by M. K. Gibson
I reached into my pocket and fished out a smoke and my lighter, lit it, and got my bearings. First, I was still in the vault, lying on my back, and everything was bathed in a soft red glow. That meant the main lights were still out, with only the emergency lights on.
Second, I heard the Deep Ones outside the hatch still clawing and wailing, trying to get in. Since they weren’t in here eating us and Grimm seemed to be calm, I assumed everything was status quo for us.
Third, all around were the destroyed remains of my stasis boxes and their contents. A lifetime or two’s worth of accumulating bad memories and unforgivable sins. In some weird, fucked-up way, I guess I owed the thief a bit of thanks. He or she did what I could not do for myself. Now that this stuff was destroyed, I knew I didn’t need it anymore.
Last, I felt like I was waking up from bad dental work. Except it was all over. I sat up and wiped at my face. I saw Grimm sifting through some of the destroyed vault contents, trying to make sense of the deformed, blackened pieces.
“That was once part of a rifle assembly I sold to a militia group commander during the second war,” I said, sitting up and stretching out my neck. “What happened, and why do I hurt so bad?”
Grimm ignored my follow-up question. The old mage continued to study the assembly and weapon’s blackened stock.
“This was damaged prior to the explosion here,” Grimm said.
“Yeah. It was booby trapped to explode.”
“Who booby trapped it?” he asked.
“I did.” I smoked my cigarette, not wishing to discuss it further. Grimm just stared at me. Something about his look. You couldn’t win a stare-off with him. He was too old and too determined. Jerk.
“I . . .” I started and paused, thinking about my next words carefully. Not just to explain myself, but to steel myself in remembering my past. “I sold the militia commander a weapon designed to explode in his face and kill him.”
“Why?”
“His group was doing hit and runs against the demon’s supply lines.”
“And you decided it was best to kill him for that?” Grimm asked. His tone was basically calling me an asshole.
I took a deep drag. “Yes. Because he was killing his men. He saw himself as a goddamn William Wallace or that other Mel Gibson Braveheart guy in the revolutionary war movie.”
“Benjamin Martin.”
“Yeah, him. So anyway, this asshole just kept leading his men into suicide missions where they died while he led from the rear. Brave fucker, eh? Anyway, I was also dealing weapons to the demon forces at the time. During the first war, if you remember, Hell’s forces didn’t have firearms. Coming topside, they were mostly feral and generally leaderless. During the years between the first and second wars guns were modified for their size and biological differences. Come the second war, they were fighting a more ‘civilized’ war. And this Envy demoness battle officer promised me that if I took the militia leader out, she’d allow his remaining forces to disband as long as they surrendered. So I did.”
I snubbed out my smoke and lit another.
“I presume the demon lied?” Grimm asked.
“Nope. The militia leader aimed his new fancy sniper rifle and pulled the trigger and his head exploded. His men all freaked out. The Envy demon officer had a voice enhancer and announced they would all be spared if they surrendered. The militia men didn’t care. They all rallied and fought HARDER. They were slaughtered a valley. The Catoctin Massacre,” I said, remembering the day.
“So this young punk, barely thirteen years old, came out of nowhere. He was wounded, some shrapnel in his leg. The kid cursed me. Called me traitor. I tried to explain what I did was meant to save lives. But how do you explain your good intentions to a brainwashed kid? Hell, little fucker even stabbed me. Kid ran off, but not before I planted a tracer on him. I kept tabs on him over the years.”
“Who was he?”
“RM,” I answered.
“The same RM who helped us in Ars Amadel at the magna-train yard?” Grimm asked, and I nodded.
After Grimm and I helped the people of Midheim fight off the demon army that tried to exterminate them, Grimm and I were wanted men. Getting back into New Golgotha wasn’t going to be easy. But I had an old friend named RM who worked in the industrial shipping magna-train yards. He and I went way back. RM just never knew how far back.
“In one of my former identities, after the first war as a soldier, I entered the new world as ‘Reynolds,’ the war profiteer,” I explained to Grimm. “But years after that incident, I retired Reynolds and ‘Winston’ was born. Through Winston I became more of who I am now. Still a lightrunner, but not the prick I was. I made sure I ‘met’ RM. And a friendship was begun.”
Grimm nodded at my tale. I could feel the unspoken words. I could practically see what he was thinking, but not saying aloud. When RM and I met again in the magna-rail yard, thirty years had gone by and I had introduced myself as Salem, the son of ‘Winston.’
RM claimed his sister had been pregnant with ‘Winston’s’ child, who died in childbirth and that she later killed herself over the ordeal. That was a lie and RM’s macabre sense of humor. He wanted to see my reaction. He explained that his sister was indeed alive and quite frisky for a sixty-year-old. RM claimed that he always suspected there was something about me and my aging. The conversation never went farther than that. He helped smuggle us back into the city and we parted as friends again.
“What if his sister did have the child?” I asked and ashed my cigarette.
“You cannot allow yourself to think about that. If you ponder whether or not every woman you ever had relations with had your child that may, or may not have, grown up to be Jensen, you will drive yourself crazier than you already are,” Grimm stated.
“Thanks. I guess?” I smiled. I stood and stretched, dropped the cigarette on the ground and snubbed it out with my boot. I pointed to the mangled weapons assembly in Grimm’s hand. “Items like that are why Vault 47 exists. You have anything like this place?”
Grimm shook his head no. “If I were to fill rooms with bad decisions, there would be nowhere left to live. My sins are littered about the world and littered about time. No doubt you have seen or heard of them.”
Whoa, that was dramatic. I decided to let that one go for another time. And for now, I needed to let the Jensen issue go. Mostly because I had bigger issues. Namely, stuck underground with monsters literally at the door trying to get in and kill us. Speaking of . . .
Wait. “Did I try and kill you?” I asked.
“Yes,” Grimm responded as he tossed the assembly onto a heap of broken items.
“What happened?”
“You failed.”
I sighed. “Obviously. I mean, why? Last thing I remember is getting angrier and angrier when I was trying to get the door closed. You were staring at me, and it was driving me mad. Then the door shut and I . . . wanted to gut you?”
Grimm nodded. He took a half step, then stopped. It was then I realized he’d been keeping his distance from me. I followed his eyes as they gazed down to the floor. Looking down, I saw I was standing in a chalk and salt circle with those strange Proto-Denochian script markings all about. Outside the circle, there was a sharply pointed bone with blood on it.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“What I had to. You were under the influence of the Deep Ones. The sounds they emit affect the living in different ways. In your case, they elicited murderous rage. Everyone under the influence reacts in their own way, but ultimately the influenced will seek out blood.”
Holy shit. I didn’t remember that at all. Wait. “Why didn’t they get to you as well?”
“I am . . . protected, in my own way. And now, you are protected.”
I looked at the circle again and the strange marks. “Some sort of ritual?” I asked.
“Yes. An inscription ceremony. Using a special bone in a special way, the Anjelchion script that is now inscribed upon your bones will make you
. . . less visible to them. And their keening will no longer affect you.”
That explains why I felt like I was worked over down to the bone. Because I had been.
“And the circles and glyphs?”
“Foci, to do my work. Block out the Deep One’s influence. And to protect you and I both in case you were . . .”
“Batshit insane?”
“More or less,” Grimm agreed. He came over and smudged the two circles of salt and chalk. I stepped out and shook my friend’s hand. He gave me a quick hug that I returned.
“I am glad I did not have to kill you,” Grimm said.
“Makes two of us, hoss.” We released the brief embrace and I looked about. “Any ideas how we get out of here?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. Is there a back door out of here? A secret passage?”
I shook my head. “No go. One way in, one way out. I had this place built quick and quiet. No time for secret passages that could be discovered and exploited.”
Grimm chuckled. “And how did that plan work out for you?”
I gave him a stern look. And then, I laughed my ass off. I sobered up after a moment. “Heh . . . yeah. I guess that didn’t work out so well. I would love to know how the thief found this place. Or who he is.”
“It is unfortunate that the thief set off the charges. They destroyed your security cameras,” Grimm said, pointing to the Ultra HD ARCTech cameras in the corners of the vault.
“Yup, they are junked all right,” I said as I walked along vault’s wall, pausing at a seemingly bare duracrete wall, blackened from the blast. I pressed at a certain spot and a small panel opened. “Too bad the thief didn’t know about these.” I collected two backup cameras.
“And those are?” Grimm asked.
“Sensor proof, and practically indestructible, 1-D cameras,” I said as I checked them over. Good. They were still functional with no apparent damage. Grimm looked unsatisfied with my answer. Good, let him stew a moment. See how it feels to the clueless one. When his face didn’t change, I gave in.
“Normal ultra-HD cameras, or hell, even old tech CCTV cameras, give off an EM signature that can be detected. These babies were an idea of my dad’s that I built a couple years back as redundancies for my vaults. Using passive sonar and radar imaging, they only record images in one dimension. So, they don’t emit a signature the same as a normal camera and won’t pop up on a surveillance scan. Unless you specifically look for them.”
“What good is a one-dimensional image? Would it not be a flat version of various line segments?” Grimm asked.
I smiled. Sometimes everyone just thinks I’m dumb for some reason. “That’s why there are three of them in the key viewing angles. Overlay the digital footage with the same time stamp, and . . .”
“A three dimensional image,” Grimm finished. “Impressive.”
“Thank you.” I smiled.
“Why? Your father is the impressive one.” Grimm smirked. “Grease monkey.”
“Oh, suck my balls, Gandalf. Help me get the one out of the ceiling. Gimme a boost.” Grimm happily obliged me, cupping his hands for me to step into so I could reach up and retrieve the third camera.
Grimm helped me to the ground and cast a look over his shoulder at the sealed vault door. “What is your plan for them, then?” He inclined his chin at the door where the Deep Ones were still clawing and scratching, desperate to get in and kill us.
“First, you hang on to these in one of your robes’ mystery pockets,” I told Grimm as I handed the small 1-D cameras to him. “Second, we could do like we did in that alley one time? You create a permeable shield and I shoot the shit out of them?” Since getting new blasters from T, I had been dying to cut loose with them. Like a kid with a new badass Nerf gun, I itched for an excuse to shoot something.
“That will not work here. In the alleyway outside of Dante’s, there were soldiers shooting at us, which I could deflect and manage. In this situation, they will attempt to flood in here madly, using their sheer size, mass, and ferocity. I am strong. However, should I falter, they will then come in here and slaughter us.” Grimm seemed defeated.
I smiled.
“What? Why are you grinning like an idiot?” Grimm asked.
“Two reasons. One, you can’t spell slaughter without ‘laughter’.” I chuckled and Grimm shook his head. Aww, fuck him. I was funny.
I gestured at the vault door. “Second, we don’t need to hold them back. I’ve seen you create shaped shields before. So, you pull a Green Lantern, create a funnel that they have to march through one-by-one. That way you don’t have to hold them back. While I give them the ol’ three hundred for Sparta!”
“You do remember what happened to the three hundred Spartans though, do you not?”
“Sure. Gerard Butler went on to make a series of bad flicks while Michael Fassbender went on to become awesome. I mean, did you see Centurion? Neil Marshall is hands down one of my top five favorite directors.”
Grimm gave me his patented thousand-yard stare. I knew a lecture was coming next.
“Do you ever—” Grimm started, but I cut him off.
“I know damn well what happened. That will not happen here,” I snapped. I sobered up, letting all my usual mirth and joy go. It was like letting go of the mask and revealing a true inside. The side you only reveal to yourself when you are your highest and lowest.
“And how do you know that?” Grimm challenged.
“Because,” I sobered, and stared right back in those cold gray eyes, “I’ll be goddamned if I am going to die in the burnt-out relics of my sinful past while people who count on me as their baron are left at the mercy of Hell.”
We continued the staring contest. And to my surprise, Grimm blinked first.
“Good. It pleases me to know you still have your soul intact. Yes, a Thermopylae approach should work.”
“Damn right. You ready?” I asked, drawing my weapons.
“Yes. And Dog Soldiers was cinematic genius,” Grimm mused.
I smiled. “Freaking A. Let’s do this.” I brought up my holo terminal on my tech bracer and was about to open the vault hatch.
Then, I heard the sound of raging gunfire, screams, and wails. Someone up there was slaughtering the Deep Ones. I looked at Grimm and he shook his head, not knowing either.
Now this was odd. Did I have a guardian angel? After the life I’ve led, any angel assigned to me took up drinking a long time ago. Sonnuva bitch probably just points trouble towards me while giving very specific directions.
After a few minutes of intense gunfire, explosions, and screaming, the noises stopped. That’s when I heard our savior call out to us.
And apparently, he was an asshole.
“OK, asshats. You can either come up here so I can kill you proper. Or I’ll just blow the door open, chuck in some explosives ‘n kill you that way. Your choice.” His gruff voice was muffled from the blast door, but it was clear enough to hear that he sounded like he’d gargled with black coffee, rye whiskey, and tobacco spit.
Grimm looked at me as if to ask my opinion on the situation. I shrugged back at him.
“Well, at least this isn’t boring,” Grimm said, and I had to agree.
I tapped out the code on my bracer. The vault hatch opened and we walked up to meet our savior and would-be killer. I stopped and put a hand on Grimm’s shoulder.
“No matter what happens up there—” I began and Grimm interjected.
“I understand. I will ensure the survival of Löngutangar,” Grimm said solemnly.
“No.” I quirked my face. “No matter what happens up there, we are going for a drink after this.” I smiled as I opened the vault’s blast doors.
Grimm shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Of course. This way, Baron Salem.” Grimm gestured up the stairs. I smiled, unholstered my pistols and made my way up. I had someone to kill before I could get my drink.
Chapter Nine
The Most Satisfying Piss I’ve Had in 200 Years<
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Topside was a mess.
Well, it was always a mess; it was a garbage dump, after all. But the dump wasn’t usually decorated with bloody chunks of what used to be Deep Ones. All around the vault’s entrance were wet fleshy pieces, smoldering chitin, shrapnel, scorched earth, and rancid smelling, whitish-yellow, pus-like blood.
Sitting in the middle of all the guts and destruction, on an old plastic beer cooler, was the same prick who tried to blow me up with a plasma rocket. He wore a similar outfit as he had in my digital memory playback. Tactical boots, cargo pants and a jet-black, synth-skin sleeveless performance top.
The bearded man was half smoking, half chewing a cigar and seemed to be patiently waiting. Across his lap was an ARCTech triple-barreled Bedlam-7, the Hester model. A serious piece of hardware. The multi-mode street cannon could fire a variety of munitions, converting from a standard rifle to shotgun rounds, sniper mode, and a rocket launcher. And that big-ass weapon was pointed at me.
Well, wouldn’t be the first time.
I stopped about fifty feet away and Grimm stopped just behind me. I heard him whisper softly.
“Impressive weapon.”
“Mmm,” I agreed, not taking my eyes off the assassin. Maybe half a head shorter than me, but tough looking. Cropped gray-brown hair blended into his short beard. He had bright blue, stern eyes that conveyed “I’ve taken life and I’ll do so again.”
My kinda guy.
But I also took note of a few pieces of tech implanted on him. A minimalist cyborg. The one that caught my eye was the curved implant that started above his left eye and continued to the back of his head. Some sort of a cerebral tech that I was not familiar with. If I had to hazard a guess, it was some sort of new perception-transmission device. I figured what he saw, heard, and thought was sent back to a central server.
Fine. I’ll give ‘em a show.