Furst matched his opponent’s movements and crossed his hands before his chest. The Taikou Quills that jutted from his wrists and were usually invisible through the Taikou Fire, flared now and fueled his Darkened state to its highest, hottest level. Motes of dust surrounding both of them caught fire in a widening radius, flashing with magnesium brilliance. Several thin streams of molten metal began to fall, cooling into hard, blackened, fist-sized teardrops before thumping to the ground below.
He had never burned so hot for so long and there was a danger of exerting too much: if his fire began to fail him, he would revert to normal in the middle of a molten metal hell. He was safe from his own fire—and just about everything else while Dark—but, with his Artifact exhausted, he would be vulnerable to the terrible results his fire produced. When the greater part of his opponent’s mass began to drop, he knew that he had succeeded. He felt weak and shaky and his head hurt, but he had succeeded.
The sky was clear and there appeared to be no more fighting down below. In less than twenty minutes, though, the vanguard of the Viscain Empire had been nearly wiped out by five assailants. The sixth was currently trapped within Mont Cranden’s dimensional prison, being subjected to the scrutiny of the assembled Shades in the courtyard.
Through an arrangement prepared by Abanastar, the Shades watched the silvery female figure give up on using its face gun—the prison was too strong—and begin to charge its main weapon. Even locked in a pocket dimension, it was capable of obtaining the necessary power, and since the prison was basically a construct of Cranden’s mind, an overwhelming power would affect the physical limits of the dimension as if they were in fact physical walls. If it fired a blast similar to the one that destroyed Gran Zaim, the walls would fail and it would be free.
“Its getting ready to fire,” Cranden said with tension creeping into his voice.
“Leave it to me.” Barson raised his right index finger before him, and at its tip a tiny black speck began to coalesce. It didn’t grow, but the impression of it did. Everyone could feel the pull of gravity building on the tip of his finger, and all backed away. The power of Barson’s Singularity Punch was legendary and completely unexaggerated.
The female invader held its arms closely together and stretched them out before itself. Small barbs stood up all over the surface of each arm and energy crackled, arcing along and between them. Everyone’s view of the scene shifted as Cranden altered the axis of the prison so that the discharge would fire harmlessly into space. And then their view flashed white, the dimensional prison shattered, and a blazing stream of terrible, voracious, silvery-white light shot skyward.
The female figure was stunned by the sudden change of environment. It spun around with its face gun flaming, but Barson was ready. With a swift, practiced gesture he snatched the black spot from the tip of his finger into his right fist and coolly, without a word, drove his fist into the last of the invaders. Immeasurably heavy, his punch sunk into the figure’s chest and the controlled singularity began to drink it away. A bowled distortion formed where his fist penetrated, a hungry maw that the silver figure seemed to pour into now, like mercury flowing down a drain. The wings at its back withered and curled as its metal body—harder, denser, and stronger than anything the Viscain had ever encountered—was sucked into the black hole Barson held in his fist.
Bodies, both partial and mostly whole, were strewn about everywhere like litter. Small craters pitted the courtyard and the Root Palace alike. The Palace had suffered greatly under the constant barrage of pistol fire. In some places, the interior was exposed and belching out oily, black smoke. Smoke was everywhere and a few dying fires still crackled, but silence had once again fallen on the scene. The people of the Viscain Empire could finally stop to take a breath.
3. PERFECT ENEMY
10,688.051.0600
High up in the Root Palace, within a triply protected compartment, the uninjured Shades were gathered in the war room. The circular room was lit only by the myriad hard screens set within the walls and which displayed video feeds from select locations, various diagnostics in progress, and any number of other processes undergoing or awaiting analysis. All of the vast information resources of the Empire were available here. In the middle of the room was a round table over which a three-dimensional recreation of the earlier battle was being played out.
Jav Holson and Forbis Vays stood next to Lor Kalkin. Together with Elza Steinz, currently recuperating in the hospital, the four made up what was now the Death Squad with Kalkin as their superior. Jav tried to ignore his former teacher, Laedra Hol, who stood with Kimbal Furst and Mont Cranden.
Everyone was studying the simulation, either his or her own part in the fight or some other aspect of it. It had played from beginning to end several times already, and it seemed it would continue in gruesome repetition interminably to remind them all of the terrible cost of their meager success. The power of the enemy never failed to awe the onlookers. No matter how many times they watched, no one could get used to it, but as they watched, a number of them began to realize something peculiar about the enemy. Mefis Abanastar, his face as always obscured by the Focusing Lens, was about to broach the subject when the vacuum seal to the jump deck hissed sharply.
Witchlan strode into the room and asked without preamble, “When will the others arrive?”
Wheeler Barson stood at least a full head taller than anyone else in the room. He wore a trim, black suit that somewhat mimicked his transformed state, and his short, black hair, which always looked freshly washed, was neatly parted. His pale, youthful face was handsome, but hinted at nothing of his true age or the things of which he was capable. “Aila Schosser and Sana Bale should arrive in minutes. We had some trouble contacting former First General Parish, though.”
“And?”
“Two hours.”
Witchlan sighed. “Ever more distant. Have him report to the Emperor in private when he arrives.”
Barson nodded.
“Oh, and besides Directors Scanlan and Haspel, who will be joining us remotely, I’ve invited the director of the Cultural Studies Division to join us in person.”
“The Cultural Studies Division?” Barson confirmed.
“Yes. Ty Karr is a Locsard graduate and we may find his skills useful.”
Jav couldn’t help but stare at Minister of Affairs Witchlan. Since he had obtained the Kaiser Bones, Jav had been able sense bone matter through just about anything, but Witchlan seemed to be the single exception. Jav wondered if Witchlan possessed some facility to block his sense or if it was that he simply didn’t have any bones to see. The latter possibility gave him a chill, and he forced himself not to dwell on it.
As Witchlan finished his sentence to Barson, the jump deck growled to life and produced the two expected Shades.
Aila Schosser was a big, powerful woman dressed in a crisp white suit very much like Barson’s black one. She had short, cloudy blond hair and the most startling green eyes Jav had ever seen. Upon her brow was what almost looked like a third green eye, but was in fact her Artifact, the Cat’s-eye Marble.
Barson smiled at her. “Hello, Aila,” he said. She nodded with an enigmatic grin and Jav thought that he recognized what passed between them in that exchange. He felt the pangs of his own loss, missing Mai Pardine suddenly and terribly, but he was also heartened by what he hoped lasted a long time for the two of them.
To be polite, Barson addressed the other new arrival as well. “Miss Bale,” he said, nodding to her.
“Hello, Mr. Barson,” she said in return. There was perhaps a bit of. . . what? Apathy? Impatience? Aversion? There was something in her voice, but Jav couldn’t identify it.
Sana Bale looked like a librarian. She was thin and her brown hair was pulled back into a tight knot. She seemed cold and aloof, but otherwise the epitome of normal. She was dressed very conservatively, and Jav thought she just might be invisible in a crowd. She moved through the room, taking a place next to Cranden who nodded and smi
led at her.
“Good to see you again, Sana,” Cranden said in a low voice.
She sighed and seemed to relax a bit in spite of herself, returning a half smile she could not suppress. “Mont,” she said nodding. Ages ago, the two had served together as Viscain generals.
A few seconds behind the two ladies, the compact jump deck came to life again and from it stepped a man who introduced himself as Ty Karr, the director of the Cultural Studies Division. He exchanged warm greetings with Cranden, who, Jav gathered, had been one of Karr’s instructors at Locsard. Karr and Hol also appeared to be acquainted already, but Jav was surprised when the man approached him.
“Mr. Holson?”
“Yes, sir.” Jav studied him up close for a moment and placed him in his late fifties or early sixties. He was portly and thick, iron gray hair covered his head.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, young man,” Karr said, extending his hand.
“You have?” Jav took the man’s hand and shook it, but was dismayed by his sudden look of shock and then, for an instant, terror. Jav noticed that Karr’s eyes had shifted and were focusing on something beyond him.
Karr pulled his hand back and quickly composed himself. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Yes, from Miss Farina.”
“Lili!” Jav blurted.
“That’s right. She’s so enthusiastic about the work we do that I decided to take her on with us full-time.”
“The pyramid. . . Now I think I remember hearing your name before. I didn’t realize that the director himself would have lead the expedition.”
“I do when I can. I can get far more information visiting an actual site than I can from objects that have been removed from one.”
Jav nodded, thinking he understood. “How is Lili doing?”
“Oh, fine, just fine. She’s settling in wonderfully.”
“No more headaches?”
“Well,” he said, laughing, “we don’t work our staff quite as hard as former First Specialist Hol does.” He nodded ingratiatingly to her.
Hol acknowledged the director’s good-natured joke then looked at Jav with an indefinite expression. He stared back at her for a moment until he had to look away.
As Karr excused himself and more greetings were exchanged, Jav casually glanced over his shoulder to see what Karr could have seen to make him react as he had. The silent form of Witchlan was all he saw.
Barson got everyone’s attention and officially began the meeting. “We can’t wait for former First General Parish since we don’t know if or when a second attack might be coming.” He pushed a button on a console and to his right a holographic screen sprang into being. A thick black line down the middle of the screen separated two men, both waiting patiently. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Directors. We’re ready to begin now. Director Scanlan?”
The man on the right half of the screen cleared his throat and said, “Very good.” Gilf Scanlan was the director of the Military Hardware Division, brilliant and imaginative. His hair was gray, his cheekbones were high and sharp. Looking at him, it was impossible to guess his age. There was a kind of vitality about him, a look in his eyes that for some was too intense. Some said it was his genius asserting itself.
“Ladies, gentlemen,” he said by way of greeting, “as we suspected, the six unknown invaders were not machines, at least not in any conventional sense. Nor were they living beings. They appear to be composed of a solid, uniformly pure, and maddeningly resilient metal. They have no joints, no moving parts, no batteries, no receivers, no power plants; nothing to explain or even suggest the possibility of the actions of which they are obviously capable. If they receive broadcast power, the source must be of an order inconceivable to us, and the method of reception completely unknown to us.
“The pistols are made of the same metal. They are simple large-bore revolvers with a cylinder housing three rounds of ammunition. However, the ammunition is problematic. In all the destruction, in all the victims, not a single slug or empty shell was recovered. Every pistol that was not destroyed was empty. But,” he said regarding the continuously playing simulation, “as you can see, not one of them ever stopped to reload and each fired far more than three shots.”
“How is that possible, Director Scanlan?” Barson said. “The damage isn’t consistent with energy discharge weapons. I felt something solid hit me, and Isker Vays swears that there was a huge slug inside him, even though there was nothing to remove.”
Scanlan nodded, “We have a theory about that. We can’t be sure of course, but we believe that there is some kind of closed system at work, a cycle that repeats or can be repeated as long as the motivating force is active. Upon delivery—and depending upon the target, it would seem—the slugs remain whole or explode and are somehow transferred back to the source weapon, recycled for reuse; basically like a stone on a rope.”
“A reusable exploding stone on a rope?” Barson snorted. “Nice trick.”
Kimball Furst stepped forward, “You said ‘depending on the target.’”
Sighing, the director went on to explain. “Former Specialist Furst, you are a perfect example. Specialist Steinz is another. In your Darkened states, neither of you is solid, and yet, when we examine the footage, it’s clear that the projectiles fired upon you were directed at you and did not pass through you into other targets beyond.”
“But. . . that would mean. . .” Furst didn’t want to finish his statement.
Grim-faced and with tired resignation, Cranden did it for him. “It suggests that they can sense Artifacts and the energies they produce, probably by design, which further suggests, perhaps, that these—shall we call them spirit machines?—were designed to destroy us.”
Scanlan made a sour face. “There would appear to be evidence to support both deductions.”
“What?” Hol laughed incredulously. “How? And more importantly, from where? Any system that has any knowledge of the Viscain Empire has already fallen to it.”
Scanlan was unfazed and continued. “I will let Director Haspel address the ‘where’. Regarding Professor Cranden’s first deduction, there can be no doubt, when viewing the footage, that Shades and the Vine were the favored targets. For further, more concrete proof, we need only look to Gran Kohm. When we examined the remains of Gran Kohm, we discovered a precision in target choice that was very telling. All the reactors were destroyed and while that makes perfect tactical sense, it’s really quite remarkable. Unlike earlier models, these Grans incorporate Vine ganglia, which are most highly concentrated in the reactors. However, the reactors don’t produce power in a conventional way; they produce no heat and no electricity. The Grans become very much like independent extensions of the Vine itself, living and yet not alive.”
“Just like Shades,” Cranden said.
“Just like Shades,” Scanlan confirmed.
“What about Gran Kwes?” Barson asked.
“Gran Kwes’s modular construction makes it unique. The ganglia in Gran Kwes are spread throughout the cubes evenly and operate in circuit. Since the power produced is spread out over the entirety of its body, Gran Kwes doesn’t stand out as much as the other two Grans, or even as much as a Shade. Had you utilized your Gran’s secondary configuration, I believe it would have become a target.”
“What about the weapon that destroyed Gran Zaim?” Abanastar asked.
“Yes, that weapon does warrant a bit of consideration,” Scanlan said, his eyes losing focus for a moment as he recalled the implications of the data they had recorded. “From what we can tell, the, uh, female was able to collect ambient energy using the wing assembly upon its back, perhaps amplifying it by some means, then produce a high intensity energy wave, issuing in a widening cone from its extended arms. The energy wave alone appears to be highly destructive, but, more importantly, it carries suspended within it a fine distribution of particulate metal. Even without the payload of metallic dust borne within, the energy would have been sufficient to destroy Gran Zaim. In the case of the Gran, the m
etal simply added insult to injury, but it is the metal we must be extremely cautious of and I will explain why in just a moment. Though there was no trace of the actual metal left behind upon Gran Zaim or anywhere within the crater—we believe it was recycled or stored somehow for future use just as the pistol ammunition was—the impact pattern was unmistakable, as was the lingering effect upon the Gran’s remains. . .”
Scanlan paused for a moment, took stock of the anger, confusion, and dread that faced him. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “It doesn’t get better, I’m afraid. However, we must discuss the evidence which supports Professor Cranden’s second, more distressing deduction, which is the devastating effect their ammunition has on Shades and anything else related to the Vine. Before I go into this, though, since we have no samples of any of their ammunition to speak of, I think a brief discussion of the aliens themselves, or, rather, the metal of which they’re composed, is in order. Though we have subjected it to every test and analytical technique at our disposal, we have been unable to break it down into its constituent parts. Its composition is a mystery. However, we have found that the metal itself reacts violently with Vine fiber—and, by extension, Shades—acting as a corrosive agent. Even after only limited contact, the corrosion continues as if the fiber were afflicted with an infection of sorts. Because of the limited time we have had for study, there is no way to tell how virulent this infection will continue to be after contact is broken, and I’m fairly certain that no one in this room—or anyone in the Empire—would like to see such a test run its ultimate course, but we believe that acting upon affected Vine fiber or body tissue swiftly is of the utmost importance. Spread of the infection must be contained and prevented at all costs.”
The Gun Golems (Approaching Infinity Book 2) Page 3