by Cam Baity
Phoebe clutched her throat and looked to see what had caught his attention. The looming edge of the Shroud was all that was near.
Could it be? Did her seed somehow rely upon this mysterious mehkan fog? It made sense—after Micah had brought her back, she alone was able to breathe the stuff. Then what would it mean for her to leave the Shroud behind? The idea unsettled Phoebe as much as the thought of what Goodwin might have in store for her.
As the Chairman departed, she scanned the ground for a sharp ore rock, but she knew attacking him would never work. He would be expecting it, and she couldn’t do enough damage to incapacitate him. Such a reckless move would only get Micah killed.
She caught up with them, and Goodwin ordered her into the lead to keep an eye on her. He directed her down through the zigzagging crevasses, where she scraped and stumbled through the most difficult stretches. Goodwin moved more slowly, hacking at the clinging coral foliage with his combat knife. She glanced back frequently at Micah to see if he was coming out of his debilitated state, but he was a shell—there was nothing behind his eyes.
Hours dragged by. The air became less bitingly frigid as they descended, and the vegetation grew thicker and more robust.
Eventually, the slopes gave way to foothills, and they followed the ribbon of a natural trail that wound through the hillside. Wind whipped past them, gushing down from the Ephrian Mountains in great whistling waves that snapped at their hair. They took in the sprawling vista below.
“No,” Goodwin breathed.
Something was wrong.
Blue coral mountains gave way to cracked plains of crystal green and arctic forests of stark white trees with bronze knitting-needle leaves. In the distance to their left lay the Coiling Furrows, unspooled like rippling foil, marred and corrupted by dozens of permanent black mushroom clouds of CHAR.
At the perimeter of the Furrows was a camp of some sort, a flattened heap of wreckage. A swath of devastation wound out from it, carving a savage path across the countryside—ore was pulverized and blistered, forest was splintered and shredded. The blackened artery somehow avoided the desolate villages scattered across the landscape, clusters of dwellings built along vesper streams and nestled in the valley.
They followed the trail with their eyes, passing from left to right, and spotted the scorched remains of a series of massive structures built into the foothills below. It looked like the aftermath of a fearsome battle. Or a massacre.
Beyond that was something Phoebe could not quite fathom. It appeared to be a gargantuan storm, cottony white and roiling in slow motion, undulating with pockets of light and plumes of…fire? The hurricane was oddly contained, enveloping most of what appeared to be a mehkan city built upon the coast—Ahm’ral, Phoebe remembered from their naval map. Foundry airships encircled the churning mass, keeping their distance. The entire scene was framed by the Mirroring Sea, sparkling spectacularly silver, unchanged by the havoc that was underway.
“What is that?” Phoebe asked, aghast.
There, on Goodwin’s broad face, deep beneath his bushy furrowed brows, she saw a glimmer of fear for the very first time.
“We must hurry,” the Chairman said, urging them on.
As they descended into the valley, Phoebe glanced at Micah. He stared at the hurricane in the distance. Life had returned to his face like a gas jet catching a spark.
Whatever that thing was, seeing it had snapped Micah out of his stupor.
The flux vomited wreckage of the marauders’ vessel onto the murky crystal ore. Most of the mehkans involved in the uprising, with their dense metal bodies, had sunk quickly into the pitiless sea. Balvoors, on the other hand, were blessed with the capacity for inflation. So Mr. Pynch had bobbed on the icy waves for clicks on end until the current finally spat him onto the shore. Now he dragged himself up the bank, freed himself from flotsam, and deflated with a weak, flatulent wheeze.
Being sent to the bottom of the Mirroring Sea would have been a mercy. But no, miserable Mr. Pynch would get no such release from his meaningless span. Just when he had accepted slavery as the proper punishment for his crimes, his penance had been torn away from him. So here he was—a washed-up, unwanted wretch without an associate or a tinklet of gauge to his name.
He had nothing. No one. And nowhere to go.
Shaking the freezing flux from his overcoat, Mr. Pynch staggered up the steep shore and into a skeletal forest. He was frightfully cold and hollowed out by hunger. Ahm’ral was nearby, and once upon a time, such a bustling metropolis would have promised fertile prospects. But now all he could think of was the pockets he had picked there, the mehkies he had cheated, and the debts he had left outstanding.
Not exactly a place that would welcome him with open arms.
And who could blame them?
His trek was slow and torturous, every step as pointless as the last. He was not used to traveling alone, and each passing tick was a reminder of the Marquis’s absence, another painful souvenir of the wrongs he had committed.
He came to an abrupt stop. Why continue at all? Why not just stay here in this bleached prison of a forest, lie on a bed of needles, and let the rust embrace him?
A frigid wind washed over Mr. Pynch, causing the knitting-needle leaves to chatter like teeth. His nozzle clicked slowly, rotating from nostril to nostril.
That scent. Couldn’t be. Must just be his delirium, just his debilitated mind seeking new ways to torment him. The spindly branches creaked with another gust. There it was again, a mere hint, clearly a long way off, but so pungent that it was undeniable. A smell he would not soon forget.
Mr. Pynch didn’t understand it. It seemed too unlikely. He did not believe in fate—such delusions were for the Waybound, not for those of sound mind.
But this was real. This was an opportunity.
He moved again, one foot after the other, picking up speed, following the trail.
Finally feeling something flutter in his core that wasn’t misery.
Phoebe saw the fear in Goodwin’s face magnify as he led the kids down to the complex built into the Ephrian foothills. Thick plumes of ash choked the sky and veiled the setting suns until they resembled muffled cinders.
The Foundry facility had been reduced to a blackened ruin. Evidence of battle was everywhere—in the crushed military vehicles, shells of obliterated Watchmen, mehkan corpses, and layers of fuming soot. The massive outer walls, laden with defensive magnetic coils, had been toppled. Those slabs had flattened rows of guardhouses inside as if they were made of cardboard. The inner security walls had also been thoroughly demolished, their watchtowers and mounted turrets crumpled like tin cans.
Goodwin was pale and his eyes were wide as he assessed the extent of the damage. He pulled Micah onward with the tether. Phoebe stayed close beside them, relieved that Micah appeared more aware than he had all day, although it was small comfort as they clambered over the fallen defenses and passed heaps of corpses.
She kept her eyes ahead and forced herself to not look.
The main building was built directly into a steep hill and buttressed on either side by rocky ore ridges. Its facade, skinned in brushed aluminum, was shredded. Phoebe and the others passed through a tunnel of long, steel beams that protruded out at odd angles, twisted and knotted like windblown streamers.
Despite the utter devastation, Phoebe could tell that the interior had once been white and sterile, filled with bureaucratic offices and security checkpoints. Goodwin searched the blackened husks of desks and checked a Dialset melted to the wall.
The Chairman clenched his jaw until a vein in his temple throbbed. The knuckles on his hand gripping the knife whitened.
“This way,” he growled, gesturing toward a huge set of steel doors that had been blasted from their hinges. “Stay close.”
Phoebe looked beyond the portal and saw a wide corridor, partially caved in and scarred from bullet fire and explosions. It was ominous and dark except for the irregular strobing of a few remaining light fix
tures.
Micah shuffled along on his leash, eyes downcast.
“Why are we here?” Phoebe demanded.
“Move,” Goodwin commanded, his voice rising. He yanked on Micah’s tether. She had no choice but to keep up with them.
They moved cautiously through the darkened corridor, ducking under exposed wiring and climbing past sections of collapsed ceiling. A vast laboratory opened up before them, with only the flickering light of a few workstations to indicate the size of the space. There was a musty chemical stink, and viscous fluid coated the ground.
The massive facility was lined with row after row of high-tech equipment, now little more than scrap metal. Glass crunched underfoot. In the light of her seed, Phoebe could make out the remains of shattered cylinders, tall vats that had once stretched up to dark machinery overhead. She peered into a tube that had somehow escaped damage. It was filled with a cloudy yellow liquid and a shape that—
Slam!
Phoebe yelped and leapt back.
An oily, eel-like mehkan thudded against the glass. Its circular mouth, exposed like an open sore, was ringed with bronze pin teeth. The creature pulsed, twittered its wiry extremities, then slithered back into the murk and out of sight.
Phoebe looked around at the shattered tubes. There were indistinct lumps strewn across the floor, heaped grotesquely beside the glittering shards. Hundreds of the foul mehkan worms, all dead. She could not suppress the urge to gag.
“What is this place?” she gasped in revulsion.
But Goodwin ignored the question and continued down the aisle toward the back of the laboratory. Phoebe’s horror grew as she saw what lay upon the tables—disembodied Watchman skulls. They stared sightlessly atop pedestals and from within alcoves in the walls, an army of dead mechanical faces. More heads had been knocked from their niches and lay strewn among the worm corpses.
Now Phoebe realized what this was. She had seen these things before. The grotesque creatures were tools of the Foundry, living mehkans imprisoned in the brain cases of Watchmen to power them and control their advanced Computator functions.
Mehkan-operated artificial intelligence, or “augmented robotics” as they called it.
She swallowed her revulsion and followed Goodwin to the back of the lab, steering clear of the unpleasant debris. They came upon an operations area that was still lit with fires of the recent battle. This scorched section had been fortified with barricades of overturned desks and tables—it appeared to be the Foundry workers’ last stand.
Goodwin stared at the destruction, nostrils flaring as he breathed deep. Phoebe could almost taste the fury that was mounting within him.
Bodies in white lab coats lay amid the rubble. Goodwin rifled through their pockets until he found what he was looking for: a handheld Com-Pak communications device. Goodwin flicked the switch and was rewarded with a burst of static.
“Control Core, do you copy?” he said into the device.
They waited in the tense, crackling silence for a reply.
“Copy,” answered a voice from the Com-Pak. “State your Foundry ID number.”
“This is Chairman James Goodwin. I require immediate assistance. Send an armed transport to Hatchery E-08.”
There was a pause before the voice returned.
“Mr. Goodwin? It’s a relief to hear your voice, sir. It’s been…Well, command assumed you were lost with your search team. We did everything we could to track your whereabouts, sir, but the Depot is still engaged with the enemy. We didn’t—”
“Arrange the transport,” Goodwin said, leveling his gaze at Phoebe. “Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. It will be there within the hour. Anything else?”
“What is the situation in Ahm’ral?” asked Goodwin.
“Situation, sir?” the voice replied. “We lost Ahm’ral yesterday at eleven hundred hours, right after the Hatchery. It was…unlike anything we’ve ever seen, sir. It was—”
“Enough,” Goodwin growled. “Have a full report prepared. I want a comprehensive assessment of the events at Ahm’ral as well as the status of the conflict back home. I will review it during my return to the Depot.”
“Yes, sir. It’s good to have you—”
“Connect me with the Board.”
“Sir?”
“The Board. Now.”
There was a frantic clicking as the person on the other end made the transfer. After a brief silence, a faint syncopated drone drifted from the Com-Pak, like the pulse of some sort of engine. Wom-wom-wom-wom…
Goodwin seemed to notice it too, but the noise vanished within seconds.
“Is that you, James?” spoke a voice through the device.
“I am here,” Goodwin responded.
“Your disappearance caused us concern,” said another voice.
“What news do you bring?” inquired a third.
Goodwin glanced at Phoebe, at the glowing seed embedded in her throat. “I have done the impossible. I have something in my possession that…” His voice faded as he moved away from the kids, holding the Com-Pak close and lowering his voice so they could not hear what he said. After a brief exchange, he clipped the device to his lapel and returned, a smug grin on his face.
“It is done,” he said. “Now we wait.”
“What conflict back home?” Phoebe demanded, unable to contain her distress at what she had overheard.
Goodwin’s face turned to stone. “The Albright City you knew is gone,” he said in a deep, cheerless voice. “Life in Meridian will never be the same.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“The Quorum launched a preemptive attack on the Crest of Dawn. More than two hundred casualties, including President Saltern and his family.”
“No,” Phoebe whispered. Her mind reeled. She imagined the magnificent landmark in flames, the skyline that had always dazzled her, gouged with a mournful gap.
“War is upon us,” Goodwin went on. “Everything I worked to avoid has come to pass. Meridian’s response will be quick and merciless. Many innocent people will die.”
Phoebe thought of the stories she had heard about the Alloy War. Terrible battles. Trenches piled high with the dead. Disease and starvation rampant around the world.
“But the war will be brief. The Quorum is powerless against us,” Goodwin said.
“Not if they have more Bloodtalons.”
The croaking whisper had come from Micah. Both Phoebe and Goodwin looked at him in surprise. The boy still stared at his feet, but his eyes were wide and alert.
“Their nav systems scramble radar, so they can’t be shot down,” Micah went on. “You built ’em too good.”
The Chairman chuckled condescendingly. “You know nothing,” he said.
“I know what I saw in that footage,” Micah mumbled. “I know those were Pinwheel thrusters and there’s only one missile fancy enough to use that kinda tech.”
Goodwin’s smile faded.
“Micah?” she said softly, squeezing one of his hands, still bound to his side. He flinched but didn’t pull away. It was the first thing he had said since Rust Risen, and she hoped it meant that he was returning to his senses.
There was a scraping sound nearby. It seemed like only Phoebe had noticed it because Goodwin continued to stare at Micah. The noise came again. Phoebe thought it must be one of the brainworms twitching, but she didn’t see anything.
The sound had a pattern, an irregular one-two, one-two.
Like footsteps.
Goodwin turned his head, scanning the darkness. There was something at the far end of the laboratory. A silhouette, a person. It was coming toward them, making its way down one of the many aisles. Phoebe caught a glimpse of it in the arrhythmic flickers of the malfunctioning lights. A gleaming face shield. Hint of a bone-white face.
A Watchman soldier.
“Ah,” Goodwin called out with some relief. “Unit. I am Chairman Goodwin. Commence voice recognition to verify. You will take your orders f
rom me.”
The Watchman’s attention trained on them, and it began to move faster, shambling and twitching. The automaton held something long and broad in its hands.
“I repeat, verify,” Goodwin commanded.
The Watchman advanced with unexpected speed, knocking over debris in its path. It lurched toward them like a marionette in the hand of a spastic puppeteer.
“Stand down,” Goodwin barked. “I said, stand down!”
The Watchman raised the thing in its hands—a weapon.
Goodwin and the kids ran for cover.
Dollop couldn’t be sure, but he thought he might be starting to recognize patterns in the Marquis’s persistent flickering. For example, flicky-flicky-flashity-flickerish appeared to mean something like “What are we doing here?”
The chraida scouts, relenting to Dollop’s persistence, had allowed the unwelcome guests into the village. After being deposited in a bulbous hut made from cable and pipework branches, Dollop and the Marquis had tried to impress upon them the urgency of the situation, but the gruff mehkans had shown no concern for their pleas.
Stay, they had told him. Wait. So they did.
He and the Marquis had been waiting all day, in fact. It was nearly sunfall now, and torch blooms were igniting as the chraida village dropped into shadow. The hut they were being held in was bare, save for a scattering of pits from the overripe onkutu fruit that he and the Marquis had choked down earlier. The unpleasant snack was still burbling in Dollop’s belly.
He sat at the open door and watched the bustling figures among the trees with his keen eyes. The chraida were swinging gracefully from hut to hut, bundling up supplies with lengths of cable spun from their chests. Several elders, recognizable by their elaborate face paint, orchestrated the efforts. They supervised as food, tools, and other essentials were secured to woven platforms and hauled off by teams of villagers. The youngest members of the tribe clung to their mothers, eyes wide with uncertainty.
Flicky-flicky-flashity-flickerish?
Dollop was troubled by the same question—what were they doing here? But his answer was always the same. They were here because the Covenant needed help, and Dollop refused to leave until he had done everything he could to get it.