Anthem's Fall

by S. L. Dunn

  “Okay.” Ryan turned from the television. “When should I head down there?”

  “In a couple hours. I’ll text you when I know what time the Vatruvian cell presentation is scheduled. The convention is at the Marriot Marquis in Times Square.”

  Ryan nodded.

  Kristen looked back to the television. It was clear there were going to be no new developments for the time being. The worker had brought up a good point. Planes did not blow up out of the blue. As the broadcast now depicted a mile-wide tower of smoke rising from the neighborhood in Albany, a missile or bomb did seem plausible.

  “Okay, I should probably be going.” Kristen reluctantly drew her attention away from the news and drummed her fingers against her thigh. “I really appreciate that you’re coming.”

  “Absolutely,” Ryan said. He rose from the table and Kristen followed his lead out of the shop, giving the worker a friendly wave as she walked past him.

  They slowed to a stop on the sidewalk as they neared an intersection.

  “I, uh . . .” Kristen said with more than a trace of awkwardness. She tried to act cool, but was quite certain the attempt failed. “I’m pretty sure I’m starting to like you.”

  Ryan smiled and laughed. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I’m starting to like you too.”

  “Good,” Kristen said and shrugged her shoulders inelegantly. “Good.”

  “Look,” Ryan smiled down at her after she could not find any words. “You need to focus on the convention. Get that out of the way, and don’t think about anything else until it’s done. I’ll be there to watch the firestorm unfold.”

  Kristen nodded. “Okay.”

  Ryan leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you there, then,” Kristen said. They locked eyes for a moment, and she turned to walk toward the subway with a wave. Her mind was decided as she descended the steps into the subway station: it was time for a major career change. She did not care if she was having an early-life crisis or an overworked breakdown. The days spent pent up in dreary windowless labs and staring at endless computer screens of genetic sequences had to stop. She had lost her youth in the name of a head start, and that trail was now at an end.

  The Vatruvian mice were the last straw.

  As Kristen pushed into a stuffy train, she wondered if her actions at the convention might in some way provide the world with some respect for the incalculable power and elegance of science. But more likely, she knew, the infallible influence of ambition would act to silence her voice. For the moment, however, she decided not to care.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Vengelis

  The unmistakable silhouette of towering buildings rose against the sharp contour of the horizon to the south. Even from his distance Vengelis could see that New York City was vast, its edifices tall. He squinted at the distant city’s profile before cautiously decelerating and soaring in an elegant arc toward its skyscrapers, his altitude shrouding his approach from any unsuspecting skyward eyes below. A surreptitious hand would be the one of choice for the time being.

  Vengelis could not help but feel a small pang of conflict over allowing Hoff and Darien to venture out on their mission of inevitable annihilation. They, and he, would shortly become heralds of torment and death to these unwary people. The men and women far below were about to be swept up in a conflict based far away, a conflict in which they were in every way faultless.

  But there was no other choice.

  The danger of innocence is that it is eventually lost. In the end innocence is not enduring; rather it is a transient state that has yet to be exposed to all the aspects of reality. Vengelis would provide the people down in the city with the same level of mercy the Primus race had received at the hands of a more advanced species: none. Despite the invasion the Primus race encountered—a traumatic and scarring holocaust that tore through the fiber of their worldview—still the Primus stood. Stood more powerfully and proudly than ever before. In a way the forthcoming tribulation would be an enlightening experience for the adolescent civilization below, a chance for it to evolve and grow. Vengelis would alter their conception of their world much as a parent teaches a child to look before crossing the street. The child may not be aware of a speeding bus coming, but that does not change the fact that the bus is coming. No warning came for the young Primus race before the Zergos invasion of old ripped through Anthem. No hand of mercy was extended to his people as the Felixes slaughtered them in the present. Vengelis knew he could not allow himself the indulgence of compassion. Reality may be heartless, but it was better than false beliefs based solely on one’s tiny world.

  And for the naive people far below, reality was banging at their door.

  The strong command the weak. When pushed close enough to the brink, compassion, empathy, and morality were all just words. Power was the only balance—the only truth behind society’s falsehoods. If Vengelis had been stronger, at that moment he would be sitting on his throne. If the humans were stronger, they would have no reason to fear his wanton intrusion. But such as it was neither he nor the humans were strong enough in their own respective plights.

  Pulling to a stop high over the enormousness of New York City, Vengelis lingered silently above the countless array of skyscrapers for several minutes, examining the teeming streets and rooftops. He had to admit the enormous glimmering city was attractive. But so too had been the noontime splendor of Sejeroreich. The meeting of their scientists, his single source of hope, was in one of these tall buildings below. The scientists would be tasked with finding a cure to the scourge of the Felix. Vengelis had no other option, and thus neither did they.

  Vengelis reached into his armor and pulled out the Harbinger I remote. A three-dimensional image of the peculiar Felix cell rotated slowly on the display. All of his suffering, peril, and fears resulted from this one technology—this one trivial-looking cell. With great effort he consolidated his array of emotions into wrath. Someone far below would provide him with some insight, or his frustration would be forced to spread like a pandemic across this world. He placed the remote back into his armor and descended toward the city with a faint popping sound. Far below, the sound of his descent went entirely unnoticed, lost in the raucous streets.

  Vengelis landed with a cracking thud onto the roof of one of the taller buildings in the northern stretch of the city. A depression yielded into the concrete of the roof below his feet. The rooftop was situated among a cluster of skyscrapers, and many steel pinnacles rose to his lofty height on all sides. Beyond their glass and steel, the horizon extended to the radiating ocean to the east and open lands to the west. Vengelis strode to an iron door adjacent to a number of droning ventilation fans. He easily threw aside the thick padlock securing the handle, stepped into the darkness, and jogged down a dingy stairwell. Floor after floor passed as he sped down the stories, his footfalls echoing back and forth off the tight walls. He reached a landing where the steps abruptly ended, and a sign beside a door read: Rooftop Access Stair. Vengelis pulled apart another padlock and burst out of the dim stairwell straight into a packed office.

  A man sitting by a desk that flanked the access door looked up in alarm. “Excuse me,” the man said. “Custodians don’t use that door. Who is your manager?”

  The man picked up the phone on his desk, his flabby chin wobbling and his tie strangling his pig neck. Thick glasses sat on his flat nose, and sweat stained his armpits. Vengelis stared at the man with blatant derision. He was insulted to have been addressed by such a pathetic person. After glaring at him for a pointed moment, Vengelis walked wordlessly past him and down a row of cubicles. Men and women were sitting at orderly desks separated by bland beige partitions. All of them were talking into phones or headsets. Each of the office workers glanced at him for a questioning moment before quickly bringing their attention back to their work.

  Across from the elevators, a young woman sat at the reception desk and spoke politely into a telephone. As Venge
lis stepped in front of the elevator doors, she looked up at him. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  Vengelis turned to her as he pressed the glowing down button. “No.”

  “Do you have a visitor pass?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’ll need to sign in with the security personnel in the main lobby.” Her lips turned in a pleasant smile. “I wouldn’t get caught without a visitor pass in that costume if I were you.”

  Vengelis looked at the young woman, his expression mirthless as granite. “Where is the Marriot Marquis?”

  “Seventh Avenue,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact. The phone on her desk rang for half a ring, and she picked it up immediately. “Grayson Fletcher Feinstein, New York office. This is Alexandra speaking, how may I direct your call?”

  The elevator door opened and Vengelis stepped in, pressing the button for the main lobby. The young woman cast him an uncertain look as she spoke distractedly into her phone, “Yes, I will pencil you in with Mr. Cooper at two o’clock.” They met eyes, and she blushed as the doors closed.

  The elevator opened to a lobby crowded with people, all looking somewhat glazed over in their dull gray and black business apparel. Every person Vengelis walked by cast him either a contemptuous or amused glance, as though his attire was a joke, something to be mocked. Vengelis was certain that his highly wrought Royal Armor probably looked eccentric and outlandish. A passing woman smiled at him and said something about his fantastic costume. Vengelis ignored her, though his face darkened in a wave of distaste. His raiment was likely worth more than this entire city, not counting the value of the Blood Ring.

  He would allow them their judgments for now.

  On the sidewalk his surrounds became almost too much to bear. Men and women walked this way and that, gladly going about their daily routines. The sun shone brightly on them all, the air cool and clear. It felt like a dream, the passing faces were familiar and yet so foreign to Vengelis. These men and women, these cows, were oblivious to every truth in which he lived. That these ignorant cattle could live so contentedly in their world of wasted prosperity while his war-hardened and disciplined people lay in devastation was nearly too much to shoulder. The illogical and arbitrary nature of it all made him feel deadened inside. Vengelis leaned against a newspaper stand and closed his eyes, desperately combating his bitterness. People elbowed by, grunting irritably at the young man standing obtrusively in their path. These men and women, these craven domesticated swine, were living in a remote Eden with no appreciation for the greater order of things, no appreciation of things that would swallow their existence whole in a fleeting instant.

  Vengelis focused his mind on disregarding them. His fight was not with them, and resentment was an emotion of weaker men. He brought his thoughts back to the Felix—to Anthem. He was not doomed to failure. Not yet, at least. Master Tolland did not send him to Filgaia to outlet his anger. If these men and women were to be cattle, then Vengelis had to milk any information he could get out of them. He focused on the dire blue eyes of the Felixes and allowed his resentment to turn to resolution. With a long deep breath, Vengelis pacified his emotions and continued to walk down the sidewalk. The convention was at a hotel called the Marriot Marquis. He looked up at the dozens of skyscrapers around him. How would he find the correct building? Monoliths of concrete, steel, and mirrored glass jutted into the bright sky dotted with full clouds and the fading contrails of airplanes.

  A television propped against a storefront caught his eye. Playing on the screen was a video of the jetliner he had obliterated not an hour previous. A ball of fire and ruinous smoke plummeted through a blue sky on the television. Vengelis cursed Hoff and Darien for forcing his hand, though there did not seem to be any mention of the cause of the crash, which was advantageous. But Vengelis remembered all too clearly the look in the pilots’ faces just before he had ended their lives. They had unquestionably sent a transmission about the attack, Vengelis was certain of it. Somewhere out there, at that very moment, a team of authorities was meticulously evaluating the bizarre mayday call: two panicked pilots screaming about flying men tearing the plane apart.

  Vengelis watched the soundless broadcast through the window as the din of the city travelled past him: people in conversation, taxis honking in traffic, police sirens, planes overhead, street vendors shouting. They were sounds not entirely unfamiliar to him, mostly similar to his own cities. But an unusual sound filtered through the racket around him. Excited, almost feverish shouting was rising from somewhere nearby. Again and again a motley roar rose and fell. Vengelis inclined his head as he tried to trace the cause of the incongruous racket. He turned to face the source and saw an old grungy building crammed tightly between two taller ones.

  A sign above the only door read, Giovanni’s Gentlemens Club. Below the garish blinking letters, a pink neon outline of a woman’s body cycled back and forth in a dancing motion. Vengelis glared at the revolving neon figure, wondering vaguely what could be the cause of the shouting, though he ventured a guess as he heard another roar of men.

  Vengelis checked the Harbinger I remote. There was still some time until the scientific convention began, and he had specifically told Hoff and Darien to lay low until he gave them word. It had occurred to him that it would be prudent to recruit the support of a local person in order to direct him to the convention and deal with any unforeseeable problems that might arise in translation. Now was the time to find such an individual, and it was possible that someone on the fringe of society would be more pliant to his will. He smirked; the situation was rather amusing. Emperor Vengelis Epsilon, son of Faris Epsilon, bearer of the Blood Ring, direct descendent of the first Sejero and rightful heir to the throne of Anthem, was walking into what he guessed was a brothel.

  A large man dressed all in black stood by the entrance to the club. He had an unsavory and brutish look to him, not entirely unlike Hoff and Darien—though far smaller. With thick limbs and a broad neck, he stood a head taller than Vengelis.

  The large man gave Vengelis a contemptuous smile and laughed aloud. “Buddy, Halloween isn’t for a few weeks.”

  Vengelis shifted his weight on his hips, his arms crossed and his body language calm. “Excuse me?”

  “Halloween. You’re a couple weeks early. Freakin’ weirdo.”

  “What is Halloween?” Vengelis asked, his expression vacant.

  The man rolled his eyes. “Man, this place always brings in the nuts.”

  “I would like to enter this establishment,” Vengelis said.

  “Well, there’s no cover at this time of day, so go ahead.” The man lifted a satin rope that blocked the entry to a dark entrance hall. “But buddy . . .”

  Vengelis looked up at him. “Yes?”

  The bouncer lowered his attention to Vengelis’s strange attire. “Be careful in there. It’s the unemployed and alcoholic crowd at this hour . . . if you follow me. Most of them have been in there since last night. They don’t have much to lose, that group. They’re a little rough around the edges, and you look a little fruity, no offense.”

  Vengelis blinked at the man, coolly considering killing him with a flick of his wrist. “Am I to take that as an insult?”

  “Uh . . . I guess not,” the man said. “But we don’t use metal detectors, so just watch your back. If something goes down, we bouncers sure as hell aren’t going to get involved. Ten bucks an hour isn’t worth getting stabbed by some wino.”

  “I’ll be careful.” Vengelis turned and made his way into the hallway, rubbing his eyes as they adjusted from the bright day to the shabby darkness. The floor beneath him shook from a heavy bass that moved through the walls. Beyond the entrance hall and a few more bouncers was a spacious, dimly lit club. Vengelis took in the entire place, his sharp gaze moving slowly from face to face. A long wood bar lined one wall, softly illuminated by recessed blue lights, and a few dozen tables littered with disheveled men stood between the bar and a raised stage in the far corner. Tall mirrors were se
t along the rear of the stage, and flashing strobe lights hung from the ceiling, blinking and rotating in a range of colors.

  Some unsavory types were piled in the chairs along the stage with drinks in hand. They looked riled up with intoxication and quite rowdy. Many were shouting out orders to a number of scantily clad women who walked about the tables and brought them their drinks. Most of the women’s outfits consisted of high heels with low-cut shirts, their expressions a mix of flirtation and misery.

  Vengelis took it all in expressionlessly. He acknowledged that all societies had undesirable facets, but this was pushing the limits. Vengelis walked past some empty tables and approached the bar where an overwhelmed bartender was making drinks. She looked as though she could have been pretty a few years ago, but too many long nights had left a waxen look to her features. He took a seat across from her.

  “Hello,” Vengelis said to the bartender.

  “The waitresses take drink orders, talk to one of them. I’m busy.” She did not look up from her pouring.

  “And who might the waitresses be?”

  The woman said nothing, rolling her eyes at a bottle of whiskey as she poured it into a row of shot glasses.

  “Well?”

  “Come on, buddy, give me a break. We’re undermanned today.” The bartender looked up angrily, but stopped short upon seeing him. Vengelis stood out glaringly, comically. She drew back her hair from her face and wiped sweat from her brow. “Sorry. I’m really overworked here. I thought you were just another old pervert. Can I get you something?”

  “No.” Vengelis noticed she had a slight underbite, of which he did not approve.

  “You know the basic idea is for the customer to spend money on drinks, right?” she asked as she simultaneously poured him a glass of ice water. When he ignored it she cast him a strange look. “Where the hell do you work that makes you wear that weird costume?”