Zhe #02 - Chains of Tartarus

by Drew Dale Daniel Bryenton

  Sound came rushing back now, and she could hear people crying and screaming and wailing in the distance. Though her eyes were closed she saw them – fingers clawing at the rubble, bloodshot eyes brimming with tears, the wounded writhing in their dirty bandages...

  The images burned in her head, an echo of something she'd heard and seen at the core of the world-seed. A commonality of human suffering shared by every victim of war and disaster bound up in that great slow heart...

  And a single shred of memory – a place, deep in the equatorial jungle. A man, radburned and dying, his skin blistered raw as he crawled across a tread-steel floor. Fingers stripped down to muscle and bone scrabbled across a fallen keyboard, setting security codes, sealing away a sanctuary for the living.

  CeeAn's eyes snapped open as the knowledge bloomed in her mind, unfurling like a neon flower.

  There was a way out. There was hope, despite the crawling disease which had broken through into the world. And because she'd helped let that foul thing in, it was her duty to cast it out again.

  Lying there, crucified atop a smoking pile of rubble, CeeAn let the Vision roll over her, picking out in a tracery of fire the horror and turmoil of Elysium burning.

  It was time to leave this place. Tonight.

  And she was going to take all of them with her.

  Jaq Hassan was too busy to notice when the flycam poked its tiny head out from the side of his wristwatch. He had no idea that the little machine had changed ownership while he and his buddy Kaito piloted the Kraken down through a tangled maze of concrete pipes and out into the black Atlantic.

  The sensation of its hair-thin legs crawling across his skin was no different to the creep and dangle and drip of a droplet of sweat, and the noise of its ornithopter wings was masked by the hiss and roar of the cockpit's ancient air-scrubbers and puriteks.

  So when the 'cam burst from a vent in the mottled hide of the Kraken and bubbled to the surface he had no idea he'd been betrayed.

  Omnivasive still owned and operated the little steel insect, and the chairman of that corporation had gladly supplied its command codes to his erstwhile allies, the Emerald City Gang.

  As soon as the flycam broke the surface its wings blurred into motion, carrying it up above the toxic waves, up into the dark where Elysium burned like a great viking pyre- ship on the horizon. Arclights and flames burned the belly of the clouds crimson, but it wasn't the visible spectrum which the 'cam needed to fulfill its treacherous duty.

  It spiraled up like a mote of ash, gaining height. As soon as it reached six hundred feet it began to broadcast its position - along with a complete audio record of the last three hours.

  Jaq and Kaito were nailed down tight.

  Down in the R.T, on the edge of the Celestial Kingdom's docks Aitken Straw smiled a lipless, toothy smile behind his plastic mask.

  "Ruby, we've got 'em. Ten miles out, making for a rendezvous with that Pentecostal freak Deut' Jones."

  Lady Alvarez rattled off a string of orders in Cantonese to the C-K longshoremen who clustered around her, then peeled off a fat wad of Slades for their leader - a tall, thin man wearing the archaic costume of a Mandarin scholar. Rather than silk and cotton, this man's outfit was sewn from charcoal riotmesh.

  He was one of the last Celestial shipmasters still tied to the pier - almost everything else which could float was already headed for the mainland. He'd held out for refugees with better currency, and the Gang were pleased to oblige.

  "Leon, Tin Man, get on board. Captain Jiang here is gonna come hunting with us - I guess life as a pirate is just too damn boring for him. And I'm sure that a certain general military draft for all Celestial citizens has nothing at all to do with it."

  The captain bowed, gap-toothed and smirking as he folded his hands into his voluminous sleeves.

  "Lady Alvarez, I am simply honored to assist an outlaw of your stature." He purred that last word with a lascivious leer, his eyes all over her body. "As to my allegiance to the Son of Heaven - I'm sure that the Divine One has many other warriors more worthy than an honest fisherman to protect him."

  Ruby smiled.

  "Honest fisherman, huh? I like that. Honest fishermen don't try and jump their passengers three miles out, and end up as bait."

  She cocked an eyebrow at him, resting her hand on the butt of her railpistol as she cast a critical gaze over the captain's modified sampan. "Shantung Ryu? I just hope she's fast, Jiang. I have to get back here to conclude some other business tonight."

  The Scarecrow packed up his laptop and tugged his greatcoat tight around his shoulders, following at his mistress' heels as she prowled down the gangplank.

  "Believe me, buddy." he whispered to the captain as he slunk past. "That little toy blaster you've got up your sleeve won't even slow her down. Just concentrate on not sinking, alright? I hate the sea."

  The mesh-armored mandarin slid his needle-pistol back into its concealed holster with a jagged grin, showing a clean pair of palms to the crazy gwailo with the plastic

  face.

  Sometimes it was better to just play it safe and leave the piracy to professionals.

  Down in the crushing darkness, in a little pocket of air beneath a mountain of rubble, Abdulafia 330 dreamed. He wasn't sure if his eyes were open or closed - it was just as dark either way. Maybe they'd been cored out of his skull by the black fire of the Worm. Maybe his power had failed already, and he was drifting in limbo, dead....

  It didn't matter. The images kept coming, sleeting through his mind in a mad rush. Even when he tried to focus and meditate, centre his power as the Illuminatus had taught him it made no difference.

  He watched Jhenna fall away from him in slow motion, her eyes wet with tears, her hair streaming out as she dropped through the jagged hole in the floor. Down below her he could see people fighting and dying, explosions like tiny fireworks flickering around the edges of her silhouette. A laminated slab of dead flesh and plastic tubing coiled tight around her waist - the arm of a Cyben, taking her down to hell with it, a ticking bomb fused to its neck. Any second now its timer would run out, and both of them would be reduced to windblown ashes.

  This was the nightmare which clawed and scrabbled at the inside of 'Afia's skull in the darkness of the Pit every night. The one he screwed down tight with drugs and meditation.

  But this time there was a twist. This time the wide-eyed, horrified face falling away from him was different.

  It was CeeAn 187, and the battlefield below wasn't the muddy razorwire scrawl of Reclamation Day. It was a plain of black ice, oily and jagged, from which a billion rotting hands reached out, welcoming...

  He didn't need the services of a psychoanalyst to know what it meant. He'd as good as delivered her into the jaws of the Worm, where the vilest of atrocities were mundane. Compared to that, Jhenna's death was quick and clean. Compared to the weight of that guilt, the tons of burnt plasticrete and steel above him were feather-light...

  Just the thought of it made the rubble heave and shift, powder trickling down into his mouth as he gasped for breath. It took all of his power to keep this little space open, a coffin under a mountain of shattered masonry. Self-loathing could wait, but gravity couldn't. The slab of plasticrete which hung above him was almost touching his chest now. The slightest tremor could crush him flat.

  One more slip and he'd be fleshless, reduced to an electronic trace inside his black crescent. And if that were to fail, its batteries bled dry deep under all that rubble - well, then he'd be gone for good.

  The urge to let it happen was almost overwhelming - wasn't it what he deserved anyway, for being such a fool? If self-sacrifice could bring CeeAn back, he'd have let the vise-jaws snap shut on him in an instant. But what Jaq Hassan had told him was true, much as he hated to admit it.

  They needed him. He was a weapon of war, the sword of the Illuminatus, and tonight of all nights the Ashishim had to know he was on their side.

  Turn that hollow, burning feeling into anger!
Distill it into cold fury and throw it back against the poor bastards who'd try to stand against him. Against the Worm, as he ripped it bloody with his bare hands!

  That was what he lived for now.

  That was why he had to focus, and keep the slippery mess of steel and 'crete around him stable. Kaito had promised that help was coming soon....

  Then he heard it - the sound of howling saws cutting stone. It was right above him, and getting closer with every second.

  "Kayzi - is that you?" he whispered, his voice crackling across the R.T. band. No answer....

  But who else knew where he was? And who else would want to save him? He tried to call up the Vision, to reach out beyond his tomb and see what was

  coming for him. But all it revealed was a scrawl of black static, the psionic trace of the

  Worm.

  The terrible answer sprung to mind as he felt the rubble shift again, the great block of plasticrete above him pulling up and away. The enemy knew where he was - and as he'd so painfully experienced it knew how to subvert Kronos' machines just as well as the Ashishim. Hadn't it promised to make him one of its Exalted? Abdulafia wasn't sure he could survive another fit of mind-rape from that black disease. He'd rather join his fallen comrades in death.

  The sound was on top of him now, blurring the darkness in front of his eyes...

  The tips of five saw-toothed fingers stabbed through the shuddering slab of 'crete, claws designed to squeeze armored vehicles down to scrap. That thing had to be a full-sized warmekan, a Terminus Separatist tank-hunter! Those beasts hadn't been seen since Reclamation Day, and even then they were a rarity. Either Kronos was fighting back, or it was already utterly sequestrated...

  Afia was taking no chances. It was foolish trust that had put him in this living grave - he couldn't just assume that the machine digging him out was sent by Kaito Kayzi.

  More than that - he felt the need to kill. It cut to the very core of his being, a blood-drunk sensation he'd never felt so keenly.

  The tankhunter hoisted its burden up on the end of its rusted claws, a chunk of masonry trailing scorched wires and shattered pipes. Without Kaito inside its head the brute machine could only follow his last orders - proceed to this exact spot amid the rubble and dig straight down. It had been at work for fifteen minutes, shifting tons of debris with its pair of saw-toothed battle fists. Already the pit it stood in was twenty feet deep, and each fresh piece of spoil it wrenched free had to be cast up and over the lip, slithering away down the slope and into the oily waters of the Atlantic.

  Its optics glitched as the plasticrete chunk came loose - something all dirt and blood and seething power flickered across its vision in a blur. Strange wavelengths of energy tore through its electronic brain, forcing its overtaxed servos to grind to a halt.

  The tankhunter's combat systems were locked down - a precaution the Kayzi had thrown in to make sure it didn't just blast the remains of the Valley View into a smoking crater. So the ancient machine could hardly defend itself when Abdulafia attacked, his fists slamming into its steel carapace hard enough to leave knuckle-printed dents.

  No matter that this thing had saved him. No questions, just the kill.

  The Ashishim struck once, twice, hammer-blows which rocked the tankhunter back on its heels - then he spun in the air, kicking off its chest and away up the side of the pit. For a second he was sprinting horizontally on the wall of rubble, blindsiding the machine with speed. Then he launched himself back in, his palms splayed open around a coruscation of energy.

  Time slowed to a crawl as he came down on the warmekan from above, bringing his fingers together, focusing that tight blaze of power into a blade...

  It sliced into the machine's neck three feet in front of him, so that when his fists clenched together and struck they knocked its head from its shoulders. Severed cables spat sparks as the great machine collapsed to its knees, a battered chunk of plasticrete still fused to its claw. Abdulafia landed behind it in a crouch, his dreadlocks swinging wild. The smoking casque of the mekan rolled to a stop between his hands in a puddle of coolant, its camera eyes glassy and dead.

  Oh, he was glad to be fighting again! Down in the dark he'd been prey to emotions, the most dire enemy the Sword of the Illuminatus could ever face. He'd been born in a crucible of slaughter, shaped by sacrifice, and everyone who came close to him was fated to die. What had Jhenna meant to him? What had any of the dead meant - Dante, Siro, Matthias, Jorge...even CeeAn?

  It was his job to witness their deaths. It was his job to turn the messy slew of emotions which churned in his head into pure, cleansing rage. If he was cold to his fellow operatives, if he was distant and inhuman and mechanical, it was for that reason alone. Battle erased their accusing faces, drowned the memory of them under the burning intensity of the now.

  'Afia gritted his teeth and brought his fist down on the impassive face of the tankhunter, stoving in its metal head with one blow. Where were the rest of them? Where were the armies he felt that he could pull apart with his bare hands?

  That's just what it will take to forget her, whispered a traitorous voice in his head.

  All that death and more, a graveyard full of corpses...

  He needed something to turn his rage on, before it burned him down to ashes. Behind him he heard the sound of applause.

  The battle-clone turned his head slowly, his eyes narrowed down to razor slits. His face was blackened with soot and crusted with dried blood, while his mane of plug-tipped dreadlocks hung in an an oily tangle. His mouth was locked in a feral snarl as he turned to face his one-man audience, a black silhouette perched on the rim of the crater.

  "Excellent work! What a show! I'm sure I've never seen the likes of it before." called the shadow. "I gotta admit, that's one hell of a way to show your gratitude! And the way you took its head off! Genius!"

  "Friend, you've picked the wrong time." grated Abdulafia, rising to his feet with his fists balled at his sides. "I've got work to do tonight, and you really don't want to be part of it."

  For a sliver of a second the man's smile showed up against the gloom - a white slash across his shadowed face. 'Afia couldn't see him clearly at all - even his outline seemed blurry, hazed around the edges.

  "Nonsense! I think you'll have plenty of time for me and mine, Mister 330. In fact, I've been waiting for you to pop up for quite a while now. You can call me Reine. Exalted Reine."

  There - the noise of debris clattering and rolling down the slope behind him. Abdulafia spun on his heel, scanning the shrunken horizon of the crater's edge. There were figures moving there, misshapen things with mantis arms and bulbous heads, a puppet-show grotesquerie against the lights of the burning city.

  Who else knew his location? Why, these things, of course. And he'd gone and ripped the head off of Kaito Kayzi's warmekan for them...

  "I hope you brought enough of those things to stop me, demon." growled the Ashishi. "Because if I get through them to you, I'm gonna teach your master a whole new lexicon of pain."

  He could see the Exalted One more clearly now - it was faceless except for its unnaturally wide grin, a man-sized hole in the world suffused with inky shadows. On its bullet head it wore a perfectly normal grey panama hat, and in its dripping hands it carried a pair of damascened machine-pistols.

  It giggled madly, like a drug-twisted child.

  "Oh, He'd love that, Ashishi. He knows that you're almost one of us already - can't you feel it? You really do have an affinity for pain. I can see it in your mind.... You'll break, just like the others." For a second the eyeless homunculus cocked its head to one side, as if listening to an invisible whisperer. "Just like your old friend Edward Tsien, in fact! I hear he's just switched sides, Abdulafia. Why not do the same? It would be a crying shame to lose you as well as pretty little miss CeeAn...”

  Lose her? Did that mean she was dead, or that she still resisted the Saprophytes? Just the sound of her name on those rubbery black lips made 'Afia twitch with the urge to sla
ughter...

  "Oh yes, petal. We know your mind, my Lord and I. Such a complicated little machine you are..."

  He could feel a sliver of the Worm in his brain, pulsing with his heartbeat. He knew that the Exalted could feel it too.

  "You were born for this, you sick piece of meat. We know all your tricks, because deep down you're already ours!"

  As if to punctuate its point Reine fired off a burst of bullets from its left-hand pistol, the muzzle-flare reflecting from the oily surface of its skin. Abdulafia bent them aside with a gesture, scattering a handful of hot lead across the crater wall behind him.

  "See? So predictable! Just join us, and all this can be ove"