by Jack Conner
THE ATOMIC SEA:
VOLUME THREE
THE ENGINE OF RUIN
by Jack Conner
Copyright 2015
All rights reserved
Cover image used with permission
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
In its original version, The Atomic Sea: Part Two encompassed what is now Books Three through Five. It was a massive volume and priced accordingly. To keep costs down I've split the book into parts, so if you read the original version of Part Two and want to know what happens next, hang on. It won’t be long. I’m now releasing the books at a rate of about one a month.
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The World of the Atomic Sea
For a larger version of the map, go to:
http://jackconnerbooks.com/map-of-the-world-of-the-atomic-sea/
Chapter 1
“Something’s wrong,” Layanna said.
Lightning flickered up from the waters. A strange, slug-like fish leapt out of the river, speared a low-flying bird on a sticky, barbed tongue, then dragged it under the waves to be consumed at leisure.
“How?” Avery asked.
She did not answer immediately. A muggy wind blew over the upper deck of the riverboat, and Avery enjoyed it ruffling the remains of his hair as he sipped a glass of brandy. He reclined on one of the deck chairs, Layanna alongside him. Music belched up from a lower deck, or perhaps one of the rooms—a thumping, hip-shaking tune—and somewhere people laughed and danced. Around him, the night loomed huge and black, while far away, on the distant shores of the mile-wide river, Octung waited. Great factories, smoking and oozing, blotted out the low-flung stars, and Avery had to imagine the workers in them frowning over the water, irritated by the music, or perhaps, who knows, wishing they were on the boat themselves.
A divot of concentration appeared between Layanna’s eyebrows. “I can feel it. Like ... an itching ... at the back of my head.”
“What sort of itching?” Avery wasn’t sure if he spoke as her doctor, lover or co-conspirator.
She regarded him levelly. “I think one of my people is near.”
The wind turned cold. “A Collossum?” He said the word softly. He and Layanna had the upper deck to themselves except for some boatmen smoking hashish on the other side against the rail and couple of drunks sleeping it off on distant recliners, but it paid to be careful.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve been feeling it for some time. I didn’t want to alarm you until I was sure.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. It’s been growing, subtly at first, but now ...”
“You sure it’s not just because we’re nearing Lusterqal?” The Great Temple of the Collossum stood there, the capital of Octung, and it would hold many of Layanna’s people, if they could be called people. She would likely be able to sense their presence. And Avery and the others were almost there.
She shook her head. “I feel like one of my kind is near, only ... only it’s trying to mask itself from me.”
Avery rubbed his cheek. The last thing they needed was a run-in with one of the Collossum, a R’loth in human form, here in Octung. His skin crawled just to be inside Octung’s borders, let alone near one of its infernal gods, so-called or otherwise.
“Perhaps—” he began.
A cry came from below. Then another. Avery heard sounds of alarm, running and the thudding of planks, a woman crying.
He and Layanna jumped to their feet.
A large form materialized out of the darkness, and Avery had to catch himself from flinching at the suddenness with which the man appeared. It was Janx. The massive whaler stepped into the small circle of illumination cast by Avery’s alchemical lamp, his many scars thrown into vivid relief against his long, square-jawed face, his bald head agleam, a leather patch covering the hole where his nose should have been.
“Come quick, Doc,” Janx said. “The cap’n told me to fetch you.”
Avery and Layanna fell in behind him as he strode from the deck. A haze hung thick over the river, and lightning flickered sporadically through it, up from the water. The haze stirred as the riverboat bore a furrow through the murk, and gray, oily banks of cloud glommed across the decks. Avery spat it out as he walked. The air tasted of pollution, sludge and ozone. The nearby factories, combined with the naturally foul air over the Atomic River, gave the air an acrid bite, greasy and oily and electric, and Avery half-wished it were bad enough to warrant the full-body environment suits necessary on the Atomic Sea itself. Unfortunately doubling up on the daily pollution pill proved sufficient.
“This way,” Janx said, leading them down from the ladder and along a lower deck.
A motley assortment of individuals gave way for them, oil-stained boatmen who had been enjoying the festivities after a hard day, well-dressed travelers returning to Octung after journeys abroad, tired-looking businessmen, drifting youths, likely a few spies, and more. What surprised Avery more than anything else was how many were infected, as there were near-countless mutants. He brushed past a man with translucent skin and glowing spines protruding from his back, nearly collided with a woman with an anemone riot on her head in place of hair. Many had fish-like skin, some striated, some gray, green, silver or brightly painted.
Avery had never known until he had crossed its borders how much Octung revered the Atomic Sea—and its many fruits. The river was one of the countless waterways that had been tainted by the sea over the last millennium, but it was one of the few that had remained that way after scientists and alchemists had devised methods, expensive and laborious though they were, of cleansing the rivers, and that owed itself to a very simple reason: the Octunggen wanted it this way. No other country had dared defy them on the issue, never mind that the Atomic River, also known as the Curlusc, or the Om-ghen-ezz, or the Haag, or a dozen other names, ran through several nations before arriving at the sea. It was a vast river, wide and sprawling, bustling with merchants, pleasure craft and, these days, ships of war. It was Octung’s main avenue to the ocean, though most of their navy was perched along the coast of Vursul, a large vassal state of the Lightning Crown.
Countless factories and research companies squatted along the shores of the Atomic River, belching their smokes and chemicals into the hazy air. Octung mined the energies of the river, as well as deriving many goods from it. These were but a few of the reasons, profit and research, why the Octunggen kept the river the way it was, and one of the obvious by-products of this decision was the spread of infection—not a detractor to the Octunggen, who worshipped beings they believed to be the gods of the sea. It had been these gods, the Collossum, who had corrupted the Atomic Sea in the first place, and it was this corruption which had caused the mutations, when it did not cause death. To them it was a blessing, not a curse.
Avery coughed away the smoke as he followed in Janx’s wake. Mutants and normals scattered before the advance of the huge whaler.
“This way,” Janx said, shoving through a doorway and down a passage.
Music from a gramophone surrounded them, thumping and jazzy, as well as the scents of smoke, body odor and grime. The riverboat was ancient, rusting and falling apart. It had plied the river for a century, hauling goods and people up and down its length countless times, and each year, each month, had marked itself on the riverboat in chipped gunwales, peeling paint, rust, stains and scars. Nevertheless the Surugal plowed on, and Avery had heard the captain boast that it would ply these waters for another century before it fell apart. Judging by the rattling noises, hisses, screams of metal, howls of steam and
groaning of bulkheads, Avery thought another day would be a victory.
The concentration of people grew thicker down the hallways, but they made room for Janx. The press grew thickest around a particular cabin door, a stateroom actually, where two of the riverboat’s crew kept the curious out.
The crewmen stood straighter when Janx approached, and Avery saw respect cross their faces. Janx was a veteran sailor, of course, and to hear him tell it had also been a pirate, a king, a thief and many other colorful things thrown in too during his career on the seas. Legend of Janx’s stories (more properly the stories of Horax, his assumed name at the moment) had obviously circulated among the Surugal’s crew during the weeks Avery and the others had been aboard, and they seemed to believe it more than disbelieve it.
“Did you get him?” asked one of the crewmen.
Janx hiked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating Avery. “In tow.”
Avery swallowed. “Am I needed?”
“You’re a doctor, right?” asked the crewman who had spoken, a young lad with suckers growing from the side of his face. They closed and opened with squelching noises as he spoke.
“I, ah ...” Avery cast an anxious glance at Layanna. The false identifications he and the others were traveling under said nothing of medical training.
“It’s okay, Doc,” Janx said, speaking Octunggen surprisingly well. Avery had coached him and Hildra in it over the past few months, Layanna pitching in when needed. “They understand.”
The suckers on the youth’s face shook as he rubbed his cheek, and water splashed off. “Half the folk here are using fake IDs,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t care, long as you can help.” Turning, he led the way inside the cabin, obviously expecting them to follow.
Janx barreled through, having to lower his head and squeeze in his shoulders to fit. Without apparent qualm, Layanna followed. Avery glanced at the gawkers, then the remaining crewman. He sighed and stepped through.
Instantly the reek of ammonia hit him, and he lifted his shirttail to cover his mouth and nose. Only then did he take in the room.
He sucked in a deep breath through his filter.
Blood was everywhere. It ran off the walls, pooled on the floor, slicked the wreckage that lay strewn all about. Whatever happened here had been catastrophic. Tremendous force had been expelled. Shards of a great table lay heaped on the floor as well as the ruins of several chairs and other pieces of furniture. Broken paintings hung on the walls, their torn canvases splashed with blood, tacky and drying. And over it all hung that scent of ammonia.
A few crewmen sifted through the ruins, and in their midst stood the tall, stately form of the Surugal’s captain, one Henri Sagrimund. A native Octunggen, he bore their most typical look, black-haired and gray-eyed, but he had obviously seen battle of some sort, for he was scarred and carried himself with the surety of someone who had dodged bullets and lived to see his enemies skewered.
Captain Sagrimund’s gray eyes fell on Avery.
“You.”
Avery stiffened. “Yes?” Unconsciously he moved closer to Layanna, only to find that she had moved off and was inspecting the room. “May I be of assistance?”
“Horax told me his friend was a doctor, but you ... didn’t you say you were a salesperson?”
Avery adjusted his collar. “Ah, yes ... about that ...”
The captain waved it away. “Save it. Tell me what the fuck happened here.” His eyes speared the wreckage.
Avery went to work inspecting the ruin. He noticed details he hadn’t before, most notably the bodies—or what was left of them. A severed leg jutted up from a mound of table shards on one side of the room, an arm stuck out from beneath a chair on the other. A torso sat under what had been a couch, while its legs waited several yards away. It was one of only two whole bodies, or bodies that would be whole if reassembled. Which of course begged a question.
When Avery came to a particular severed head, he understood why he had been called for.
“Doctor Cuelor,” he said, dismayed.
Captain Sagrimund had come to stand beside him. “Yes. He was attending.”
“Attending?”
The captain gestured to piles of chips and cards that Avery had only half-noticed before. “Card game. Everyone here was gambling when it happened.”
Avery raised his eyebrows and glanced over at Janx, leaning against a bulkhead and impassively preparing to light a cigar. When Janx saw Avery’s look, he nodded.
“Yeah,” Janx said. “Was comin’ to get dealt in when I found ‘em.”
Avery blinked. “You’re the one that found them?”
Janx lit his cigar. He took a few quick puffs, getting it started. “Lucky I got here late, wasn’t I, Doc?”
Avery felt dizzy all of a sudden. All but gasping, he stumbled to a bulkhead and propped himself against it. The stateroom spun around him.
“What did this?” said Captain Sagrimund. “What the fuck killed my doctor, my men?”
Avery tried to shove down his fear. He cleared his throat and stood straighter. Looking the captain directly in the eye, he said, “I have no idea.” If only I didn’t.
“And where did they go?” Captain Sagrimund continued, as if he hadn’t heard. There was something lost in his expression as he gazed about the room and gestured at the bloody wreckage. Half mumbling to himself, he said, “I just don’t get it. Only two whole bodies, the rest just ... pieces. An arm here, a leg there, but ... where did the rest of them go?”
* * *
“We have ourselves a problem,” Janx announced.
Avery and Layanna had just accompanied him back to one of their two adjoining cabins, where they had found Hildra playing a drinking game with herself and Hildebrand, her monkey.
“’oblem?” she asked, then burped.
Hildebrand chittered and climbed down from her bunk. She gave him a sip from her shot glass. He appeared woozy.
“One of my kind is aboard,” Layanna said. “It’s just fed.”
Hildra blinked. “You sure, sweetcheeks?”
“We’re sure,” Avery said. “It must have revealed itself in the middle of a card game, catching everyone by surprise. I can only assume that most of those present at the table were mutants—”
“They were,” Janx said.
Avery nodded. “Our R’loth must have ... changed.”
“Exerted its other-dimensional self,” Layanna clarified.
“Became a monster, you mean,” Hildra said.
“At any rate, it devoured those that had the sea in their blood,” Avery said. “The infected. They resisted, and there was some struggling. Several had limbs ripped off. But the bulks of them were ... consumed. It left the normals’ bodies behind like refuse.”
“It can only draw nourishment for its other-facets through extradimensional flesh,” Layanna said.
“Why not just eat some fish, then?” Hildra said, a frantic note to her voice. “I mean, this is the fucking Atomic River, right? The things what live in it would be ... uh, you know, other-dimensional, right?”
Layanna appeared as if she regretted what she was about to say. “Consciousness married with other-dimensional abilities opens up dimensional facets exponentially.”
Hildra stared at her. “Right ...”
“It gets a better meal when it eats people,” Avery clarified. “Well, infected people. Like when Layanna gorged on those bodies in Ungraessot.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I would have gotten an even better meal had they been alive,” Layanna said.
“So what now?” said Hildra.
“We must assume this R’loth has come for us,” Avery said.
“Well, it’s got a full belly now,” Janx noted, then turned to Layanna. “Guess that means it’s ready to take you on, honey. You up for it?”
A look of what might be fear passed across Layanna’s face. “It’s been two months since Ungraessot. Since then I haven’t fed my over-dimensional facets beyond a f
ew fish. I would be weak compared to one who’s just fed on infected humans, and it’s possible he would be more powerful than me even if I were at peak strength. So ... no. I’d rather avoid confrontation.”
“I don’t get it,” Hildra said. “How did it find us?”
“Layanna gives off a powerful extra-dimensional signature,” Avery reminded her.
“I’ve been trying to mask it,” Layanna said. “I think I’ve been successful, too. I don’t know how this one’s found us.”
“Great,” Hildra said. “We’re stuck on some godsforsaken riverboat with another fucking god-thing, or whatever you are, sister, and you’re telling us you’re not strong enough to fight it? So, what, we’re fucked?” She groaned. “I knew this would happen. We should never have come here, never have followed the bitch in the first place.”
Avery made his voice hard: “You swore an oath.”
“Well, fuck my oath! And fuck you, too! Going to Lusterqal—it’s mad.”
Avery raised his hands, placating. “Once there we can stop them. Stop the Octunggen. We can save Ghenisa, the world. We can end the war.”
Hildra grunted and collapsed back onto the bed. “So you say. That’s if Miss Amoeba Monster there can find the rest of her fucking loser friends and build their godsdamned tinker-toy.”
“You’d better hope they do, honey,” Janx said. “Cause if they don’t, we’re all dead. And I mean all of us.”
Hildra glared at him. “So now what? Wait for the terror from beyond to come find us and finish us off? For all we know, it could come through that door any second.”
Avery glanced behind him, half-expecting the door to blow open.
When it didn’t, he turned about and nodded. “Which is why we need to get off this riverboat as soon as possible. If we could survive the water, I’d say we should swim for it, but since we can’t ...”
“We could steal a lifeboat,” Janx said.
“We will if we must,” Avery agreed, “but the decks are patrolled regularly. I doubt we could steal a boat without a confrontation, and the only way we could survive one is for Layanna to exert her other-self, which would let everyone know who we are. The whole city of Lusterqal would know we’re coming and it would make rendezvousing with the Black Sect that much harder.” He shook his head. “The riverboat docks in the morning at Lusterqal. I suggest we be in the front of the line to get off.”