The Puzzler's War

by Eyal Kless

  The power meter was at 88 percent when Lieutenant Rachman ran out of the room. With Comms down, this was a full-blown fight with a battle plan that had gone out the window.

  I watched as the three hid behind the hovercraft. I saw from above the man bending over his unconscious friend and relocating his shoulder as Vincha kept shooting in all directions.

  Ninety percent.

  The surprise part was over, and with it the advantage the three had. What was left of the Alpha team was converging on the ground level while snipers were changing positions from above. This would be over soon, and all three of them would be dead. I had to know what was going on. I had to talk to the three of them.

  But I was just an observer.

  Ninety-two percent.

  Fuck this.

  I pressed the button.

  Chapter 66

  Twinkle Eyes

  There is nothing out of the ordinary in waking up, unless you are about to die.

  I opened my eyes to a terrible pain in my shoulder and saw Galinak’s blurry face hovering above me, too close for comfort. He had just finished pushing my arm back in its socket and was shouting something, but whatever he was trying to communicate was drowned out by the explosions all around us. I turned my head and saw Vincha duck under a hail of shots. She squatted next to me, checked the power display on her rifle, grimaced, and shouted something at Galinak before firing some more. I tried to sit up against the remains of the shark, and a sharp pain in my shoulder told me there was damage even a Tarakan-built body could not fully sustain.

  Galinak leaned into the broken frame of the shark and came back holding the hovercraft’s broken steering wheel and my peacemaker, still covered in the white goo of the crash foam. He brushed the gun against his thigh, handed it to me, and pointed up. I ignored him and looked around, using my sight to try and figure out what was going on. On the ground a group of soldiers was slowly advancing on our position while more were trying to flank us from above. Oh yes. We were going to die.

  It was a sobering thought, and my body reacted by forgetting the pain and discomfort I had felt a moment before. Galinak grabbed me again and brought me into a sitting position. He held the power gem that he had taken out of the broken steering wheel, pointed upwards, and grinned. I only realised what he wanted when he threw the gem upwards. It was already arcing its way down when I pointed the peacemaker at it as Galinak knelt down and braced himself against the shark.

  The old me never would have made that shot in a million years. But the old me did not have a Tarakan retina-aiming and tracking device connected to my nerves and a hand holding an enormous gun. I took the shot. The gem exploded in a flash of light just as Galinak roared and flung the carcass of the shark at the advancing soldiers.

  I’d experienced that moment in a fight when time suddenly slows down and you can see everything happening at once, but this time it did not just slow down; it stopped completely. The shark, which had been flipping in the middle of the air, did not land. The man falling down from above never hit the ground. The bullet shot from behind us just froze there, a silvery blur just an inch away from the back of Vincha’s head. The sudden stillness and cessation of all noise except an impossible high-pitched whine was a weird sort of pain. Not being able to move or even blink did not help, either. I just stood there, watching, the bullet that was about to kill Vincha hovering in the air in front of my frozen eyeballs, and I was unable to do anything but imagine what would happen the moment the world decided to move again. Vincha was dead. I would never move fast enough to push her away from the path of this bullet. It was a small comfort to know that she would not suffer. That kind of shot would leave her dead before her body hit the ground.

  From the corner of my eye I saw something move. It was unnaturally fast, or perhaps I only thought so because of the utter stillness of the environment. A slender woman came into view. She ducked under the suspended shark, passed Galinak, and came to stand between Vincha and myself. She was small, with thinning black hair tied in a bun. Her face was full of concern when she examined the bullet. I wanted to talk to her, to ask her for help, beg her to assist Vincha, but most of all I wanted to ask her, What the hell is going on?

  That thought kept flashing in my mind as she unsheathed a short sword pulsating with a powerful blue hue. She raised it in front of my eyes so slowly that I caught my frozen reflection on the side of its blade. I watched her taking careful aim, then she brought the sword down on the bullet. The world came back to life in a flash of blinding light and a deafening bang, just before it all went black again.

  Chapter 67

  Peach

  Sergiu was leaning against an oil tanker, defiantly smoking his pipe under the wide rim of his hat as I limped outside. Emilija’s mother and the two men were just being brought out and dumped belly down on the ground, their hands locked in sturdy-looking cuffs that connected to a neural inhibitor attached to their necks. They could move their heads and speak, but that was about it.

  Sergiu stepped towards me. “That was quite a show, Colonel Major, quite a show.” He was holding a metal tiara in his hand.

  “What do you mean?”

  Instead of an answer Sergiu turned and waved the Sergeant over. He handed her the metal tiara.

  “You’d better put this on the woman’s head,” he suggested in a soft voice. “Make sure the edges touch her temples. This will stop her from using her tech.”

  The Sergeant nodded and took the tiara from his hand.

  Then he turned his attention back to me. “Yes, I was briefed by Lieutenant Rachim. Nine dead, thirteen injured. You seem to have saved the day using a nice little trick no one knew existed.”

  “That nice little trick saved us the trouble of scraping the woman’s brain off the floor,” I answered coolly, but for some reason, being debriefed by Sergiu the Dying was suddenly annoying.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.” Sergiu absentmindedly dumped the contents of his pipe on the ground. “You also saved Lieutenant Rachim’s head.” Somehow, I was sure Sergiu meant what he said literally. He continued, “But I just wonder how you managed to do it?”

  There was no sense in lying. “Even after it was completed, the Star Pillar was under threat. I was one of the team That installed and tested the stasis field security system here, and it still recognised my rank and clearance. That was how I managed to erect and walk into the stasis zone.”

  “And the blast afterwards?”

  “The temporary stasis zone was only one part of the full security measures, but that part didn’t work. Not enough power, I guess. I had little time to improvise and my first priority was to save the woman. Cutting the bullet midair released a lot of kinetic energy.” I looked at my singed uniform and added, “But the injuries were pretty mild.”

  “The orders were to kill the two men and capture the woman,” Sergiu said.

  “Well, I managed to save the mother and also capture her two associates. Call it performance above the call of duty. Tell your Mannes he does not need to give me a medal for it or anything, maybe a more comfortable bed in the barracks and an extra pillow.”

  Sergiu shook his head. “Master Mannes demands his orders be followed to the letter, Colonel Major, and you not only argued with him in front of his soldiers, you showed the ability to access measures no one thought existed and then defied his order.” Sergiu pointed at the red-haired woman, who was now wearing the metal tiara, and ordered, “Take her to the truck.”

  The woman was immediately raised from the ground by three soldiers. She turned her head and stared, wide-eyed, straight at me. I saw hate and fear and wondered if she knew that I had saved her life.

  Sergiu stepped forward, pulling out a power pistol from his belt holster. He stood above the two prone men, gun in hand, as I approached.

  “What are you planning to do?” It was a foolish question, but I persisted. “They are bound prisoners.” In case he hadn’t noticed.

  Both men were mo
ving their heads, listening.

  Sergiu did not look at me, but he took a long breath, the kind I saw soldiers take right before they needed to do something gruesome they were not happy about. “I’m sorry, Colonel Major, but we are very close to success and cannot afford loose ends. This has nothing to do with the way I feel about it. These are Mannes’s orders. As a soldier yourself you understand we need to do what must be done, and sometimes it ain’t pretty.”

  Yeah, I understood. There were times I was the one to pull the trigger. But now the world had been destroyed. My vessel’s body was trembling with fatigue, but I managed to move and stand in front of Sergiu, beside the two men on the ground. I was seriously too tired for this shit but gave it my best shot. “This is not just immoral,” I argued, “this is stupid slaughter. These men are assets you’re about to throw away. They have information about who sent them and what their plans are.”

  “And you were planning to interrogate them yourself, weren’t you?” Sergiu looked at me knowingly. “Was that why you argued with Lieutenant Rachim for their lives?” He aimed his pistol at the head of the slender-looking man.

  “It was just the right tactical action to take,” I said. “The Lieutenant didn’t know about the freeze zone.” I thought I saw hesitation pass behind Sergiu’s eyes and pressed on. “Look, Sergiu, I have seen the three of them fight shoulder to shoulder, surrounded, outgunned, and outnumbered. No one tried to run away to save their own skin and this one”—I pointed at the larger man—“actually carried the other one to safety under fire. Don’t you understand? They care for each other, which means the woman cares for these two. She will cooperate better if we have them as leverage.”

  Sergiu looked at me. “You are absolutely right, Colonel Major. That is why I am not going to shoot them.”

  “You could have fooled me,” I said, nodding at the gun in his hand. “So what’s that all about?”

  Sergiu sighed and shook his head a little, then he turned and shot me twice in the chest.

  Chapter 68

  Twinkle Eyes

  They clamped devices to our backs that immobilised us from the shoulders down. They also tied dark cloth around our eyes, which meant I could still see what was going on without them realising it. I spent most of the way with my head at knee level, surrounded by the same unhappy soldiers who tried to kill us. I used the time to replay the recent events in my mind, since it had all happened too fast for me to fully comprehend what was going on at the time. I managed to strap myself to the backseat of the shark before it flipped, an action that most likely saved my life. The next thing I remembered was being woken up in the middle of a chaotic battle, shooting a power gem, freezing in place, and watching a woman cut the bullet that would have blown Vincha’s head off. That woman argued for our lives as we lay facedown in the dirt, and I saw her body fall to the ground next to me as she was shot twice at close range by the man who was now sitting near the driver of the truck. The man’s boots passed my face as he went to check her pulse, and I heard him commanding two soldiers to take two hoverbikes and dump her body in the Broken Sands below us. Whoever she was, and whatever her reasons were, she’d saved all of our lives at least once and paid with her own for what she’d done.

  Vincha was facing me on the truck, unaware of her surroundings since she couldn’t see through her bindings. Even with the cuffs, nerve pincers, and the strange tiara they attached to her temples, which rendered us powerless, they didn’t take any chances with Galinak. He was lying facedown on the floor with a power rifle’s muzzle to the back of his head. We came to Emilija’s rescue but ended up as hostages to be used as leverage, myself and Galinak to secure Vincha’s compliance, and Vincha to help secure Emilija’s full cooperation. Only thing was, Vincha had already made it clear what she would do to save her daughter. We might have fought side by side to survive a deadly ambush, but Vincha would sooner see us dead than let her daughter come to harm.

  I tried to think of worse situations than our current predicament, and the only one I could come up with ended in my getting eviscerated by Lizards.

  We drove through a double gate and shortly after they carried us out to the open. Yellow dust hung in the air as they dumped us on the ground again, this time holding us so we were sitting on our knees in a short, miserable line. I carefully raised my head up. I saw the masked soldiers, the power cables, the heavy weapons, and the strange, huge silos. Behind all that, far to the distance, the Star Pillar sprang up from the mountain and into the sky. To say it was awe inspiring would do it gross injustice. The incredible sight made me momentarily forget the mess we’d gotten ourselves into. It was even more impressive than when I was flying through the City Within the Mountain. From far away the Star Pillar looked like a uniform structure, but from relatively closer I could see it was multilayered. Its core was a huge shaft looped by several layers that reminded me of a giant spring, and the whole thing was surrounded by an aura of ever-changing light. It was a mesmerizing sight, and only the reactions of the surrounding soldiers tore me away from the view.

  A man that I guessed was Mannes walked slowly towards us, his movements and people’s reaction to him betraying his role and importance. I never knew what a ghoul looked like until I laid my eyes on him. This was the monster everyone talked about, and his visage was a perfect match to his reputation. I didn’t need to remind myself that he was the one who ordered my death and the death of the woman who saved my life. What would he do to us now?

  Emilija walked behind him, accompanied by the man in the wide-brimmed hat. I recognised her immediately by the resemblance to the woman kneeling next to me. She was younger, prettier, daintier, and she had a faraway, peaceful look in her eyes that I imagined Vincha never had, but the girl was the CommWoman’s daughter, there was no doubt about it. She was also an obvious Puzzler, with distinct markings running up her right forearm and disappearing into her wide sleeve.

  The tattoos that appeared around the eyes of my previous body had remained the same size until I was shredded to pieces by claws and teeth, but when I tracked down Rafik’s life story, five years and a lifetime ago, I remembered hearing his tattoos were initially small in size, barely covering half a finger. They grew and expanded in conjunction with the boy’s ability and understanding. If that was the case, and the size and intensity of the markings represented ability, Emilija was a powerful Puzzler. There was no doubt as to why both sides of this mysterious conflict sought to capture her.

  The blindfolds came off, and as soon as Vincha turned her head she called out her daughter’s name in a voice filled with emotion. It wasn’t that Emilija didn’t hear her mother’s call—she even reacted to it—but it was barely a nod, an unnaturally calm acknowledgement under any circumstances. She looked at us as if we were pieces of tapestry hanging on a wall.

  Mannes stepped forward. “Lift them to their feet,” he ordered, and a moment later we were up, each held from both sides. He walked past us one by one. I heard Galinak mutter, “Wanna dance, old man?” Vincha was too preoccupied watching her daughter to pay attention to Mannes. He finally stopped in front of me, close enough that I was able to smell the decay and death emanating from his frail body.

  “So, he just sent . . . you?” His voice was raspy, but it carried. “The most powerful and intelligent being ever to exist, the brain and heart of the Tarakan empire, and he could only send the three of you to gate-crash my compound in this pathetic attempt to save the day. I admit, I am . . . disappointed.”

  “What can I say?” I surprised myself by answering. “Experienced staff is hard to come by these days.”

  “You were supposed to kill me.” That was not a question and lying about the obvious was foolish.

  “That was not our prime assignment, just the girl.”

  I did not think it was possible, but Mannes did not even blink the entire time we were conversing.

  “What did he promise you? A better body, longer life, a world to play God in, maybe hard metal, as money is
called these days?” There was an odd light in the man’s unblinking eyes. “Or did he just force you to do it?”

  I tried to shrug, forgetting I had no sensation or control of my body from the shoulders down. “A little bit of everything, I guess. Not my first choice for a job, being a hero, crashing into people’s gates.”

  Mannes tilted his head. “Interesting. What was your job?”

  “A secondary scribe of the Guild of Historians,” I answered, “although I am now LoreMaster.”

  “Climbed up the guild’s political ladder, did you?” My guess was that Mannes was somehow amused by our conversation.

  “More the case of the ladder losing a lot of its rungs until it reached rock bottom.” That brought out a chuckle from the ghoul.

  Unfortunately it also snapped Vincha out of her stupor. “If you harm my Emilija, I’ll kill you, you rusting corpse.” There was an edge of hysteria in her voice I’d never heard before. I could tell she was barely hanging on.