a pang of guilt. The Cyleb had not seemed malicious, just terrified, and abused into apathy. Perhaps he could convince the child trapped within his subconscious to help him. He focused on the machine’s broken hover–disk. His father could surely make the transition from one system to another, so why shouldn’t he be able to do the same —

  The elevator doors opened.

  His mind snapped back
into his body. The car had not moved, it still should have been stuck between floors. So, where was he? He pressed himself against its textured, steel interior, and peeked through the doorway.

  The chamber beyond was long and narrow. Metal tiles lined its walls. They were dark and burnished, like copper. An alcove lay on both sides of the tunnel, each with a light shining down upon its contents. He peered into the one closest to him.

  Inside lay the body of a man. He had been interred in the dress uniform of a NorMec Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant. He was tall and muscular. His face was lined, but not wrinkled or mummified. A slightly curved ceremonial sword lay in his hands.

  Matthew swallowed. He turned to the other alcove, knowing what he would find.

  Talya’s body lay on pillows of red velvet. She wore a gossamer gown of blue and gold that clung to her curves and contours. He studied her face. Heavy pancake makeup covered her skin, giving it the appearance of chalk.

  “I hate her.”

  He did not look up at the sound of her voice. “How long ago?” he asked.

  “We were dying when we came here,” Talya said from behind him. “We brought the Burning with us. Only your little whore managed to escape its effects. She had natural immunity, though it ravaged her cybernetics. Brandon was the first to go. We were able to incorporate his mind into crystal storage. After that, it was just a matter of time before we joined him. We found the cure, at least one that my second generation can administer with their wasps. Of course, that was not until a decade later. You are the only one of us left, Malachi. Isn’t that funny?”

  Matthew sighed. “I told you,” he said as he turned, “I’m not —”

  A kick landed in the small of his back, knocking the wind out of him. He rolled across the cobblestone floor, and pushed himself to his feet.

  Talya stood before him. Her cracked, imperfectly joined skin was pasty, like that of her corpse. She also wore the same dress. It was the color of the sky, adorned with glistening streaks of amber. “You did this to us,” she said. “You’re the one who released the Burning.”

  He opened and closed his mouth. “I did?”

  “Yes, when you were trapped in the desert. You entered the cybernetics of one of the mutants above. You managed to sneak it through the shield wall, and infiltrated your Sage in the Sanctuary. From there, you were able to control certain Cylebs, and had them release the virus from NorMec’s biological weapons arsenal. You deliberately fostered a crisis so that your children would be forced to come looking for you. Don’t lie to me, Mal, I know how you think. I know it was you.”

  He took a few steps back. “You told me that you did that from here. You, and the other originals.”

  “No,” she said with a slow shake of her head, “I don’t remember telling you about that.” A small, flirtatious smile curled her lips. She tilted her head to the side, and stroked her silky, raven hair. A handful of strands came out in her fingers, but she did not seem to notice. “Do you have any proof?”

  “But the Burning only appeared a few years ago. You said that you’ve been here for decades. If the general did release it, then how could you have brought it with you?”

  She shrugged and sniffed, as if the point were of no consequence. “I guess my memory isn’t what it used to be. At least, not after you shot me with a plasma turret.” She put her hands to her stomach. “You hurt me, Malachi.”

  “I was defending myself. What was I supposed to do, just let you give me the bubonic plague?”

  “I don’t remember doing that.” She pointed at him, and her coquettish smile became a smirk. “You’ll have to do better than that, your body doesn’t look plagued to me. You just keep lying, and blaming me for the things that you do.”

  He stared at her. “Are you serious?”

  “It’s sad, it really is.” She began to pace. “I have a proposal for you.”

  “What do I have that you could want?”

  A muscle twitched in the side of her neck. “Your whore, Zeta. She has been causing us problems for many years.” She glanced at the Marine’s body, and stroked his face with the back of her hand. A silvery residue remained on his cheek. “She’s managed to trap Jonathan somehow, I’m sure of it. You’ve seen her in San Domenico, I can see it in your eyes. Tell us where she is, and I’ll end the mutants’ siege against your shield. NorMec will be saved. If you don’t tell me, then you’ll be responsible for the death of every man, woman, and child behind its wall.”

  “I keep telling you, I’m not Malachi Jaeger. I’m his son.”

  “Ah yes, the adopted grandson of the great Doctor Benjamin Dvorkin, who would experiment on loyal soldiers, political prisoners, and orphans, but could not bear to let anything happen to his precious, artistic brat. Yet here you are, glowing, old, and able to impose your will upon any electrons in your midst. How can you keep spewing such lies, when your own body betrays you?”

  Matthew groaned in exasperation. He raised his hands. “Again, let’s say for the sake of argument that you are right. Let’s pretend that I am General Jaeger, and that I turn Zeta over to you. How will you call off your mutants?”

  “I am the Holy Ophanim. The sleeping cattle of WesMec will dream whatever I make them dream.”

  He cracked his knuckles, and examined his glowing fingers. “And then I’ll be welcomed back into the fold?”

  “Yes, of course, Lyubimiy. You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”

  “What about Jonathan and Brandon? Will they accept me as easily?”

  She let out a tiny laugh. Her hand lashed out, and slapped the Master Guns’s face. “Jonathan means nothing,” she said. “You should be wearing my crown, not him. You should be my consort, my Chosen Prince.”

  “And Brandon?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Brandon is a child savant trapped inside of an old man’s body. He is easy to control with the promise of pleasure. Take it away and it causes pain, just like in all little boys.” She cocked her head to the side, and looked up at him with theatrical meekness. “Except for you, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “You know how to dole out pain better than anyone. You like to harm others.” She ran a hand over her cracked, mismatched features. Matthew glanced over her shoulder at the burnished metal plates of the tunnel. They were transforming into stone. Tendrils of vines and moss pushed their way from the grout in–between their slabs, and crept across their rippling surface.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m not doing anything,” she said, “just thinking about how much I loved you. All of this… it could have been our paradise, but you are too full of hate and self–victimization. You deny it, but it’s in everything you say and do. It taints the world around you like a poisonous cloud.”

  The musty tang of decay filled the air. Matthew peered down the tunnel. A wooden door had appeared in its far wall. Would it lead back to the same never–ending maze of catacombs as before? “Talya, stop this,” he said.

  “Stop what?”

  The bulb that illuminated the Marine’s corpse exploded behind her. Forks of lightning shot from its socket, and into her neck. She writhed under their blue–white assault. “This is what you want, isn’t it?” she wailed. “This is what you want to do to me.”

  “Stop it!” he shouted. “Why are you doing this? It’s not me, it’s you.”

  “Liar!” With a pop and a flash, the onslaught of electricity stopped. She glared at him through glowing eyes. “This is what you want? So be it.” Her flesh unraveled, revealing the white sun at her center. “I gave you your chance, Mal. Where is she? Where is your slut?”

  He sneezed.

  He sneezed again.

  He sneezed again, and again, and again. He could not stop. He doubled over, gasping for breath. “I… don’t… know.” He sneezed and sneezed. Something small and hard fell from his mouth, and hit the mossy cobblestone floor. He sneezed over and over, and could feel a few more pebbles follow the first. He tr
ied to see them through tear–filled, rheumy eyes.

  They were his teeth.

  He began to hack from the back of his throat as well. His body shook as his chest wracked with coughs.

  She crouched, and tickled him beneath his chin. The sun at her center was nearly blinding. He thought of the other lamp, the one that illuminated her corpse. Perhaps he could use its power to attack her, as she had done to herself. He turned his head, and caught it out of the corner of his eye.

  It had become a flickering torch, casting dancing shadows upon the wall.

  “I can do this all day, Lyubimiy.” She kissed his cheek as he sneezed and coughed uncontrollably. “Please, take your time.”

  Though Asher floated in darkness, he could feel gravity tug at him from beneath his feet. The sound of his breath reverberated within his skull, as if he were underwater.

  His body shook with cramps as metallic worms withdrew simultaneously from every orifice in his body, including one in the back of his neck. He put his trembling hands to his face, and felt a rubber mask covering his mouth and nose.

  The liquid around him drained away. It was thicker than water, and cold. He descended with its flow until his bare feet touched the floor.

  A vertical line split the darkness. It spread with a hum as the sides of the cylinder encasing him slid apart. He pulled off the mask. He felt tired but also energized, as if infused with caffeine or some stronger stimulant. He blinked the remaining oil from his eyes, and took his first step into the world of the woken.

  He found himself in a vast hall the size of a warehouse. Echoing klaxons began to blare. Lights in the ceiling buzzed and popped as they flickered on.

  “Security breach,” a toneless female voice called from a loudspeaker. “Security breach.”

  He took a second step onto the cold, grated floor. He looked down, and examined his body.

  His cloak was gone. Hard, ribbed shells protruded through his skin and muscles, armoring the sides of his limbs. Webs of cartilage spread from their surface, enveloping his exposed flesh like straps. He ran his fingers over them. They glowed at his touch. His build was more athletic than it had been within the dream. Was his tone and condition somehow related to his partial exoskeleton? He had no way of knowing. He continued his self–exploration, and discovered that not only did a thick bristle of hair cover his head, but he had testicles as well. He sighed. Surely he could correct these little foibles, given time.