by A. R. Knight
He hopes he never does.
“You’re not what I expected,” the Belloch says, its voice nasally and full of mucous. “Usually, an ask for a manager is a complaint waiting to happen. You, though, don’t seem the type.”
“I want information.”
“Yes. Who doesn’t? Perhaps I can help you, perhaps not. The question really becomes, then, why?”
This is why Sax hates Bellochs. Why, he thinks, the Amigga gave up on them. Their reasoning is always circular, always angling for an advantage. Mostly, the things talk too much.
“I’ll kill you if you don’t,” Sax says. “Do the galaxy a favor.”
“Oh yes, another threat. I don’t have any choice as to what I am, Oratus. Consider that before you snap your mouth at me.”
“Consider my threats mercy, then,” Sax says. “I’m looking for a Teven with another Oratus. A pink one. They were supposed to be here?”
The voices on the screen go quiet, and Sax is aware of the other bar patrons staring at them, pacing their conversation. As far as eavesdropping goes, they’re not trying to hide. So Sax starts to plan his attack.
“Two Oratus in one night?” the Belloch clasps all eight arms in front of it, each eight-fingered hand entwining with another. “That would have been truly memorable. So I’m sorry to say such an event has never happened here. You are the only one of your species to grace the Wildfire this evening.”
Sax takes a final slurp of the nutrient goop and sets it on the bar, where the robot scoops it up immediately. He slips off the chair, keeping his claws ready, and swishes his long tail across the floor. Have to make sure everyone here knows an Oratus isn’t easy to kill, isn’t worth even trying.
“Do you know what happened to them, or not?” Sax hisses.
“Do I know? Why would I? I’m only a simple manager of a simple restaurant catering to fine souls like yourself.”
“You must have recordings, though,” Sax says. “That would show what you say is true? If so, then I’ll leave.”
“Alas, my security is broken at the moment. It’s why I retained these helpful friends to keep things civil. It can be rough out here, as I’m sure you know.”
The Belloch doesn’t seem concerned in the slightest, but Sax is picking up plenty of nervous scents from those behind him. Hard to tell whether the nerves come from their boss lying, or just from an Oratus standing battle-ready.
Time to find out.
Sax whirls away from the Belloch, jabs a foreclaw towards the Whelk that was, moments ago, so unnerved by Sax’s presence. “What do you think, Whelk? Is the Belloch telling the truth?”
The alien can’t even speak. The Whelk blubbers out some unintelligible garbage, stops, and takes a long sniff of the powders set in small bowls before it. The creature’s color changes from a lime-green to a soft blue, and the Whelk’s jelly body shivers.
“Now that you’ve got your courage,” Sax hisses. “Try again.”
“Yes,” the Whelk blurts out. “Yes they were here. But not anymore, not anymore. I swear it wasn’t me!”
There’s a reedy sigh from the Belloch. “Whelks. Always prone to failure.”
The Belloch acts first; throwing his tread-chair into reverse and zipping away from Sax even as stools topple and the Belloch’s muscle makes their move. The blue Whelk imitates its employer as Sax takes stock of the opposition, squishing away from the Oratus and letting a Flaum trio, paired with a couple of ragged Vyphen missing most of their feathers, take front stage.
“Really?” Sax hisses at the group. He’s not seeing weapons, while Sax himself has a couple of miners and plenty of claws ready to work. “You want to die for that one?”
“Acton pays,” the center Flaum, mottled brown and white, says.
The five attempt to fan out around Sax, who keeps the bar to his back. Their eyes shift between the Oratus and each other, and it’s obvious they’re waiting for a signal.
Sax decides to give them one.
He springs to his left, towards a gray-black Flaum whose raised claws mean he’s not caught entirely by surprise. Not that it matters. Sax catches the Flaum’s hands with his foreclaws, then uses his midclaws to grip the Flaum’s clothing and smash the creature into the bar. Once, twice and then he drops the limp alien to the floor.
A couple of clacks sound as the brown Flaum gets close, but a whip from Sax’s tail sends that one flying into a table, denting the metal furniture. Sax pivots around in time to see the first Vyphen’s strong tongue as it lashes out, grabs ahold of Sax’s left leg and sweeps the Oratus’ talons out from under him.
Another species might be troubled by that, but Sax catches his fall with his tail and boosts himself forward, leaning onto his claws and closing his mouth over the Vyphen’s retracting tongue. Sax bites in just enough to stop, not enough to snap - eating through a Vyphen’s tongue would probably mean death for the creature, and Sax doesn’t want to kill.
Not yet.
The last Flaum and the other Vyphen see the stalemate and hesitate. The first smart decision they’ve made, and a sign that Sax can still make a deal with them. An employer that pays doesn’t mean much if you’re dead.
Sax thinks the Belloch’s run away, which is why it’s a surprise when the blue burning bolt from a miner hits Sax hard in his torso. His jaw goes numb, lax, and the captive Vyphen yanks its tongue back home. It’s a powerful stun, meaning it’s not coming from a handheld, small miner. Sax crumples to his side, manages to see the Belloch, holding a large assault miner and rolling back between his thugs.
“Always keep one around,” the Belloch sneers. “Nobody ever checks the chair. It’s remarkable, really. Thanks for not ruining my friend here. For that, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
Sax tries to move, but it’s like there’s a stone block between his mind and his body. No connection. No way through.
“You and your pair are only leaving this Spire one way, Oratus,” Belloch continues. “In a prison prism.”
The Belloch raises the miner a second time, fires it, and in a wash of blue, Sax ceases to think.
5 Not Alone
I find a wall to lean against in the black stairwell because, for the moment, I want a chance to breathe without wondering whether my next footfall will plunge me into some nether abyss.
Amigga. Of course it all comes back to them. Despite all the claims about how evil the Sevora are, the nightmares I keep having all revolve around the tests on Cobalt. The carousel of terrors that Dalachite subjected me to under some pretense of ‘study’. As if I, and, by extension, our entire species is an experiment whose results are, as yet, unclear.
Courtesy of Sax and a miner, we cleared it up for that Amigga, at least.
“Doesn’t matter,” Viera says. “What the Amigga care about isn’t our problem right now. It’s damn dark in here, I’m cold, and we’re still stuck on the slow track to starvation, so let’s keep moving.”
Right. Focus.
T’Oli, as usual, proceeds on in glib apathy, gliding down the ramp and calling out obstacles as they appear. Eventually the path straightens and, because my arms no longer hit hard metal when I reach out, I know we’re at the bottom, and in a large space.
“Wait here,” T’Oli says. “I’ll scout around.”
Viera and I take a seat at the end of the ramp, though I can only tell she’s close by the sounds of her breath.
“This wasn’t the homecoming I wanted,” Viera says after a second. “Thought, maybe, I’d actually get home.”
“Dumb of us to hope,” I reply. “Nothing I’ve planned has worked out in a long time.”
“We made it off of Vimelia, didn’t we?”
“Some of us.”
“That’s how Malo would’ve wanted it,” Viera says. “He was always looking for ways to give himself up for you.”
“I never asked for that.”
“That’s what loyalty means - you don’t have to ask.”
I blink away a tear that’s threaten
ing to escape. Malo was loyal. To a fault, really. We’d left the hierarchy of Damantum, gone into an alien society where grit, strength, and knowing how to fight seemed to be the main link between life and death. That’s where I should’ve been tossed aside - Malo, the warrior, ought to be sitting here now, ready to come back and lead our people in desperate battle against the Sevora.
“You think, if we make it back, that humanity’s going to survive?” I ask.
“I’m not even worried about that,” Viera replies. “You know us. We’re like bugs - we’ll scramble and find some way. Maybe not all, maybe not even most of us, but someone’s going to make it out the other side of all this.”
“I’m betting you will.”
“Because I’m so good with a miner?”
I laugh. “No, because you’re willing to do what it takes to win.”
“It’s not about winning, but about living to see what happens next. I’m too addicted to life to leave it.”
There’s a scuttle from the far end of the room, then a burst of orange.
The light leaks up from the apparent back wall of the chamber, central. If I’d run straight from the ramp across the space, I’d hit where those orange lines are crawling up the wall, to where they’re now spidering out through the sides and up onto the ceiling.
T’Oli, shadowed by the glow, has formed up into its usual ball-and-stalk shape next to what appears to be a very crusty lever.
“Vents,” T’Oli announces as we look over to it. “Simple stuff. Would’ve expected more from Amigga, but if you’re lookin’ to grab and throw heat, this works.”
Viera and I glance at each other, then back at the lines of energy. They’re moving slower now as they extend towards the ramp. Towards us. As the lines get closer, it’s clear they’re not a pure orange but instead a roiling cluster of reds, oranges, and deep yellows that swirl around and back on each other.
Like fire.
The lines, though, stop well before they reach us. Fade out, with licks occasionally popping further along before falling back.
“The thing upstairs said we had to open all the vents,” I say, standing and, now that my pupils have adjusted to the shock of having actual light, following the dead remainder of the lines along the ceiling.
They keep flowing to the ramp and then up the walls alongside it, where they vanish into the dark higher up.
“If it lets us see, then I agree with the monster,” Viera says, then she nods towards the circular door onward behind T’Oli. “Guessing there’s more of these?”
“If I had to guess, which, cause I don’t know, I have to,” T’Oli muses, its eyestalks swiveling along the lines. “What we’re getting now is only a trickle of what a place like this would need to run. Clarity’s Dawn, down in that rusted sewer, took a lot more energy from the Sevora than this vent is giving here.”
“Then we go?” Viera looks at me.
“We go,” I reply.
Before we leave the room, though, I walk over to a pile of bent and broken metal. Unlike most of the other debris we’ve seen, this doesn’t look burned but smashed. Someone deliberately beat whatever this was to pieces, but as their efforts give me a good meter-long stick of hard, splintered metal to wield, I’m not mad about it.
Both T’Oli and Viera are staring at me when I turn around, the short staff in my hands.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Viera smiles. “Glad to see you’ll be able to fend for yourself.”
“I’m only taking this to hit you when you’re annoying,” I wave the stick towards her. “Like now.”
“Humans are a strange species,” T’Oli burbles from his corner.
“You’re one to talk.” I swing the staff towards the Ooblot. “Lead on, slimeball.”
T’Oli oozes forth, though one eye turns back towards me, and its back half ripples out another reply, “If only I could. The best Ooblots can turn themselves entirely liquid.”
“Of course they can,” Viera mutters as we follow beneath the orange lines. “Why wouldn’t they?”
I’m expecting another ramp but instead we get hallways. So many hallways. It’s not a straight line anymore either - we’ve reached a basement warren. As big as the building looked from above, standing on the lip of the ash pit, it feels bigger now as we follow T’Oli through one turn after another.
Viera and I only know we’re shifting because T’Oli tells us, with short ‘Rights’ and ‘Lefts’ when a turn comes because those orange lines die out a few steps beyond the room, returning us to dark. I let the meandering go for a bit before I ask T’Oli to stop.
“How are you choosing where to go?” I ask. “And I’m going to be upset if you say ‘at random’.”
“The energy we’re unlocking comes from below,” T’Oli replies, though there’s something different about its voice - it’s off, though I can’t figure out why. “The vents control access to lines that channel this energy, and it’s hot. Keep your hands on the lines and you’ll feel a little more heat from the right direction, where the energy’s coming from.”
“But the lines are above us?”
“At first it’s not comfortable, but an Ooblot can get just about anywhere, even up.”
Now I get what’s different. T’Oli’s talking down to us from the ceiling, where it’s somehow attached himself.
“Remind me not to underestimate Ooblots,” I say.
“I will.”
Our line-tracing continues a little longer until we reach another room - identified as such because T’Oli announces it. Viera and I take up leaning on walls at the entrance while we wait for T’Oli to find the vent. But instead of the shunting of a lever, the next thing we hear is a series of rapid clicks along the floor behind us. Clicks I recognize.
“Claws,” Viera and I say at the same time.
I hear my friend draw her miner, though I’m sure she can’t see anything to shoot at. The claws click again, closer, and I try to remember how many turns took us here. How many possible ways a monster could find us.
“T’Oli? The vent?” I’m proud to say my voice only jumps up a little bit.
“Working on it!” the Ooblot’s reply is maddeningly cheerful.
As if she’s encouraging the Ooblot, Viera fires her miner. The bolt is bright, blue, and blinds me for a second before it buries itself into a wall. The hallway back the way we came, though, is empty.
“How many shots do you have left?”
“No idea,” Viera says. “Never really learned how to read these things.”
“Rackt didn’t teach you?” The Vyphen fighter back on Vimelia had given Viera that miner, had taught her how to shoot.
“There’s a bunch of different options, Kaishi. If we need to kill someone, I’ll figure it out.” Viera stops talking for a second and I wonder why, until I catch the clicks again.
They’re close. In the room.
I whirl and swing the piece of metal out behind me. Hit nothing, but I’m so juiced up at this point that I keep whirling and clang the bar off the wall to my right. The ringing noise echoes around the room, I wince, and then T’Oli finds the vent.
Orange bursts forth on the far side of the room and we get our first look at what’s following us, what’s there in the room, what’s coming at me in a whirl of claws.
“Oratus!” Viera shouts, and on one hand, she’s obviously right.
On another, I don’t think Sax would call this thing one of his own. The same breaking orange light that lets me see the Oratus only has three arms left - the fourth, its left foreclaw, is nothing more than a shoulder stump - and less than half a tail, causes the Oratus to pause, snap its head back towards T’Oli.
Viera fires again.
She doesn’t miss.
The blue bolt crashes into the Oratus’ chest as the creature registers T’Oli’s an Ooblot and, by the way it keeps its claws towards us, decides the slimeball isn’t a threat. Viera’s shot gets a hiss, a slight stumble, but the Oratus doesn’t fall.
The Oratus is taller than me, so my strike heads in for the thing’s waist. It notices, bloodshot yellow eyes glaring at me as its midclaws catch my metal bar, as they tear it from my hands and break it.
“Next shot kills, Oratus,” Viera says. “Don’t move.”
The Oratus glances at her. Pauses with my bar in its claws. Opens its mouth with a long, angry hiss, “You should not be alive.”
We’re staring at the Oratus and it’s staring back at Viera and I, claws back out and ready, though it seems less bloodthirsty than before. Maybe that’s what happens when you’ve got a miner pointed in your face, maybe that’s what happens when things you think are long dead suddenly show up again in front of you.
“You’re better than you were,” the Oratus hisses. “More perfect. More as they intended.”
“Yeah, you keep talking in riddles like that and we’re going to get along just fine,” Viera says. “How about you explain why you’re hiding down here in the dark?”
Though, I think, it’s not dark anymore. The roiling orange is all through this room now too, and the lines burn bright back the way we came. That whole network of hallways we stumbled through is probably all lit up now, which makes me wonder what we might’ve missed.
No. We’re not here to explore. We’re here to get home.
“It’s been so long,” the Oratus says, then looks at itself and shakes its head. “I was young then. My first assignment, to come here and oversee the deletion of a project.”
“How about we start with your name, and then we can get into the messy details?” I offer.
T’Oli, meanwhile, has re-attached itself to the ceiling and has made it way above the Oratus. At first I don’t understand why, but when the Ooblot shifts most of itself into a hard rock, it makes sense - a surprise, heavy dive bomb.
But Vee, who insists that his name is only one letter, decides he’s not interested in fighting right then and instead, in a rasping, hazy voice, spills out one revelation after another.
Humans are, Vee says, simply one more experiment gone wrong. Earth, a habitable zone chosen because it would support the kind of life the Amigga wanted to grow. In fact, Earth already had most of its own life forms, plants and animals, so the Amigga didn’t have to seed much at all to make it work.