by Sean Davies
“And we think he may be stretching himself too far and too thin,” Juan said, hoping the theory would be of some use in future encounters.
Alice frowned. She wasn’t surprised that the cowardly Corriztis had slithered away, but she’d still been secretly hoping that the Demon had been caught by the amazing frost spell.
Chloe sighed in disappointment and inspected the curved face of cloudy ice. She couldn’t see much except for the outlines of a few buildings, and the odd humanoid silhouette. “So, what did the fucker hit us with this time? More Alt-mutating gunk?” she asked angrily.
Rosetta shook her head and lit up a cigarette, before handing one to her brother and offering out the pack to Chloe and Alice. “It was just… chaos,” she said, reliving the traumatic experience.
Chloe took a cigarette and lit it with a bright spark from her thumb. “Chaos is what that cock-sucker Corriztis does best,” the redhead said with a sneer. She didn’t normally smoke, but the circumstances seemed to warrant at least one calming vice.
Alice dismissed the cigarettes with a short shake of her head, and watched the mist rising from the enormous quarantine dome. “Can you elaborate?”
“We think he was testing how many people he could infect, and how quickly it could be achieved,” Juan explained.
Rosetta took a massive drag and blew the smoke away from the others. “After the three men exploded, a small area was filled with sparkling purple gas and everyone caught inside it went completely insane.”
“They swarmed into town, scratching, biting, and vomiting all over the uninfected,” Juan continued. “We tried to contain them, and that’s when we saw Theodore watching everything like he was taking notes.”
“And he messed up the robots when you were fighting?” Chloe guessed.
“No, we did,” Juan began. “Whatever was in the gas didn’t take hold for long, and the first of the infected suddenly became well again.”
“But they were quickly re-infected by the people they had just turned, and so on and so on,” Rosette said, rolling her hand around. “It was just madness.”
Alice looked over to the disabled Autons and put the remaining pieces of the story together for herself. “Their programming and enchantments didn’t take the virus’ short duration into account, and they turned on the population, didn’t they?”
The Book Wielder siblings nodded.
“They caused more deaths than the virus,” Rosetta said, shaking her head in disbelief. “That lot over there were stopped before they could enter Barraham, but the ones already inside….”
“Luckily we had a Werewolf Shaman nearby,” Juan explained. “He toasted most of the Autons in town with one blast of lightning—”
“Before Theodore—Corriztis—boiled his blood and popped him like a balloon while we were busy subduing some of his altered cronies,” Rosetta cut in moodily.
“When all efforts to contain the spread failed, some of the other Mages banded together and did that,” Juan said, pointing at the solid dome of ice. “We barely made it out in time. They were at the centre of the combined spell, so they are frozen too.”
“They are in stasis with the infected.” Rosetta explained. “That is why we have to keep freezing it from this side.”
“Shit…” Chloe gasped.
“We’ll get this place quarantined,” Alice said, suppressing her rage and forcing her mind into action, “and then we’ll see if the specialists from the Aldacium medical facility can find a cure for the victims, after they’ve been cut out of the ice dome.”
Alice’s wrist-mounted HCD chimed, and she saw that one of the Desem Justiciar outposts was trying to contact her. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said as she walked off to take the call.
“Lord Imperator, wait!” Rosetta called, throwing her cigarette to the floor. “The Demon had a message for you!”
Alice stopped immediately and tapped her HCD. “Hold the line,” she said to the operator before turning her attention to Rosetta. “What did it say?” she asked, fearing the reply.
“That he has already selected the next stage for you to showcase your gallant skills,” the turquoise-haired woman recited, “and that you won’t be able to miss the invitation.”
✽ ✽ ✽
In Neo-Industria West, ‘The Manager’ Edward Anderson drummed his fingers against his conference table impatiently, waiting for his cabinet member Roy Green to finish talking. He looked out of the room’s long window and over at the area formally known as Rigorton down below, watching the pillars of smoke spewing from the city’s many chimneys, rising towards the clouds of pollution and overcast sky above.
“In conclusion,” Roy said, adjusting his smart blue tie, “we’re not going to be able to match the production levels of the east side unless we start using Alt-labour.”
“I want less of those freaks in my city, not more,” Edward Anderson said bluntly. He looked into his empty coffee mug and pressed a button on his intercom. “Emilia, where’s that damn coffee?!”
“Sorry, Mr. Anderson, sir, it’s on its way,” a woman’s voice buzzed back. “There’s an urgent delivery for you, it requires your signature—”
“Hold the courier there at reception for now, I’ll deal with them after the meeting’s finished,” The Manager cut in rudely.
“I already sent him up,” Emilia replied in a dry, slightly amused tone. “Sorry, Mr. Anderson.”
The Manager tutted, making a mental note to hire a new PA. “Just bring that damn coffee up, now!”
Roy Green stroked his neat brown beard and ruffled his thinning hair, completely ignoring the disgusted looks from his fellow cabinet members as he continued to rile them further. “Then we should cut all funding to the Darkheart Organisation. This latest shoot-up of theirs—during a Demon terror threat, I might add—should be all the proof we need that supporting this group is not in our collective interests and is a complete waste of our resources.”
Sarah Fischer, a fierce-looking blonde woman, scoffed and folded her arms across her chest. “Have you gone soft on us, Roy?” she asked mockingly, causing the rest of the room of suited officials to snigger.
“Maybe,” Roy shrugged. “Maybe I’m just thinking clearly.”
“It’s not up for debate,” Edward Anderson said bitterly. “Darkheart assures me that her new ally will have both the Lord Imperator and Reynolds out of the picture soon. Once that happens, we can finally put this world back to the way it was, back under human control… our control.”
There was a polite tap on the conference room’s door and a blue and white porcelain Alternative, dressed in a light brown postman’s uniform, waltzed into the room holding a rectangular slab of brass and a clipboard.
“We didn’t say you could enter,” an overweight businessman named Stewart King said with a cruel sneer.
The porcelain Alt turned its ceramic head to the side and stared at the seated man with its cold black eyes for a drawn-out moment, before its open mouth warped into a merry smile, and it turned to face the Manager.
“Delivery for Edward Anderson, from his gargantuan glorious greatness, The Foreman,” the Alternative chimed musically.
“Bring it here and place it down on the table,” The Manager said, rolling his eyes. “Then get out.”
The Alt shuffled forward and placed the bronze item beside the Manager’s empty coffee mug, before waving the clipboard in his face. “Signature, please!” it beamed.
Edward Anderson snatched the clipboard, grabbed a pen from the top pocket of his shirt, and scribbled his name down on the paper.
“Here’s your copy, sir,” the Alt courier said, tearing off the duplicate page beneath whilst giggling slightly. “Have a nice day.”
“Get out, freak—we’re busy,” Sarah Fischer said, smacking her hands down on the long table.
The Alternative’s head whizzed around so that it faced the blonde woman, and it stuck out it’s black snake-like tongue at her before walking away at its own pace, sla
mming the door behind itself.
“Disgusting creatures,” Stewart King said, repulsed.
“And you want to let more of those things into our workplaces?” a skinny man called Earl Schmidt said sceptically to Roy Green.
“They’re not that different from us, once you get to know them,” Roy replied calmly.
The Manager had heard enough. “Roy, do me a favour and go check on Emilia. See what’s taking her so long… and then tell her she’s fired.” And you’re next, he thought with an inwards chuckle.
“Sure thing,” Roy said happily.
Everyone waited a few seconds after Roy had left the room and then unanimously confirmed that they wanted him gone.
“I’ll break the news after he brings me my refill,” The Manager said, chuckling evilly.
Edward then turned his attention to the delivery receipt, and boiled with rage when he saw that he’d unwittingly signed a lengthy legal declaration claiming that he was officially a ‘Blightmoth-brained, corpse-raping shit-eater’. He scrunched up the paper and threw it in his bin, before pulling the object closer.
“Watch out, it could be anything,” Earl said cautiously.
“The living tower of junk wouldn’t dare. Even Winston knows better than to make a martyr of me,” Edward Anderson said confidently.
He saw that the brass object had a lid attached to three hinges, and he opened it impatiently. The device clicked and clacked as the lid was moved, triggering some sort of strange internal mechanism, and all of a sudden the metal parcel came to life with spinning cogs, puffs of steam, bright green sparks, and unfolding metal parts and pieces until Edward was looking at a very basic stage.
A cheerful melody began playing and two small puppets popped up, making the Manager jump. One of the little material people was a tall and handsome figure covered in gold paint—an obvious interpretation of the Foreman—whilst the other was an offensively ghoulish character in a scruffy suit. Edward Anderson narrowed his eyes in rage when he realised that it was meant to be him.
“What the fuck…?” Sarah remarked, totally baffled.
The base of the stage began to sing cheerfully (and badly), and everyone stopped their muttering to listen.
‘There once was a man named Ed,
who had tons of moths in his head.
He made friends with the Foreman,
who helped with his woes,
and gave him plenty of cash for his hoes.’
Then the tune took a darker turn, and became creepy and menacing.
‘But the weasel Eddy turned on his magnificent mentor,
and tried to take all his people,
and the amazing Alternative said
That he could’ve dropped a megaton bomb on Ed’s head—’
A trumpet sounded, and a regal puppet of Winston Reynolds rose from within the device’s clustered mechanisms, while the music changed into an upbeat military marching tune.
‘But Winston saw true,
and he knew what to do!
Be patient, he said,
One day soon, Ed will be dead…
Karma’s a bitch and
SO - ARE - WE!’
And with the last out-of-tune lyric, the puppet version of the Manager popped and sizzled, making everyone in the conference room flinch, and all that was left of the offensive depiction of Edward Anderson was a little smoking skeleton.
Just when everyone thought the weird performance was over, the little puppet of Winston began moving towards the figure of the Foreman.
“Hey, Foreman, you’re so cool, you’re the coolest person from the Gloom ever. You’re even cooler than that over-stuffed fatso Mayor. Here, have loads of candy—have all the candy in the world! I would totally move in with you and live inside your kick-ass superstructure, if my vamp-wife didn’t already have her fangs sunk into me!”
The golden Foreman figure bowed graciously. ‘Why, thank you, Winston. You are totally correct on all those points—’
Edward Anderson threw the brass device off the table. He was so enraged by the little performance that his face had turned bright red and beads of sweat ran down his brow. The device clicked, hissed, and vibrated, and with one loud clang it pulled itself back into its original nondescript form of a plain metal box.
“Emilia!” The Manager screamed into his office intercom. “Where is my Goddess-damned coffee?!”
“Oh, I sent her home,” Roy’s voice replied smugly through the intercom. “Along with the rest of the building.”
The Manager’s eyes grew wide and blazed with fury. “Why the hell would you do that?! Who the fuck do you think you are? Oh, you are so fucking fired, mister!”
“Well, my new boss Emperor Reynolds and I thought it best to give the building the day off,” Roy chuckled menacingly. “You know, in lieu of the Darkheart bombing that occurred here, and the heart-breaking fatalities it caused to those brave souls who were meeting on the top floor…”
The conference room erupted in panic, knowing exactly what awaited them if they didn’t act fast, and Edward Anderson scrambled for the door, not even bothering to reply to his turncoat ex-employee. Stewart King and Earl Schmidt beat him to it, however, and started struggling with the handle.
“It’s jammed, Roy’s jammed the fucking door!” Stewart roared.
“Barge it open, come on, quick!” Earl cried, throwing his shoulder repeatedly into the wooden door as hard as he could.
The Manager stood still, paralysed by fear. “Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered nervously.
“The device!” Sarah gasped, before running for the brass box. With a grunt, she smashed a hole in one of the reinforced window panes and launched it out across the city.
Everyone sighed with relief, and the Manager smirked, mildly hoping that the bomb landed somewhere he didn’t care about.
Edward ran over to the intercom and laughed hysterically. “Roy, we got rid of your little Alt-bomb! You’d better start running, ‘cause when we get out of this room you are so fucking dead!”
Roy Green laughed slowly. “Oh, that was just the Foreman’s way of saying goodbye, and to distract you from the suitcase I left under the desk. Goodbye, everyone. Both the Emperor and I hope you pig-headed, magic-hating bigots all burn in hell…”
The Manager froze once again and watched on in terror as Sarah Fischer made a dash for the blue suitcase under the desk where Roy had been sitting, hoping to repeat her last performance. Then everything went white.
An intense blue and white plasma explosion tore through the top floor of the building, making the people in the streets below gasp and shout fearfully as a sprinkling of debris rained down to the ground. Everyone began to gather around the building as the emergency services’ sirens bellowed in the distance, watching as the white-hot flames spread and reached for the pollution-stricken sky above.
Roy Green walked calmly in the opposite direction to the swarm of shocked bystanders, and politely tipped his smart bowler hat to the happy porcelain Alternative postman as they passed by each other. He was heading to the radio station as planned, to discredit the Darkheart Organisation and their latest destructive actions, and to formally announce his Imperial and Foreman-approved appointment as ‘The Administrator’ of Neo-Industria West.
Chapter 6
Hostile Takeover
Constance Lee stood outside of Genevieve’s living quarters, pacing beside the door as she silently debated whether to go through with her plan or not. She was dressed in a gingham off-the-shoulder blouse with a white crochet floral neckline, which she’d tucked into a smart and sexy light blue plaid pleated mini-skirt. Constance had run a brush through her long, highlighted black hair and spent only a little bit of time on her make-up. She wanted to look good, but without giving the impression that she’d tried too hard in case things didn’t go in her favour.
It had been a day since the wave of terror and chaos had spread over the Continent of Desem, and although it was obvious that the high-ups wanted to kee
p it under wraps, all hope of that had vanished when the town of Barraham was encased in a giant dome of ice. Constance was glad she didn’t have anything to do with politics; the world leaders were pulling their hair out trying to figure out how to deal with Darkheart and Corriztis, whilst keeping their civilians and themselves panic-free and safe. The Justiciars had stepped up their game to the point of imposing martial law on the world, and Alice Eve’s people had found seven unregistered, deliberately sabotaged portal interstices and obfuscation devices hidden in sewers, basements, and cellars, and were expecting to find more in their methodical raids.
Even The Manager, Edward Anderson—a well-known hater of the restored Mydia—had been caught in the crossfire and targeted by the Darkheart terrorists. His successor, Roy Green, had been given the title of ‘Administrator’ by the Foreman and Winston, and was planning a grandiose funeral in honour of The Manager and his cabinet, even though there weren’t any remains to bury.
The grisly affairs on Desem had made Constance realise just how short life could be, and that if there was something she wanted then she should just go for it while she still had the chance. Her strange intuition had also been nagging her like crazy, and so Connie had reluctantly decided to make the first move.
Constance wasn’t sure how much she liked Genevieve personality-wise, as they clashed like crazy at times, but she was definitely physically attracted to her, and wanted to see what would happen if they had a night together that wasn’t garishly over-planned by a third-party. Connie also felt extremely grateful towards the blue-haired Vampire Nightclaw for sticking around as long as she had done, as she could’ve quite easily given her and Stitches a quick run around Central Isle and then hopped off back to the continent of Rura.
Because Genevieve had tagged along with them for so long, both Constance and Stitches had gotten to know some of the isle’s elite on a personal level—including the unofficial Empress, Veronica Reynolds, who seemed more than happy to dodge her husband.