by Jacob Holo
“Damn!”
Jack clubbed the EN seraph’s arm away and snapped a kick straight into its crotch. The strike sent it flying upward. The EN seraph hit the bottom of the second tier and fell in a heap in front of Jack’s seraph.
Jack grabbed the downed seraph’s wings and threw it off the edge. The EN seraph spun out of control through the dark chasm, crashing into bridges, tiers, and buildings before it careened into the abyss.
“And stay down there!”
The seraph did not speak.
“Damn it!”
Jack checked the third tier bridge and found it littered with Renseki limbs but nothing else. The fighting had moved elsewhere. He checked down the abyss and spotted Vierj fighting Seth and three Renseki about six tiers down.
Jack took a running leap off the bridge and fired his drive shunts to aid the descent. He landed chest-first against a tier’s protruding edge.
The tier buckled under his sudden weight, but held together. Jack pulled himself over the edge and ran into the tier-city. Three Renseki turned and faced him. Beyond those seraphs, Vierj and Seth fought a brutal duel.
Jack dodged the first punch and grappled against the Renseki. With a quick sidestep, he pushed the Renseki past him and elbowed its back. The force of his strike sent it skidding across the ground. The Renseki groped for purchase, flew off the edge, and disappeared into the abyss.
“Honor guard? Ha!”
The last two Renseki tackled him to the ground. One of them kneed his side. Burning pain branched out from his ribs.
Jack headbutted one, causing it to stagger back. He threw his leg out and tripped the second Renseki. It flew off its feet, hanging motionless to his accelerated, chaos-infused senses.
Jack rose and smashed his fist into the Renseki’s back. Its armor imploded in. The seraph’s endoskeletal spine snapped, and the Renseki folded back onto itself unnaturally. It collapsed into a ruined heap. Rents in the armor spewed pressurized fluid.
Jack grabbed the downed Renseki and whirled it around like a club. He hit its comrade and sent them both flying. They crashed to the ground twenty cities down and did not get up.
Jack limped into the tier city.
“Ah, crap.”
Dozens of yellow and red indicators appeared on a mental image of his seraph, each with lengthy repair estimates. His endoskeleton was warped at several points and the artificial musculature was torn in his leg and chest.
Jack ignored them and rounded two blocky structures, emerging into some sort of city square.
Vierj was down with Seth standing over her, raising his fist. A severed arm from her seraph hung over a building, and two of her broken wings lay on the ground. Black oil pooled underneath her.
Seth was also injured. Conductor fluid bled from his torso, and his armor looked like someone had beaten it with a mallet. But he was standing, and Vierj wasn’t.
Jack staggered in from the side and threw a punch. Seth backpedaled and caught his fist, but Jack swung a second punch and connected with Seth’s battered chest. Purple barrier energy crackled, and the armor tore open, but Seth held his ground and lashed out with two quick punches to Jack’s abdomen.
Two of Jack’s arterial lines ruptured, and blue fluid spluttered out.
“Just give up already!” Jack shouted.
He raised an arm straight up, then brought his elbow crashing down onto Seth’s head. Seth dropped to his knees, the seraph’s head warped out of position. Before he could recover, Jack slammed a knee into his chin.
Seth fell back and landed on his side. He rose slowly, armor mending itself, fluidic lines closing off and rerouting. Then, with a sudden burst of speed, he gathered his fists into a ball and pounded Jack’s knee.
Jack staggered to the side and fought to regain his footing. He grabbed Seth’s arm, lowered his stance, and threw the black seraph over his shoulder. Seth crashed through four buildings before finally coming to rest.
He didn’t get up.
“Vierj, you okay?” Jack limped back to Vierj’s downed seraph.
“Yes… a little… disoriented. I am not accustomed to such sensations.”
“The Gate. Do you know where it is yet?”
“Yes. I will guide you to it. Come closer. This machine is ruined.”
Mnemonic skin peeled away near the seraph’s cockpit hatch, and Vierj climbed out. Even though the tier-city existed in a vacuum, Vierj needed no pressure suit and wore none, unlike Jack. Black wings unfolded from her back, and she rose above the wreckage.
Jack held out a hand and let Vierj land on it. He wanted to crush her, but even at peak performance he doubted it would be any easier than squeezing a diamond with his bare hand. As Vierj stepped onto his seraph’s palm, he could feel the temporal barrier around her body, almost as powerful as ever.
Almost, he thought. It has weakened. This can work, but I need to get her closer.
Vierj held up nine fingers, then pointed down.
“Nine levels down. Got it.”
Jack walked to the main chasm of the tiered cities and spotted a ledge on the opposite side nine tiers below.
He jumped and fired what little energy he could from his wings. The seraph landed and stumbled forward on the ledge protruding from the target level. All around him, the ancient structures on this tier seemed to blend together, not so much a collection of tightly packed buildings as one super-building. From his palm, Vierj pointed straight ahead.
Jack lurched forward, walking more easily with time. Repair systems had bent some of his endoskeleton back into shape, and the skin ruptures had finally been sealed.
Vierj motioned for him to stop. She spread her wings and floated down to the tier’s surface.
A narrow passage existed directly ahead. But as far as he could tell, it ended in a small cavern-habitat.
Jack knelt and segregated himself from the seraph. The cockpit widened around him, and he took a careful moment to check the seals on his pressure suit. He pulled his sidearm out of its holster, clicked the safety off, and set it firmly back in place. Satisfied that everything was ready, Jack linked the outer hatch open. The seraph’s zero field disengaged, and Jack found himself under a moderate gravitational pull.
The darkness was absolute. Jack summoned a point of chaos light above his hand and let it float upward.
He climbed down the seraph, dropping first to the seraph’s left hand, then the right, and finally to the tier surface.
Jack walked over to Vierj, who motioned to the narrow passage ahead of them. But before Vierj took her first step towards the passage, she whirled around and looked up.
***
His body would not move.
In Seth’s mind, he saw the red indicators all across the seraph’s frame: endoskeleton cracked, muscles torn, and two arterial chambers punctured. He didn’t have time for repairs.
Seth commanded his body to stand, but it remained still. His connection to the seraph felt distant, slippery. He pushed, prodded, and willed it to stand. Chaotic influx surged weakly through his body. He began to move.
Rubble sleeted off his back. He pushed free, grabbed a nearby building, and pulled himself upright. Indicators across his legs blinked red. They needed more time to repair before they could safely support his weight.
Seth stood, not smoothly, not steadily, but he wasn’t on the ground anymore. He limped towards the edge of the tier-city and spotted Jack’s powered down seraph. He zoomed in and for the first time saw the Bane. She was looking straight at him.
A woman?
Seth had never given the Bane’s appearance much thought. Everyone knew it had once been human, but he hadn’t expected a young woman who didn’t look any older than Yonu.
A body protected from the ravages of time, he realized.
The Bane and Jack had left the safety of their seraphs, but Seth had no functional ranged weaponry. He hobbled over to a building, tore a heavy column loose, and flung the chunk of debris.
The column arced toward
s Jack and the Bane, its aim true, but the projectile never reached the intended target. A black rectangle materialized in front of the Bane, expanding like a shield of darkness. The column smashed into it and shattered like glass.
Jack and the Bane turned away and headed for a narrow passage.
I need to get down there.
“Pilots, status,” Seth said.
“Uhhh, that hurt,” Yonu said. “I’m fine, but my seraph is trashed. I can’t even connect to it anymore. Pilot Daykin is down at the bottom with me.”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Jared said. “I’ve lost most of my conductor fluid, though.”
“Same goes for the Renseki,” Zo said. “We’re all in poor shape. Looks like you’re the only one still standing.”
“Barely standing.”
Seth eyed the drop. He test-fired his drive shunts, but the wings generated insufficient lift.
He walked back to the chamber wall, took off at a sprint, and leaped off the edge. The joint in his right knee blew apart, and his leg flopped loosely below the joint. He sailed over the chasm and dropped away, falling towards the ninth tier below.
He almost jumped the full distance.
Seth reached up with both arms and grabbed the tier’s edge as he passed underneath.
“Ah!”
Musculature snapped loose in his left arm, but he held on with the right. With one arm, Seth pulled himself up, managed to get one leg onto the ledge, then the other, and finally rolled onto its back.
Seth took another look at his repair status. In his mind, the seraph was solid blob of red indicators.
He disconnected from the seraph effortlessly. His real body had suffered a few nasty burns, but his i-suit had the injuries under control. Damage was minor compared to the thrashing his seraph had received.
My weakened connection to the seraph must have acted as a buffer.
Seth checked the seals on his i-suit and made sure he had his sidearm. He didn’t know why all the seraphs had lost power, but chaos energy was chaos energy. The Bane’s own abilities had to be suffering. Perhaps, just maybe, Seth would be able to kill the creature.
And even if I can’t, Jack is only human.
Seth signaled the hatch to open and climbed out. Total darkness stretched forth in every direction. He switched on a light in his helmet and slowly made his way down.
His seraph lay on its back, broken limbs splayed about. Seth had some trouble getting used to the half-strength gravity but found it made climbing down the seraph’s side easier.
Seth linked with the seraph’s scanners and regained his bearings. The last thing he wanted to do was run blindly into darkness and fall off the tier. He ran around one of the seraph’s mangled arms and sprinted towards the narrow passage Jack and that woman had headed down.
Seth ran through a seemingly endless field of inky blackness. He finally reached a towering structure, its sheer face rising up into infinite black. At its base was a plain archway barely large enough for two people side by side. Seth hurried through the archway and entered a long, dark passage.
The passage went on, turned slightly down, then straightened. Seth could see nothing at its end. On and on it went until at last Seth came to an open space.
Some primitive culture, perhaps the remnants of the tier-city societies, had carved out this chamber. To either side, small nooks had been cut into the rock walls. A long, open space stretched down the middle, marred by bits of debris. Everything now lay in ruins.
Where did Jack and the Bane go?
Seth looked around. His pressure suit’s light caught the edges of the decrepit structures. He decided to head down the middle and took off at a run for several minutes, until he came to the stone wall at the far end.
A door had been built into the stone wall, and as Seth approached, the door split open.
It has power! I must be close.
Seth proceeded through the door and into an airlock. Light flooded the chamber, and Seth squinted, his eyes watering. The data link from his i-suit indicated a breathable atmosphere. The airlock finished cycling, and Seth walked into a long tunnel with a metal grate floor.
Seth drew his sidearm and proceeded deeper into the powered complex. He came to another door, but unlike the airlock, these had been forced open. Pushed and bludgeoned into opening—not aged.
Perhaps the Bane was weak here. Perhaps she could no longer precisely control her powers.
Hope dared to rise in his heart. It mingled there with intense, almost numbing fear.
Seth pressed on. A distant thrumming began to fill his ears.
The tunnel opened until it became a suspended walkway, passing above and beneath vast machines. Small roach-like robots skittered about the machines, repairing and maintaining the devices. However, the machines closest to the walkway were twisted and idle, perhaps damaged by the Bane. Robots clambered over them in the hundreds.
Seth ran on, past rooms of machinery and more security doors, each just as mangled as the first. The walls ahead of him seemed to bow away at the visible edges, as if he were heading deeper into a series of concentric spheres.
If so, then he had to be close to the center.
Seth passed through another set of security doors and found himself in a wider tunnel that bent to the right, the walls and ceiling thick with metal pipelines. Seth crept along the path, sidearm ready.
A sound from ahead clapped out like a thunder. Then two more just like it, closer and more distinct.
The tunnel turned down, then gently arched towards the sphere’s center. Seth could hear a voice ahead: an angry female yelling in the Aktenai tongue, her thick accent similar to those of the Original Eleven.
Seth slowed, coming at last to the end of the tunnel. He edged closer to the entrance and peaked into the heart of the massive layered sphere.
The central room was a hollow sphere with a metal walkway looped around the equator. Near him, the walkway extended out towards the center. And at the center—
Seth didn’t really know what he was looking at. Some shape existed in the center, but light slid off it, around it, and back at him, so he not only saw the other side of the room, but also every part of the room and himself when he looked directly at it.
It was a halo of light surrounding a mercurial reflection of everything near it.
The Gate to the Homeland.
Seth only had a moment to take it in. To his left, the Bane stood calmly with her back to him, a deadly sword of dark light in her hand. Opposite and facing her, Jack had also manifested a short blue dagger.
Jack no longer had his pressure suit helmet on. Blood oozed from a vicious cut along his temple, dripping over one closed eye. He glanced to the side, and when he saw Seth, an unmistakable look of relief filled his face.
Suddenly, Seth understood.
The Bane turned and faced Seth, but kept her sword pointed at Jack. She studied him with cold, stern eyes.
Seth raised his sidearm, stabilized it with both hands, and fired a single shot. The bolt ricocheted off the Bane’s barrier in a flash of black light. Seth fired again, but that shot rebounded, too.
The woman smiled coldly. A black cord of energy snaked from her fingertips. It snapped out and struck Seth across the chest, throwing him against the wall. He collapsed onto his side. Gasping for breath, he struggled to his hands and knees, still holding the sidearm.
Jack charged the Bane. He feinted once, then lunged, the edge of his dagger slashing through the Bane’s barrier. Black energy swirled around her for a moment, and vanished. Her barrier collapsed, and his blade cut into her arm.
She cried out in pain and thrust her sword into Jack’s side. Blood splattered across the walkway.
Seth raised his sidearm. The Bane’s barrier was down, and he fired.
The bolt punched straight through the Bane’s heart. Darkness exploded outward, throwing Jack across the room and knocking Seth onto his back. Jack hit the wall with the horrible crunch of bones shattering on impact.
The Bane turned to face him slowly. She looked at Seth, her face twisted into a horrified expression, then gazed down at her chest. Gingerly, she touched the bleeding wound.
“I… I can’t stop it. It won’t stop. Why won’t it stop?”
She fell to her knees. Blood continued to pour out of her heart, and she collapsed.
The Bane was dead.
Seth held the sidearm firmly in both hands. He edged up to the Bane and turned her over with a boot. She stared at the ceiling with lifeless eyes, blood soaking her shirt.
The Gate shuddered. Its reflective surface roiled like stormy waters, but Seth had no way of knowing if this was something to worry about. And even if it was, what could he do about it?
A painful wheeze drew Seth’s attention. He walked over to Jack’s prone body. A thousand evil thoughts poured through his mind. He looked down at the sidearm in his hands, then back at Jack. The Bane’s weapon had cut through Jack’s abdomen and spilled out his intestines.
Seth thought about his son, about Quennin, and all his fellow pilots now dead by this pair.
But now, in this place, Seth felt his pain eclipsed by what had been accomplished. He now understood what Jack had done, at least partially. The urgent need for retribution left him. Jack had succeeded where twenty thousand years of human civilization had failed.
The central purpose behind all Aktenai society, their Great Mission, had been achieved.
But my son is dead, Seth thought. And I don’t have to kill Jack. I can just walk away and let him die.
He winced at this idea. What would that accomplish? What would that prove?
That I am nothing more than a slave to revenge?
Just like the Bane?
Seth shook his head. No. No, I am nothing like that monster!
At last, he flung the sidearm away. It clattered across the metal walkway and fell into the spherical pit.
He removed his helmet and broke the i-suit seals around his waist. Jack was dying, and Seth wore the only thing that could save him.
Chapter 21
Two Wrongs Made it Right