Zhe #02 - Chains of Tartarus

by Drew Dale Daniel Bryenton

  If he'd been entirely human, the terror would have consumed him by now. The saprophytes would have swarmed over him, black sperm cells writhing to fertilize a single egg, clawing into his skull to make a puppet of his flesh. But he'd willed that part of himself into oblivion. It was bound up in the images of Toria, of Ceena and Nik, hidden in the tiny part of his brain which was still hot wet tissue. What drove his arm and powered his augmented muscles was the quicksilver mind of a mark-four Cyben, a thing designed from the ground up to slaughter. Sure, its intended targets were the machines of the Blacksteel Unity, things which Tsien had never even heard of, let alone seen. But Kronos had been thoroughly briefed by his erstwhile enemy in the R.T, and he'd designed an engine of destruction which could transform human flesh into relentless killing metal...

  They couldn't sink their hooks into his soul. And without pain and fear to tear open a hole in their victim's psyche, all the Saprophytes could do was die.

  One more - in front of him, impaled through its leering face. Reverse the blade, tuck it back under one arm, and eviscerate another. He wielded it one-handed now, his silver claws lashing out to pluck eyeballs and jaws and hands from the press of bodies.

  Make them respect him. Make these creatures of nightmare FEAR him. And then his plan could take effect...

  Tsien had no idea how many he killed, how many poor suffering human souls he set free before the wall of writhing darkness parted and the saprophytes shrunk back, cowering as if under a lash.

  He plunged the tip of his blade into the concrete, leaving it quivering amid a slick of blood and black rot, then leaned up against its blunt edge, shaking a cigarette from his pack. The last one. Lucky.

  Tsien crumpled the box in one bestial claw, popping his lighter with the other. Bloodsoaked rags fluttered from his massive frame.

  The Exalted who had called off their dogs, and now they faced him alone – Gormann like a bloated black leech with a scarred human face, the dwarf with his single outsized arm dragging in the muck, and the tottering, flayed creature with its peeled-open eyes staring madness.

  “So.” asked Tsien, taking a long drag on his cigarette. “Is that all you assholes got for me?”

  The dwarf cackled wildly at this, somersaulting up on top of its ball of darkness to perch there like a king on his throne.

  “Oh, Quamiss likes this one. Quamiss thinks we should keep him for our pet!”

  “Shut up!” bellowed Gormann, heaving himself forward on sticky pseudopods. “The Lord of the New Flesh put me in charge! Quamiss and Phexx are only here for the meat-harvest. When we crack open the Beltway, then you feed.”

  “Oh, come on Gormann.” said Tsien, struggling to stay nonchalant amid the charnel exhalation of the Exalted One's breath. “Let him give it a try. I've always wanted to beat up a midget.”

  He sauntered forward, as though the trio of monsters were a bunch of harmless street-sprogs.

  The tall, tottering Phexx tittered behind one dripping hand as Quamiss scowled.

  “That's right – come and get me.” mocked the Super-Cyben. “I can just guess why you sold out to this freak-circus, shortarse... the only way you'll ever touch a woman is if she's already dead and rotten.”

  Tweak the threads, the raveled roots of darkness... How had the master of these things bullied and cajoled Tsien? What could it have promised a deformed little man from down in the sublevels?

  Quamiss leaped down from his ball of saprophytic ooze, conjuring a hook-tipped tentacle from it with a gesture. Oh, he'd been just right. Some desires and frustrations were universal.

  “Let me flay him, Gormann!” foamed the dwarf, pounding the concrete with his outsized fist as that black tentacle split and split and split again, becoming a dark anemone of razor hooks. “Let me teach him that owning a tongue is now a privilege!”

  “Yeah, fatty, give the runt a break! We could all use a laugh, right?” Tsien cracked his knuckles, the cigarette dangling from his lip. And despite Sonny Gormann's bellow of rage, it was just too much for the diminutive Quamiss to bear. He flung himself at his tormentor in a spin, his bloated arm pulsing with unnatural muscle and sinew. The fist at its end blurred, a hammerhead of spiked bone.

  Tsien sidestepped it easily, wrapped his claws around the little man's grotesque bicep, then pivoted into a throw. Quamiss hit the ground with his fingers splayed, flexing like an acrobat as he rebounded from the bloody concrete. He flipped backward, his feet together in a spinning drop-kick which struck Tsien in the small of his back.

  The twisted little man was spitting words in some alien language - curses or incantations or both.

  The Super-Cyben had barely managed to regain his footing when the ball of saprophytic darkness under Quamiss' thrall hammered into him, sticky and wet and vile, bringing him to his knees. At once whiplike tendrils of ooze sprung from the ball, lashing his hands and feet tight. Now he was tethered to the heaving mass of that noisome sphere, and the Dwarf was capering in front of him, cutting a little jig of triumph as his comrades laughed.

  “M-mighty m-m-machine m-mman! So easily defeated! So puny is h-his steel comp-pared to the New Flesh!” stammered Phexx, arching over to drip acidic drool into Tsien's face. His hooks and needles glistened wetly as he spoke.

  “Perhaps the Master was wrong about this one. Perhaps he is just meat...” mused Gormann, extending a thick rope of darkness from his shoulder. At its tip budded a chancre of rainbow-sheened oil, which split in a gush of rotten effluvia. A skeletal figure tumbled all limp and unstrung from that sundered pod, black worms of ooze wrapping its bones in an instant. With a twitch of his will Gormann sent it forward to stand over Tsien, to rest one claw-fingered hand on his slumped shoulder.

  “Then let me have him!” snarled Quamiss, shattering the concrete with a blow from his single fist. Behind Tsien the surface of his saprophyte-ball was sucking back into a gaping maw, sprouting butcher-knife teeth and a handful of writhing tongues. “I'll spit out the metal for you to keep as a trophy, Gormann. But he craves the gift of torment! Oh, I can feel it in him....”

  Tsien's head was bowed, the smoke from his cigarette still rising as it burned down to the end. But that fuming core of ash wasn't the only source of heat here.

  Oh no. Deep in his augmented body Tsien could feel the thermal levels rising, as he denied the mark-four system its precious coolant by force of will. After a protracted battle the digital user manual implanted in his skull recommended leaving a full set of thermo-dump vanes extended for two hours. Now his belly seethed with fire, an inner furnace which would soon cause his cybernetic implants to boil.

  Unless he twisted it just right. Like this...

  Where the coils of Quamiss' saprophyte-slave clenched his wrists and ankles the metal skin of the Super-Cyben suddenly blazed white-hot. Acrid billows of smoke roiled out of those foul tentacles, making them wither and sizzle and flail, spreading the fire. The misshapen dwarf shrieked in mortal agony, feeling the pain of his surrogate flesh. He was burning, melting, his bones turned to incandescent iron, and there was nothing he could do to stop it!

  Blindly he lashed out at Tsien, his fist a hammer-strike which could have split steel. But it was caught in a grip like the jaws of a vise – one of the Super-Cyben's own chrome-skinned hands snapping shut around it. Quamiss lashed out with the scourge of pain and terror which was his master's gift, but that too slammed up against unyielding metal, the cold battle-cogitators which whirred and clicked behind Tsien's eyes. Now the grinning cyborg had his shoulder stump in his other hand and he was off, running, coming up off his knees like a sprinter from the blocks.

  Phexx recoiled like a scalded snake, tottering back in horror from the leaping flames of Quamiss' blazing New Flesh. Gormann's tethered homunculus wasn't so lucky – the blaze spread quickly, setting its black skin aboil with seething, popping bubbles. Grave-gases vented in plumes of green and purple fire as it's puppet-master snipped the bond which linked them, letting it melt down to waxy slurry.

  T
hree steps, four, great bounding piston-driven strides. The dwarf writhed in his grip, turning to see where his captor was headed...

  And he screamed. Briefly.

  The notched steel monolith of Tsien's sword still stood proud from the splintered concrete of the Gateway Plaza, and the last thing that Exalted Quamiss ever saw was the flicker of witchfire down the edge of its blade. The body of the Worm's chosen was unnaturally tough, leathery and musclebound, but Tsien had him by the shoulders now, and he pushed down with all his titanic strength, feeling the nanoactive sawteeth of the blade bite into Quamiss' spine. Stinking black blood poured from the little man's mouth as he thrashed in agony, pinned on the rack of Tsien's fists, that relentless edge bisecting him from head to pelvis. The Super-Cyben braced his feet against the concrete, his face twisted into a rictus grin as he worked his butchery. Black blood splattered and hissed and steamed. Quamiss' cries became a gurgle, a rattle...then silence.

  Tsien spat out the smoldering butt of his cigarette, turning to face Gormann and Phexx with one twisted half of their compatriot's body clenched in each hand. They flopped and convulsed raggedly, nerves sparking even as the black oil dried to dust, leaving those pitiful remains mummified.

  “This is for your master!” shouted Tsien, a demon figure all steaming dark blood and blazing eyes, silver teeth and furnace-red thermal vanes. “This is my sacrifice, that he should know me by!”

  Now the two remaining exalted were preparing for battle, Gormann spawning an army of homunculi from blistering boils on his skin, Phexx's tower of flesh splitting into a knotted mess of phallic tentacles. Mewling mouths smacked their lips at the tip of each one. Saprophytes of the rank and file seethed in the gaps between the two monsters, held back by a thread of thought.

  “I will take my place, Lord of the New Flesh!” roared Tsien, casting down half of Quamiss' ravaged body to grind it under his steel boot. “And you will accept me as the cruelest of your chosen! This world will know me as – the High Exalted!”

  And with that he bit down into the dried-out, mummified flesh of his slain foe, tearing off a chunk of tasteless black meat aswarm with the infection of the Worm.

  His last human thought was a silent prayer, to whichever sick-minded gods were listening.

  Let this all work out. Let Gerhard not fail. Let Toria and Nik and Ceena survive... Then the darkness had him, and it was the pain of his transformation all over again.

  "That's all the time I can give him" she said, her hands balled up into fists. "Ask your astrographers! Ask anyone who can feel the Vision! They're coming, Devine, and we've got no choice."

  "The 'lifters are primed, Commander. The volunteers are on board. And the...the Cargo is in place."

  Devine waved the man away with one emaciated hand.

  "Listen, Cee - please. We only get once shot at this. If you get it wrong, you'll only set that thing free again. Feedback could take you! It could eat your mind, and then what?"

  Her eyes flashed anger, frustration - and fear. She knew what the Forge could do to a mind that wasn't ready for it. It took hundreds of willing sacrifices just to stop it, and now they'd try to control it with only one. Hers...

  "Devine, it doesn't matter any more. If those things get to us, do you think we can deny the codes from them? If I fail, we die, and if we do nothing, we die... I - we - need help."

  Devine's face softened, then, fading from stern to careworn in a heartbeat. "You're going back for him, aren't you? For 'Afia 330..."

  For second she wanted to deny it, to hide behind excuses like duty and responsibility. But he'd seen right through her, and she knew it.

  "Yes" she said quietly, unable to look the old fanatic in the eyes "Yes, I am. He lives, Devine. I know he does. And if anyone can use the Forge right, it's him."

  He looked like he might break then, that the pressure had wound him up so tight that all he could do was snap. The sound of turbine engines was rising now, and flak-suited Ashishim bustled around them, navigators and soldiers and techs. Devine wiped his hand over his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his broken nose. Still, nothing could crush the dense, burning core of his faith.

  "Go, then. And if we die, I'll blame you for nothing."

  He took one of her hands in both of his, and bowed his hooded head over them for a second.

  "Commander 187, we're waiting for you on the flight deck! Commander..."

  The junior tech's voice trailed off to silence as he watched Devine straighten up again, a look of wistful sadness in his eyes. CeeAn leaned forward and kissed him once, on the bald dome of his head.

  "Wait for us, Magus. When the change comes, you'll know I chose the right path."

  Then she turned away, hitching a canvas bag of guns up over her shoulder, and climbed up into the cavernous hold of the 'lifter. The noise from the engines cranked up past pain, past sound itself, shaking the cracked concrete of the landing pad as those ponderous craft clawed their way skyward.

  "You led us from the gates of hell, Anointed." prayed Devine as dust and smoke swirled around him, his eyes on two pinpoints of flame against the clouds. "May the light which guided you then be manifest now...”

  DOCUMENT INSERT: MULTIPLICITY ARCHIVES DEPARTMENT

  The Emerald City Gang:

  Wanted for murder, arson, theft, associating with terrorist groups, libel, fraud, drug trafficking, jaywalking and littering.

  Tin Man: A renegade military sniper-mekan presumed to be of Pre-Apocalyptic origin. His master program has been erased, and replaced with the neuromnemonic imprint of a pit feral warlord. Tin Man is habitually armed with a pair of 50-caliber sniper rifles which replace his conventional forearms. Compliance Division troopers are advised that these weapons have an effective range of two miles – use extreme caution when apprehending this subject.

  Scarecrow: An escaped pit-fighter, the Scarecrow is still fitted with a cerebroblocker, to which he has attached a toggle switch. He can go from erudite mastermind to brainless killing machine in an instant, and when his C-block is active he feels neither pain nor fear.

  Big Leon: A mutant from the rad-lands, this giant beast has the mind of a gentle ten-year-old unless goaded to violence. To make him fight, the leader of the Emerald City Gang has fitted him with a ten-thousand-volt shock collar. Big Leon can crush a Cyben to pulp with one hand, and is considered to be the most dangerous of the four.

  Dorothea ‘Ruby’ Alvarez: The nominal leader of the group, Ms. Alvarez is the third daughter of the disgraced House of Alvarez, a fallen clan of Kheptarchs debarred from high society for instability. Her vast and cunningly hidden fortune funds the criminal acts of her associates – a trust fund she gained by murdering her entire family after their fall.

  She is still fitted with the nanonic combat systems of the Razor Clique, and is easily as dangerous in hand-to-hand combat as the Scarecrow.

  DO NOT TRY TO ARREST THESE MISCREANTS WITHOUT BACKUP! TWENTY-FIVE OFFICERS AND THREE CYBEN HAVE ALREADY BEEN ‘RETIRED’ BY THE EMERALD CITY GANG – DON’T BECOME THE NEXT ONE.

  Technician Zhe swum in icy darkness, feeling his way along a submerged section of tunnel with the ping and squeal of sonar echoing in his head. He'd seen the footage of Nyl raising the chrome Ark from its chasm, seen it devour the living essence of three human beings as it powered up. Just like the Forge itself, but in miniature. Surely such a thing, if it were unleashed amid the delicate force-shields and gravitonic fields of a space armada would be as devastating as any bomb...

  With a sample of the saprophyte's flesh he was able to sense the presence of others still alive in the burned-out shell of Elysium. They were few and far between, sluggish or torpid with their master shut out of the world by a razor-thin sheen of crystal. It was all so tenuous - especially now with the fleets of the Unity and Multiplicity closing in like the jaws of a vise.

  The tunnel slanted suddenly, becoming a flight of rusted stairs, and Zhe's head broke the water in a pool of stinking slime. Tendrils and mats of it dripped from the cr
own of his head- all the better to camouflage him from....

  The first bullet nearly took his head from his shoulders – not fatal for a Technician, with his second brain tucked away safe in his chest, but very inconvenient. The second whipcracked past him, supersonic, and he jinked right, cursing his own lack of ordnance. All those pretty weapons, be they ever so primitive, were sloughed away to scrap in the depths of the Exalted at the gates. There was something about archaic guns – so solid, so dependable. So easily adapted into a club when their ammo failed. Zhe couldn't even repeat his little trick from up in space, and materialize weapons from out of his own flesh. Those morphic implants were strictly one-shot affairs, and he'd burnt them out fighting the golems of Everdark. Now he faced the Tin Man alone, with only his bare hands.