by Cam Baity
No matter. I charge the machines, which raise their weapons. Vomit my toxin at them. Their empty faces melt like wax. Plunge my hand into one of their heads, rip out its living AI-unit. The sparking, spastic worm turns to slop in my hand.
The human guards aren’t prepared. They expected a wild mehkan, perhaps a madman. Not the thing that is me.
Bullets thud into the wall, into me. Icy spike of bonding rounds. The chemical is released, wages war with the living metal within. White bubbles froth like acid in my wounds.
But the pain does not slow me. My joints unhinge.
I strike. Then they are in pieces.
My body twists like a screw. The directors cluster in a frenzy. The bald one with the gold glasses holds up his hands, as if he could ward me off. He is the one that took me from Mr. Goodwin. He gave the order to torture me. I will save him for last.
But the others are not innocent. They all must pay.
This is why I have come. A killing wind.
Darkness made flesh.
The lobby of the Control Core was packed with troubled employees. Everyone had heard the commotion. Goodwin shoved his way through the crowd until a soldier recognized him and allowed him to enter the elevator.
“Once I am up, shut off power,” Goodwin ordered. “No more access. Double the guards at all exits and notify me if anyone attempts entry. No one is permitted upstairs. Is that clear?”
“Uh…” The soldier looked around, unsure. “Yes, sir.”
“Clear these people out. Lock down the building.”
Goodwin straightened his cuffs as the elevator ascended. At the top floor, the doors slid open, and the setting suns that blasted through the shattered glass walls nearly blinded him.
The room was chaos. Executives scurried about in aimless panic. Grisly evidence of the recent violence was painted across the windows and soaking into the lush, burgundy carpet. Some guards were documenting the bloody tableau with Fotosnaps, others moving the bodies or covering them with sheets.
Goodwin climbed onto a table.
“Stop!” he shouted above the disorder.
The room fell silent.
“Perry,” Goodwin addressed a nearby soldier. “Gather your people. Secure the stairwells.”
The man snapped to attention and assembled his team.
“Dietrich. Confiscate all Fotosnaps and Scrollbars. Absolutely no information or images are to leave this room.”
The officer did as he was told.
“This is a crime scene,” Goodwin declared. “Nothing is to be disturbed. Investigators are on their way. Until then, everyone will remain on the premises. Understood?”
A few nods amid the silence.
Goodwin stepped down from the table and crossed the room, feeling everyone’s stares as he crunched through shards of glass. He looked down at the corpse of his old colleague, Director Malcolm. Strange, after all these decades of working together, he had never learned the man’s first name.
Leaning out of a broken window, Goodwin eyed the scorched, sunken handprints Kaspar had left on the beams. The strength required for such a climb was astounding.
“We must speak,” said a voice in Goodwin’s earpiece.
“Notify us when you’re ready.”
“You are in charge here until I return, Dietrich,” Goodwin told the officer. He cast one more glance around the room. Satisfied that things were now a bit more in order, he stepped through a gold-inlaid mahogany door and closed it behind him.
Obwilé’s office was sparsely furnished, though that might have been due to the recent move rather than taste. The desk was onyx black, polished to a mirror shine. Tidy stacks of documents lined with Obwilé’s meticulous handwriting sat beside a glowing Computator screen. Across the room hung an uninspired painting of a sunset. It did not surprise Goodwin that Obwilé displayed no taste for art.
Goodwin settled his broad frame into the high-backed armchair. There was a single photo in a chrome frame on the desk. It showed Obwilé standing beside his wife and two small children, smiling before a waterfall. Goodwin saw his face reflected in the glass, superimposed over the happy family.
“I am alone,” he announced.
“James,” spoke a voice of the Board. “We appreciate your decisive action in this matter.”
“The chain of command has been disrupted,” stated another, “and we knew we could depend on you to handle the situation.”
The Foundry’s five directors in Mehk had just been brutally murdered. Yet the Board appeared unmoved.
“Of course. We are all in shock,” Goodwin replied sincerely.
“This attack has come at a most inopportune time.”
“International tensions are elevated in Meridian, and it appears that the rebellion in Mehk is not yet under control.”
“I tried to warn Obwilé that it was a mistake to treat Kaspar with such cruelty,” Goodwin intoned. “I wish he had listened. Kaspar was my creation. I feel…I feel somehow responsible, even though Obwilé had assumed full control of the project.”
“It is unfortunate.”
“Can you guess where the Dyad might be?”
“Information from your recent visit to him, perhaps?”
Goodwin considered this. “Unfortunately, no. He was barely responsive. But Kaspar still looks up to me. Once we locate him, I will use that to elicit his surrender.”
“And if that fails?” a voice replied.
“Then he will be dealt with accordingly.”
“Our investigation will determine exactly what went wrong and how the Dyad managed to escape.”
“We will discover who is responsible for this catastrophe.”
“And their punishment will be unprecedented.”
The Board let this foreboding statement linger.
“That is a relief,” Goodwin said. “Please keep me informed.”
“On to other matters.”
“We face significant gaps in our operational capacity.”
“It will take time to reconstitute a fully functional leadership.”
“Indeed,” Goodwin acknowledged.
“We are working to find replacements.”
“But we must maintain stability until new directors are vetted.”
“Someone to coordinate departments.”
“One with experience and oversight.”
“Have you spoken to Winslow?” Goodwin suggested.
“He is not familiar with our current diplomatic situation.”
“We need someone who already has a deep understanding of the manifold complexities we are up against.”
“While we smooth over the chaos caused by Saltern’s speech.”
“Yes,” Goodwin said. “His arrogance has proven disastrous.” Goodwin checked his watch. “My train leaves in an hour, but if it pleases the Board, I could speak with the President. As you know, we have a strong relationship, and I manage him easily.”
“Yes.”
“But forget your train.”
“Your retirement has been postponed.”
Goodwin’s eyes opened wide. “Pardon me?”
“You are reinstated as Chairman.”
“Until a suitable replacement is selected.”
“And new directors are in place.”
“I…I see,” Goodwin said. “I am honored.”
“But there is no margin for error.”
“Briefing documents have been filed in your accounts.”
“A medic will be dispatched to uninstall your earpiece.”
“But you must continue to wear it.”
“We will be in touch.”
“Chairman Goodwin.”
Then with a soft click, the Board was gone.
A warm feeling of satisfaction filled Goodwin. He pulled out his Scrollbar—his passwords and access had all been restored.
Goodwin smiled. He looked at his new desk and dropped Obwilé’s family photograph into the trash can.
His first order was to find a replacement fo
r General Moritz—he had endured enough abuse from ol’ Bert. Next, he would organize a summit with the military executives to ramp up the Covenant Task Force. He had no faith that the Foundry’s fight against the rebellion had been handled adequately. Once that was taken care of, he could deal with Saltern’s blunder.
Then, the children. That last thread needed to be snipped.
The sea was harsh, the night wind harsher. It hacked at Phoebe and Micah, cutting across the flux with arctic fury. Their arms burned, their bodies screamed with exhaustion, and there was nothing left to do but row.
Back in the dying light of dusk, Rhom had ignored the kids’ demands to catch Gabby, instead leading them to the eastern edge of the Talons with her tentacles. There, she dredged up a half-digested mehkan boat carved from a giant seed husk for them to use. The tentacles pointed them toward their destination—a cluster of dark buildings atop a cliff in the hazy distance. Then Rhom sank into the flux.
Now, after hours of rowing, the kids were spent and frozen from the wind. They tumbled among the silvery waves, gobs of the toxic liquid metal splashing into their boat. Phoebe’s head felt like a rock that had been split open with a pickax, and blood kept oozing into her eye. Her grip on the oars was slipping, but she kept on rowing because the heat of exhaustion kept the cold from drilling down into her bones.
The sky was black and cracked with interwoven stars. Looming darkly on the horizon was a titanic mountain range. Beyond that, a breathtaking and infinite wall of gray, like a curtain drawn across the world.
The Shroud—the boundary between this life and the next.
The thought of what lay beyond it chilled Phoebe even more. A vast unknown swirling with…what? Spirits? Embers?
Flux waves shattered across breakers just ahead. The sea had pushed them down the coast, so they were a ways off course when a dark green beach came into view.
Their boat ground ashore. Phoebe was thrown forward, and Micah was nearly tossed over the prow. They steadied their ringing heads and towed their sad vessel onto the ore. Micah pointed inland to an outcropping where they might take shelter from the wind. They stumbled up the rocky beach and collapsed into the cranny, away from the brutal, biting cold.
They ripped their masks aside and heaved for air.
“That…totally…sucked,” Micah huffed.
Phoebe confirmed his observation with her panting breath.
He looked over at her and blanched. “Holy crap, Plumm!”
“What?” she gasped, trying to sit up.
“Your face. You’re bleeding, like…everywhere.”
She wiped her forehead, and pain screamed back at her.
“Just lay back, okay?” he said, wadding his gloves under her head like a pillow. He pulled off his hard-shelled field bag and withdrew the Med-i-Pak. “Hope you don’t need stitches. I ain’t so good with a needle.”
The thought of Micah sewing her up made Phoebe nauseous.
He dug out a Wackers bar. “Take it.”
“Ugh. I can’t eat another one,” she said weakly.
“You gotta,” he said and pulled out a packet of antiseptic wipes. “You lost a lotta blood. You’re gonna need energy.”
“You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Nope. But it sounded good.”
Phoebe nibbled the candy bar as Micah dabbed at her wound. It hurt, but he was being gentle so there wasn’t much to complain about—other than the fact that it was Micah doing it.
His mouth moved, then closed, then opened again as if he had something he wanted to say.
She looked at him. “What?”
“Nothin’,” he said defensively. “It’s just…I just…”
“Spit it out.”
Micah avoided her eyes. “Margie basically raised me,” he mumbled. “She took care of me when I was sick and stuff, fed me off her plate. She always protected me from Pa. Margie was the only one who…who ever fought back.”
His eyes were distant.
“She pulled his own gun on him a coupla times. That usually shut him up. That’s why she taught me how to shoot. He didn’t stick around long enough for me to ever draw on him, though.” Micah chuckled morbidly to himself. “Too bad.”
He squeezed ointment on a bandage.
“So when Gabby said she knew Margie, trained her and stuff…I couldn’t take the idea that my sis might be working for the Foundry too. Just like…just like your dad. The only two people who were ever good to me.”
Micah looked at Phoebe, his eyes foggy. He eased the bandage onto her forehead, careful not to touch the wound. She studied him, a lump forming in her throat.
“It’s not an excuse,” he said. “Just a reason. That stuff I said to you, it wasn’t right. I’m sorry, Phoebe. I can’t take it back, but I can promise that it ain’t gonna happen again.”
She nodded.
He closed up the Med-i-Pak. “Is that any better?”
“Yes,” she rasped. “Thank you.”
He looked at the half-eaten Wackers bar in her hand.
“You gonna finish that?”
Phoebe and Micah rested for a spell, drank some water from the SCM case, then bundled up and headed out. Micah used his rifle light to guide the way as they mounted the ridge toward the cluster of buildings that Rhom had indicated.
The smoky green beach was like raw quartz crystal, patches of rough ground interspersed with sheer planes as slick as ice. The kids struggled to climb these, scraping a few feet up only to squeak and slide back down again. Coarse white trunks sprouted in clumps, their skeletal branches bearing bronze knitting-needle leaves and seed cones like threaded screws.
Bit by bit, Phoebe and Micah ascended the shore. With the mountains and Shroud at their backs, they found themselves on a peninsula surrounded by the vast Mirroring Sea. A hundred yards ahead loomed their destination.
But as they drew near, their hearts sank. They could see through toppled walls and gaps in fractured buildings. Smoke sputtered out of it like the heart of a volcano. The structures were pitch black, not from shadows but from scorch marks.
The Foundry had already been here.
Phoebe followed Micah’s lead. They stepped over the rubble of blasted black gates to find dozens of collapsed buildings. A single tower stood at the center of the wreckage, like a monument to the fallen. The courtyard was crisscrossed with tank tread tracks and scattered with pale statues.
Micah shined his light on the white shapes.
The kids felt sick.
These were not sculptures. They were mehkan corpses.
Dollop stumbled into the jungle clearing. He struck his salathyl prong on a fallen tahnik tendril. The white spike resonated, and he plunged it into the ore muck.
He had emerged from the flux tide pools before sunfall and fled back into the jungle. All he could think to do was keep trying the salathyl prong, and he had been at it for clicks.
But he was not afraid. After his encounter with Amalgam, he felt whole. He was his own mehkan, and Makina was with him.
He poked around at a lump in the mud.
“Ko-kolchi nuts!”
Dollop dug out a coarse little nugget and bit through the shell. The tender morsel within was wonderfully sweet. He got on his hands and knees and foraged for more. They were everywhere, a trove probably stashed here by a wandering flyntl.
As he dug, he felt the mud slosh and tremble.
Dollop got to his feet, confused.
Then he understood. He leapt out of the way just as the ore exploded in a splatter of muck.
A massive white drill breached the surface. Coiling, striated tentacles spewed out of the hole as a salathyl hauled itself above ground. Trailing behind the ghostly mehkan was a giant black capsule. With a screech, the back hatch twisted open, and a lumbering gohr stepped out, his huge clamp claws clinched.
It took Dollop a second to recognize the mehkan, but when he did, he squealed with delight. “Overguard Tr-Treth!”
“Dent my h
ide!” Treth rumbled, holding a fist over his blood-red dynamo. “Our little acolyte. Never thought I’d see you this side of the Shroud. How can it be?”
“Her ge-gears turn in mysterious ways,” Dollop said simply.
Treth’s black eyes twinkled deep beneath wiry brows. “That they do,” he chuckled. “Well, are you primed?”
“Um, pr-pr-primed for what, Overguard?”
“You haven’t heard?” Treth boomed. He blew out a jet of steam from the vents in his neck and hunkered down, eye to eye with Dollop. “We fight,” he said with a hungry growl.
Dollop looked behind Treth to see two dozen armed Covenant warriors gathered inside the capsule.
“The Ona has decreed,” Overguard Treth said. “No more shall the Children of Ore sit idle. We will make the Foundry bleed.”
“Wh-what about Loaii? And—and Micah?” Dollop asked. “Please. Tell me they have been fo-found.”
“The children are lost,” Treth grumbled, “but hope is not.”
The Overguard placed a massive claw on Dollop’s shoulder.
“It is time to take back what is ours—to return Mehk to our Mother. Will you forfeit your span to save Her sacred machine?”
“I will.” Dollop bowed his head.
Treth growled in approval. “Then come.”
As the Overguard returned to the capsule, Dollop called out.
“Wh-where?” he asked. “Where are we go-going?”
“To where this all began,” Treth barked over his shoulder. “To send the bleeders back from where they came.”
Phoebe and Micah felt the eyes of a hundred dead mehkans upon them. The bodies in the courtyard were plastered with bonding rounds and crystallized in agony, arms outstretched.
The kids shivered as they scanned the grounds. The buildings that hadn’t been leveled were blackened, bombed-out husks. What remained looked ancient, built from large blocks of rough-hewn ore and splintered metal beams, their corners worn smooth by the persistent coastal wind.
Rising above the ruins was a weathered tower, bruised but still intact. It was as good a place to start looking as any.
There was no clear way to reach it, so they looked for a route through the collapsed structures, entering the nearest one through a ragged wound in its side. Though they could not see any flames, it was hot inside and reeked of smoldering iron. Smoke curled around Micah’s rifle light.