by Lee Bond
“I can.”
Garth went to fist-bump his would-be savior, only to have the guy cock his head to one side like he’d never seen a fist before. “When I am fucking king of the fucking universe,” the Engineer snapped, frustrated beyond belief, “everyfucking thing everyfucking where will know what the fist-bump is. Sentient balls of light will magically create fists with which to bump when good news is shared. It’ll be lightning ball fist bumps across a goddamn majestic sky! Jesus!”
Another copse of trees disintegrated. The maw was still hungry. Whatever damage this Platinum Brigadier had done, it was worse than it seemed.
The T-1000 cleared his throat. “I believe, sirrah, you were in the process of asking me for some form of tools, presumably which you would then use to turn off this hungry machine before it eats the entire world? The edge of this thing grows closer to the walls of The Dome. I shudder to think how awful it would be were those walls to be eaten.”
“Hah. That’d… hm.” He’d been about to say that the King would never create something capable of destroying his own creations so efficiently, but the fact of the matter was, the reclamation cylinders had been designed with that specific task in mind. “Hey, yeah, so. How’s about you whammy up a standard artificer’s kit, hey? Are they gonna be all plat…”
His buddy the unnamed Medieval T-1000 handed him a platinum-colored satchel full of platinum colored tools.
Garth accepted the toolkit and ignored the faint tremor of power throbbing through his fingers. He could feel the nanotech machines tasked to the purpose of assembling themselves into tools and pouch, just … there … just beyond visual range. His fingers itched, and the soft, liquid-feeling bag twitched in response.
Of course. Overexposure to Kingsblood had driven his awareness of Will to the next level. As he stood there, staring at the satchel, the world just the other side of his periphery started swar…
Not happening.
Garth willed his fingers to be fingers and the bag to stay as a bag. Risking direct manipulation of King’s Will right that second struck him as moronically suicidal and he’d already tried winning the Darwin Award once today. Anything from spontaneous re-Gunboy-ification to teleporting angry Kings could happen as a result.
Working quickly and efficiently, Garth began disassembling the controls the proper way. As he worked, he spoke. “Heard you guys were dead.”
“Not all of us, no. I … I ran, that day, when the King came down from his throne in the sky and killed all my friends before mine own eyes. A black day, that one.” The Brigadier sighed heavily. “Your plan to dismantle this thing properly would have only worked with me being present, sirrah. What, then, would you have done had I not shown up?”
Garth shrugged. His fingers were a blur, quickly dismantling the control boxes running the reclamation cylinder’s teeth with ridiculous ease; either the King had grown sloppy in his haste to ensure the end of both Ickford and himself, or good old Barnabas Blake had left himself an emergency shutdown escape clause should something exactly like what was happening … happened. “Well, see. I probably would’ve blown this thing fucking sky high and just, like, dealt with the consequences of that whole mistake along the way.”
“Your previous comment led me to believe that such destruction wasn’t possible.”
Garth shrugged a second time. “Meh. I got all kinds of … whoopsiedaisies!”
His fingers slipped as the whole cylinder wobbled sideways: the fountain upon which the cylinder rested at a slight angle had finally cracked all the way under the immense pressure.
The Platinum Brigadier lurched forward, caught his foot on Garth’s leg. He began awkwardly toppling ass over teakettle towards the wide opening. The Engineer spun instinctively into action, dropping the toolkit and rolling around and flopping flat on his belly, hand outstretched and grasping towards the other man’s flailing hands. It was gonna be close…
“Fuck me. Not even … there you go big boy, hold on tight … not even sideways. You weigh, like, a gazillion fucking pounds, bro.” Garth held onto the Platinum Brigadier’s hand, doing his best not to look too panicked as he did so; the last Brigadier’s feet were dangling a single centimeter above where he suspected the disintegration field circulated. “Hey, uh, buddy? Like, don’t … don’t wiggle around so … so … much. I, uhm, I gotta … gotta think. For, like, a second here.”
The Brigadier gasped, but nodded.
Garth shifted his weight a bit, working as he did so to get a better grip on the Brigadier’s smooth gauntleted hand. The power coursing through the liquid metal armor was immense. Laying there, trying desperately to think of a way to pull the Brigadier up when he definitely lacked the Dark Iron-fed strength to do so, Garth found himself marveling instead at what could become of someone who’d gone through King’s Gauntlet.
The Platinum Brigadier –who was cursing up a violent storm- was what all gearheads could become, given half a chance. Had Barnabas not alienated the entire crop of his disciples a hundred years ago, there was every possibility that Nicked Jimmy or Mental Marc or any one of the weird-fucking-beards he’d met could’ve become like this …
“I’m sorry, what?” Garth shook his head. If he had a dollar for every time he got distracted like this, he’d have … well, he supposed he already had all the dollars, sort of, didn’t he?
“If we could move this right the fuck along, squire?”
“Oh. Haha. Right. Hey, can you, like, do some kind of magic Brigadier shit? Like grow wings or something?” Garth hoped the panic he felt right that moment didn’t sound quite as awful as it was; the hand he was using to hold the Brigadier away from certain death with was beginning to itch quite ferociously, and if what he suspected was happening was actually happening, everyone was probably going to have a long day after all.
“Actually, squire, I’ve been trying to do ‘magic Brigadier shit’ for a while now. The only option that seems to be open right now is ridding myself of my armor.”
“Can you do that?” It was a gamble, but then again, all life under The Dome was a gamble. “Only, like … well, I guess you sort of absorb that shit into you, but instead of doing that, can you, uh, drop it? Into the maw?”
“What will that do?”
“If I say ‘I’m not all that certain but I’m hoping for an explosion’ will you do it anyways?” If only he could see inside the maw to be certain!
“You are not a man terribly familiar with common sense, are you, squire?”
“My dad used to say the same thing.” Garth tried to inch his way backwards, even a tiny little bit, but it was a lost cause. The two of them were perfectly balanced precisely where they were. The only way to go was forward, guaranteeing nothing but the Brigadier’s death. Combined with the itching finger-thing, which Garth knew would spell nothing but trouble for the man and the very real fact that the disintegration disc was now –or soon would be- digging quite merrily into the walls of The Dome … they didn’t have time. “Can you do it or not?”
“Well, yes, I can, only it will take time for me to grow another, you see, and…”
“Quit the jibber-jabber. Drop it like it’s hot, if you would be so kind.” Garth sighed with relief as he felt a warm, strong hand instead of implacable liquid nanotech. “Awesome. Now, get r…”
Everything went explode-y.
***
Garth opened his eyes first. He had a lot of experience being blown up, after all. He smiled at Agnethea, who was clutching one of her hands to her chest and looking quite concerned.
“Everything okay over there?” He asked softly, pretending he didn’t see the way she hid her hand behind her back.
“Everything is fine, Master Nickels.” Agnethea nodded once, curtly. “An errant piece of the cylinder struck me in the hand as I leaped to save both you and our newest companion. A little forewarning next time you insist on causing something that large to explode, if you please? ‘twas a most valiant leap, as well. I am quite displeased neither of you la
ds was awake to witness my heroic derring-do!”
“That reminds me.” Garth rolled over to one side and looked at the man he’d wound up having to save instead of the other way around.
Dave the Bartender opened his eyes.
Garth laughed. “Hah. I totally called it!”
Dave replied, rather cynically, “Didn’t you just?”
18 The Last Brigadier, The King in his Castle, the First Brigadier
The Queen of Golems –or was it simply Golem, now?- looked surreptitiously at Master Nickels, one hand idly tracing the spot on her wrist where … where he’d done what he had. He had no clue, no recollection, betrayed no hint that he remembered.
‘twas difficult to believe, but the admonitions falling from his mouth minutes before Davram had woken were proving true all the same.
Master Nickels was of two minds, though it wasn’t him and Specter, but him and some other version of himself, some … intellect that looked out every now and then from behind that scintillating blue eye, looked out and made plans.
***
“Sorry for that.”
Agnethea stared incredulously down at the wound seared into the fine skin, gasped at the scintilla of heat burning there. As she watched, the wound disappeared quick as it’d ever come, but the heat only diminished. “What have you done?”
“A terrible thing.”
Agnethea looked at Garth, flinching at the piercing blue eye that should be no different than every other time she’d seen it, yet somehow, it was. He smiled, somewhat sadly, at the look on her face.
The Golem repeated her question.
“I’ll tell you, but you must promise never to repeat these words to me, or to even ask a question related to it. I won’t remember this moment, but if you start picking at the edges, it’ll all unravel. The road I’m on is not easy. It can’t be easy.”
Agnethea rubbed where she’d been attacked vigorously. “Are you Specter?”
“No. There is no such thing as Specter. I’m learning that even as we speak. I am, I guess you could call me the Engineer.”
“He who would destroy the Universe.” Agnethea looked away from the blue eye. It made her heart beat faster, and in an unkind fashion. “So now I am to aid you in your quest? What if I don’t want to? Don’t I get a voice in this?”
“There’s no other way. There never was. I was given no choice, either, and my burden is a thousandfold worse than you believe.”
Listening to Garth’s tone, something struck Agnethea. “Your regret is deep. Have you done this before?”
“Once. Yes.”
“So we are tools to you, then? The people of this Unreal Universe?”
Heavy regret rolled out from Master Nickels. “I am the Engineer.”
“What have you done to me? Have you reshaped this tool to some other purpose, then? Am I to be a Golem Queen no longer? Shall I grow monstrous claws to slay your enemies, or have eyes that can turn foes to stone?” Agnethea’s voice grew sharp, shrill. “What gives you the right to do this, and dare you not fall on the ‘Engineer’ line again, Master Nickels, for I find it disagreeable. I already signed on to bring you to Arcadia, and to perchance do for the King himself, yet this … violation requires answers. And they had damned well be good ones.”
“Agnethea deRois, born in the Year of Our King 13,492, you are not you. From the moment you tasted the first batch of Dark Iron to roll off the factory floor, you ceased being a living, thinking being. The Kingsblood stole you and your life away. When you opened your eyes, you were already forged anew, a weapon aimed directly at the King, with all the memories of your former self. A poor weapon, it seems, designed too perfectly. You went in directions unintended. As did all your kind. I … have redirected your focus.”
deRois! She hadn’t thought of that name in thousands of years. “Where did you learn this?”
“It is everywhere. King’s Will. I have an affinity for it. One I will try to avoid when I open my eyes again.”
“I … I see.” Agnethea risked looking at Master Nickels. So full of sorrow. “This is too much for me to think on. I … I … I do not know what to …”
“Be who you wish to be, Queen Agnethea. You have already come to terms with the fact that when The Dome falls, you shall cease to be, have you not?”
The Golem gave a shaky nod.
“So then, the matter of your death doesn’t matter.”
“I do not like this version of you, Master Nickels.” Agnethea shouted angrily, fists balled at her hips. “You seem just like the King!”
“I do not like this version of myself either, Queen Agnethea. Know that. Where the man you know seeks to keep everyone alive until the very End of Things, I must spend lives. Remember…”
“Aye.” Agnethea booted Master Nickels in the foot. “I shall say nothing, you arrogant destroyer of souls. If I survive whatever you’ve done to me, you and I shall have words.”
“I would expect nothing less. Remember that there is no choice, and that I regret this more than you can imagine.”
***
“So,” Agnethea drawled the word out as she looked over Davram’s fine establishment, “this is where the legend of Specter grew teeth.”
All things considered, Garth thought he was doing totally awesome, being back in the bar where he’d basically committed mass murder before running off into the night like some kind of goddamn lunatic. Thankfully, most of that night was a red hot blur, filled with nothing but the occasional splash of lurid blood and profoundly dark humor.
One thing that haunted him, though, was the memory of Dark Iron fibers waving from his fingertips like seaweed in the water. That, and how easily those deadly fronds had sliced through Nicked Jimmy’s thick skin.
Rather than relay the darkness of his thoughts, Garth nodded and slapped a hand on the table. “Yep. Right here is where I got shitfaced for the first time in, like, a bazillion years. Only when I was here, it was Kingspawn Pub and not Matron’s Head…”
“The King is coming for you! The King is coming for you! Run and hide, run and hide if you can, you bloody bastards. Primrose will have her garden back by the end, yes I shall, yes indeed!”
Garth and Agnethea exchanged awkward glances. The … figurehead for the new bar and grill –a venture that would likely never see customers, now the world was on the edge of extinction- had a despairing tendency to break into strange, threatening caterwauls every few minutes.
Thus far –and they’d only been in the building proper for less than fifteen minutes- the Matron nailed to the wall had predicted their end three times, though this was the first time she’d mentioned the King himself.
Garth didn’t like the Matron, or, weirdly enough, what Davram had done to her, though seeing the mechanical Nanny pinioned to the wall like a butterfly had thrown Agnethea into gales of laughter so intense she’d had to stagger away into the commons room lest she pass out altogether.
Agnethea dragged a chair out and plopped down into it, throwing her dainty feet up onto the table. She motioned for Master Nickels to do the same. “Nanny on the Wall’s got you in a twisted state, Master Nickels. What is the cause of your discontent?”
Garth took a chair of his own and for a fleeting moment, considered spilling his guts. Here, in this room, there was considerable privacy. Besides which, after all they’d been through, there’d be very little judging going on.
He couldn’t. The time spent in the Gunboy, unwillingly fused to the machinery –become a part of the machinery, in fact- listening to the unhinged madness of the King flowing through the deeper parts of Dark Iron, feeling the ebb and flow, the push and pull of how the Cloud under The Dome worked … it’d changed him. Or he’d adapted to it, same as he’d always done, though this last time was definitely the last time. He was certain of it. Whatever tiny crack that’d still connected him to the extra-dimensionality had been filled with Dark Iron spackle.
Dark Iron hadn’t conquered him, not as the King had wanted and hoped, nor h
ad he become the master of Iron, and yet … when things made directly manifest from the King’s Will were close by, the palms of his hands itched and his skin trembled in ways far too fucking similar to the time when his skin had cracked and turned into smoothly meshed machine parts.
How the fuck did you tell a friend ‘Hey, so, at any minute, there’s a real good chance my body could turn into some kind of fucking engine or some other kind of weird shit I don’t even understand, probably because the only thing keeping me looking like Garth Nickels is my own towering ego’?
Mistress Primrose shouted what was presumably the correct time for The Dome, managing to sandwich in more colorful epithets than was normally considered etiquette for your basic time-telling enterprise, startling Garth out of his moody reverie.
“Hm?” Garth waved a hand. “Oh, the crazy bitchbot? Just a reminder I traveled for a month with the king of this fucked up nightmare and I didn’t notice a goddamn thing.”
Agnethea narrowed her strange eyes shrewdly but said nothing. She carried her own fresh secrets now. It’d be unfair of her to press the man to reveal his, especially since he was only recently free from his great clanking prison.
A brief memory of that blue eye of his, gleaming so bright in his skull like the stars he spoke of. The sorrow in his voice, as he explained what needed doing, her own soft, tremulous voice agreeing, even though he’d given her no real choice in the matter.
With the strange warmth creeping along her hand, following the skein of veins beneath her nearly impenetrable flesh, most of her thoughts were tied up in keeping everything on an even keel. It frightened her in ways her tongue refused to explain, and it was taking every ounce of self-control to use that hand as she always had, when all she wanted to do was hide it out of sight; if she did so, Master Nickels would see it straight off and he’d demand to know what ailed her. She would be forced to lie –oh, the Engineer had been quite clear on that point, over and over- and he’d grow more and more insistent, becoming irrationally interested…