by David Meyer
“If we surrender, we die,” Cutter shouted, drawing his sword. “So, fight. Fight for your lives.”
The relatives started across the circular room, hesitantly at first. But their screams and shouts fueled their courage and soon, they charged full-tilt.
“Stop,” Titus yelled as they passed by either side of him. But no one listened.
Stubbels watched all of this with a set jaw. Twisting around, he faced his followers. “I told you they’d try to kill us. Now, we must respond.”
His side didn’t roar or cheer. They knew what was coming and obviously, didn’t relish it. With long, purposeful strides, they came out to meet the relatives. Metal clashed against metal as they deflected the first wave of blows.
Titus drew his sword, but stayed out of the fighting. Holding his breath, he watched Stubbels’ side ward off the initial attack, then fight back.
Private Zox Guster parried Yerdon’s blade. Stepping forward, he snapped a vicious elbow at the still-dazed solar worker. Bone cracked and Yerdon dropped to the ground.
Meanwhile, Renda was a whirlwind, screaming and whipping her sword around in aimless fashion. She struck Private Norsen Lang on the stomach, more by accident than anything else. His eyes bulged, his mouth wrenched in pain. Then he sank to his knees, blood soaking his cloak.
Renda froze. She gaped at him, horrified by what she’d done.
Private Apion glowered at her. Breaking away from Vola Pool, she crossed the room, her face a mask of fury. Dagger outstretched, she lunged at Renda. Her blade neatly sliced the reservoir worker’s throat.
Renda dropped her weapon. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth as she crumpled to the floor.
Cutter issued a loud, anguished cry. Shoving past a couple of people, he ran to Renda. Still holding his sword, he cradled the woman close to his body. “Oh, Manda, no,” he whispered. “Please, no.”
Cutter’s invocation of Manda gave Titus pause. It gave many people pause, even Stubbels. For a brief second, the fighting came to a halt.
Seeing this, Titus hurried into the middle of the room. Sliding between the two warring sides, he took stock of the situation. Eight relatives lay on the floor, dead, along with Private Lork and three from Stubbels’ side. Many other combatants had suffered wounds of some kind or another.
Cutter felt Renda’s pulse. A few angry tears squeezed from his eyes as he gently laid her on the ground. “You did this.” He glared at Apion, then at the others. “All of you.”
“She killed Lang,” Apion said dully. As the fog of war swept away, a glimmer of horror appeared in her eyes. “I had no choice.”
“Oh, you had a choice.” Yerdon, clutching his bleeding ear, tried to sit up. But he was unable to establish any balance and sagged back to the floor. “You targeted us. Hunted us down.”
“Yes,” Stubbels said, his voice hard as rock. “Because you’re bloodfiends.”
Sword in hand, Cutter rose to his feet. “What did you say?”
“I said, ‘You’re bloodfiends.”
Gnashing his teeth, he dashed at the man.
Stubbels lifted his swords.
Their blades collided with ear-shattering force.
With his free hand, Stubbels swung a wild right. But Cutter dodged it and took him down with a tackle. They rolled across the floor a few times, losing their blades in the process.
At last, Stubbels climbed on top of Cutter, pinning down his arms with his knees. Then he began throwing measured rights and lefts at the guy’s face.
Titus moved to intervene. But a voice stopped him cold.
“How interesting.” The voice, stern, gravelly, and thunderous, swept into the room with the force of a windstorm.
Heads swiveled toward one of the hallways, the third one from the left. A collective gasp rang out.
Titus recognized the voice. Fighting off convulsion, his gaze went to the hallway. A large group of people packed the dimly-lit corridor. Their faces were drawn and tense. They wore light-colored cloaks that stretched down to their ankles.
His heartrate picked up speed. He saw Nilla Quont, former reverse-engineer. Hartmo Onnins, a burly solar farmer from years gone by. Many others that he recognized from six months ago. Plus, some others that he hadn’t seen in years, ever since they’d passed through Natica’s gate, marching to certain death in the hinterlands.
The Banished, he thought, his jaw tightening.
A single man stood in front of them. He was thin, almost gaunt, and sported a body of sleek, lean muscle. His salt-and-pepper hair, quite shaggy, stretched past his shoulders and down to the blades. His drawn cheeks, meanwhile, featured deep lines. Lines that told of a life lived under the harshest of circumstances.
“Hello, Brother.” Dargon’s lips curled into a smile. “Looks like we meet again.”
Chapter 28
“We need clothes,” was the first thing Jarven said upon stepping foot through the Skyscraper’s opaque glass door.
Kayden, however, was too busy looking around to hear him. From outside, the Skyscraper appeared perfectly normal, the sort of building that would ordinarily feature an ornate, stately interior. One full of polished desks, oil paintings, and gleaming, marble staircases.
Instead, it was the exact opposite.
There were no desks, tables, or chairs. No artwork, either. As for traditional office items—computers, printers, phones, stuff like that—there were none to be found. Instead, the interior hosted staircases and hallways.
Lots of staircases and hallways.
Everywhere she looked, she saw a different staircase. A carpeted one with straight black railings, starting from the middle of the room, cutting beneath the floor, then coming out again. Another staircase, made of rusty-looking metal, that narrowed considerably just before vanishing through the far wall. And a third staircase, one with unsupported landings, that drove a neat hole through the ceiling.
Endless hallways added to the mess. They were just as strange as the staircases. For one thing, a few of them couldn’t have existed in the physical world, seeing as how they would’ve been too long to fit inside the building. For another thing, hundreds of weird doorways, positioned way too close together, lined each corridor. A quick once-over revealed a door made from worn leather and another one constructed entirely from blinking Christmas lights.
Valhalya hiked into the space. Turning in a slow circle, she studied it. “It’s as beautiful as ever.”
Kayden nodded in agreement. Jarven had hypothesized that the Skyscraper was a duplicate of Emma Andale’s brain, a place to store her memories, thoughts, and beliefs. And really, that made a lot of sense. The interior possessed a sort of oddly-organized, functional brilliance that could have only emerged from transformative genius.
“Yeah, a beautiful nightmare.” BeBo looked around. “So, where is she?”
Jarven cocked his head. “Who?”
“Emma. Isn’t that why we came here? To talk to her? Get her to help us?”
“Not exactly.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“Look, I’m almost positive this is Emma’s brain. She lives here, quietly, by herself. But I doubt she knows we exist. And she’s definitely not going to help us.” He shrugged. “Otherwise, she would’ve helped us stop Cormella during the whole Protocol Forty-Eight debacle.”
Kayden shifted her gaze from one side of the space to the other. She agreed with Jarven’s theory, but only to a point. He thought the Skyscraper was a living entity, a way for Emma to live on in perpetuity. But if that were the case, why didn’t it ever change? Why didn’t the stairways move to other locations? Why didn’t the hallways occasionally lurch off in new directions? If the Skyscraper was truly Emma, it would change, evolve, on a regular basis.
Instead, she tended to think the building was a firm copy of the woman’s brain. An unchanging warehouse of sorts, one that stored all of Emma’s memories and knowledge. That’s why stairways and hallways never moved.
“So, we’re not here for Emma?�
�� BeBo frowned. “Then why are we here?”
“Well, the first priority was to turn everyone against Virdo. I think we accomplished that. The second priority was to grab him, take him prisoner. Force him to tell us what he and Cormella are trying to do.”
“That won’t be easy. This place is a maze.” BeBo turned his gaze toward Kayden. His eyes lit up as he traced her naked body.
She blushed and covered her breasts. “Seen enough?”
“Enough to know we need clothes,” he replied with a jaunty grin.
“Funny guy.” She exhaled. “Follow me.”
She hiked forward. Indeed, the place was a veritable maze and nearly impossible to navigate. There were just far too many staircases, hallways, and doors. Lots of signage existed, which should’ve made things easier. But there was just so much of it.
Still, she liked the Skyscraper. Partly because it was quiet and still. Partly because she liked the idea of being around Emma. When she wasn’t at her desk, she was here, studying HXO and the Broken. As a result, she’d logged many long hours in the Skyscraper over the last six months. In the process, she’d developed a decent understanding of the place.
Grasping brass railings, she started up some stone steps. They spiraled upward and before long, she’d passed through the ceiling and into a long hallway.
Walking onto the thick carpet, she glanced in either direction, spotting dozens of branching corridors. Massive signs hung at the start of each one. She walked to a sign and scanned the tiny print. A quarter of the way down, she read, Luminosity Textiles.
Turning down the hallway, she walked past lots of doors. Finally, she spotted one made of thick, hardened cloth.
“Luminosity textiles,” Jarven said, leaning forward to read the accompanying sign. “I take it you’ve been here before?”
“Just once. Believe me, that was enough.” She turned the knob and pushed the door open. Ceiling-mounted machines filled the vast space.
One of them split in half. Its lower half dropped down and pressed hard on a thick, smooth platform. The mechanics screeched and steam shot out on all sides. Then the lower half lurched upward, rejoining the upper half and leaving a bright red shirt on the platform.
The platform rumbled, then cracked open in the middle. The shirt spilled into darkness. Then the platform came together again and the whole process started over from the beginning.
BeBo entered the room and immediately clutched his ears. “I’ll keep watch,” he mumbled, swiftly returning to the hallway.
Valhalya watched him leave, then looked at Kayden. “Do we actually use all of this stuff?” she wondered, shouting in order to be heard.
“I doubt it.” Kayden shrugged. “Honestly, I think the machines just keep making clothes until somebody needs something.”
“What a waste.” She watched the machine run another cycle, then went off to look at other ones.
Kayden took up position among a handful of machines, watching them closely. When she saw items that looked about her size, she made a grab for them. Before long, she’d cobbled together an odd outfit, consisting of a navy-blue button-down shirt, a pair of black yoga pants, green socks, and white, bedazzled sneakers. She tried everything on, only to discover the sneakers were a half-size too big. So, she grabbed two more pairs of socks and donned them as well, filling out the free space.
Jarven and Valhalya followed her lead, snatching clothes off of the platforms. In the meantime, Kayden picked out an outfit for BeBo.
Once they were fully dressed, they headed for the door. Kayden threw it open and walked outside, a pile of garments in her hands.
“A yellow tank top?” BeBo groused, sorting through the items. “Green pants? This is the best you could do?”
“What’s wrong?” She hid a small grin. “I think they’ll look great on you.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“Aren’t you going to thank her?” Valhalya winked at Kayden. “She went to a lot of trouble, you know.”
BeBo gave her a withering stare. Quickly, he donned the items, then gave himself an appraising look. A deep frown crossed his visage.
“I love it,” Kayden said, pretending to gush. “Your best look ever.”
He glared at her.
She gave him an innocent smile and he scowled in response.
Hiding her laughter, she shut the door. Instantly, the mechanic squeals disappeared. Or at least, they were no longer audible. How did that work, anyway? If those machines kept making clothes, but there was no one around to hear them, would they still make all of that racket? Or did noise only exist when there was someone around to hear it? After all, it wasn’t like the machines needed to make noise. In the end, they were just audio tracks.
“Well, we’re dressed.” BeBo gave his outfit a distasteful look. “Now, what?”
“Now, we find Virdo,” Jarven replied.
“Easier said than done,” Valhalya pointed out. “This place is huge. It would take years to search every room.”
“Then let’s start with the most obvious one,” Kayden said.
Jarven swiveled toward her, an expectant look upon his face. “I’m listening.”
“This all started with Natica, specifically with the satellite dish. I don’t know what he and Cormella want to do with it. But I’m willing to bet they’ll pull out all the stops to finish it.”
“So, you think Virdo’s talking to the Naticans?” BeBo pulled out the tail of his tank top with both hands, inspecting it in the hallway’s harsh lighting. “That means he could be anywhere. He could’ve even gone back to his apartment.”
Jarven shook his head. “He won’t leave this building. It’s too risky with everyone thinking he’s infected.”
“Yeah, but he’s got his laptop, right?” Valhalya replied. “So, he can establish communications from anywhere.”
“No, he definitely left it at home. That’s how I was able to access it before.” Kayden shrugged. “Can’t say I blame him. He thought he had us on the run. That he didn’t have to worry about us anymore. So, I’m thinking he’s decided to forgo the laptop and use the communications room instead.”
BeBo arched an eyebrow. “But wouldn’t that just connect him straight to Titus?”
“Not necessarily. In fact, I expect he can reach any Natican device from that room.”
“It’s worth a shot.” Jarven glanced at her. “Can you take us there?”
“Of course.” Adopting a fast walk, she retraced her steps down the long hallway. “Follow me.”
Chapter 29
“What’s with all the stairs, huh?” BeBo’s grimace deepened as they approached another stairwell. At last, unable to take it any longer, he ground to a halt. Leaning up against a wall, he pulled off his slightly-too-small black leather shoes. “I mean, seriously … did Emma hate elevators or something?”
Jarven chuckled.
“Did you say, ‘seriously?’” Valhalya asked. “Because it’s hard to take you seriously in that outfit.”
“That’s too bad.” He gave the soles of his feet a quick rubbing. “Because it’s kind of growing on me. Except for the shoes, that is,” he added, giving them a nasty look.
“Keep it down, you two,” Jarven whispered. “We don’t want Virdo to know we’re coming.”
“Use your brain, Jar,” BeBo retorted. “He saw us. So, he knows we’re coming.”
A quiet argument broke out between the two men. Tapping her foot, Kayden waited for them to finish. But emotions were running a bit high and when it became clear that the fight was starting to spiral out of control, she cleared her throat. “Be quiet.” She glared at each of them in turn. “Both of you.”
Jarven clamped his mouth shut. BeBo rolled his eyes, but fell quiet as well.
Twisting around, she studied the stairwell. Marked, Protocols Forty through Forty-Nine, it spiraled through the ceiling to the next floor.
She started up the steps, just as she’d done so many times over the last six months. This was the
path she always took when visiting the communications room for her talks with Titus. She’d done it so often that she could picture the entire route in her brain.
The staircase grew increasingly cramped with every step. The individual stairs got smaller and smaller until it hurt her feet to walk on them. She gripped the railings, using them to support some of her weight. It helped, but only a little.
Behind her, BeBo uttered some choice complaints about his feet, the route, and especially all of the staircases. He had her sympathy. Unfortunately, she only knew of this one pathway to the room. So, they were stuck with it.
With her friends in tow, she walked off of the last stair. Before her lay a short hallway lined with ten doors, five on either side. A big blue screen, buzzing with electricity, was embedded within nine of the doors. White lettering on the screens described the protocols that could be found inside each room.
Once upon a time, the tenth screen had looked like the other ones. Its lettering had read, Protocol Forty-Eight. But it had gone black six months ago, at the exact moment she’d manually ended the protocol.
Gently, she pushed the door. It swung open into a large room. Tiled floor ran underfoot. Harsh lighting poured down from ceiling fixtures. Silver machinery, emitting colorful blinks and soft beeps, lined the walls. The space was utterly clean, free of dust, dirt, and scuffmarks. In fact, it was a bit too perfect. The rest of Luminosity was perfect as well. But it still felt real. Only here, in this room, was she constantly reminded of her digital nature.
A large screen, hooked up to a variety of machines, covered the far wall. A man stood in front of it. A second person, a woman, stood to the side, just out of camera view. While Kayden couldn’t see their faces, she knew they could only be Virdo and Cormella.
Her heart skipped a beat. She’d expected to find Virdo here. But Cormella? That was a bit of a surprise.
She glanced at the screen. It depicted a couple of teenagers, adorned in cloaks and wearing headgear. They were outside, under a bright, cloudless sky, perched on a platform near the top of an enormous wall. Nearby, a large bowl-shaped object, along with something that looked like a horn, rested atop a short metal tower. The tower, in turn, was erected within the breach. Long cables trailed away from it, leading somewhere off-screen. Kayden had no specific memories of ever seeing a satellite dish. And yet, she still knew she was looking at one.