The Metropolis

by Skyler Grant

  “We don’t head this far out, but it looks a lot like the outer core,” Blank said.

  Band referred to the distance of any jump coordinates from Band Zero. Band Zero was the core where the Righteous made their home. Higher bands got increasingly unstable in their physical laws. Most of the places we’d traveled had been between the range of twenty and sixty. After band seventy, coordinates tended not to lock as the physical laws got too inconsistent and odd to allow jump travel.

  “What do you mean by sealed?” I asked.

  “The Scholarium roams almost everywhere in search of crystals, but a few regions prove too inhospitable. We lose too many teams and expend too many resources to make it worth further expeditions. So they are sealed and further exploration is prohibited,” Anna said.

  “Although a few malcontents break the rules—as Anna would know,” Zora said.

  “You have to take some risks to get the big scores,” Anna said.

  Sometimes Anna and I were in perfect sync.

  There might be dangers here, things that even the Scholars wouldn’t risk, but that also meant there was power here. Power was something we desperately required. Perhaps this gamble would actually pay off.

  Hot Stuff announced, “If something out there wants a fight, we’ll give it to them. I want all District Lords to contribute forces to defense. I’m also going to need all of you on call in case we meet a threat requiring your power set.”

  I was pleased she was taking to the role of my military commander so well.

  I said, “I’ll be using the airship to further deploy scouting parties. If any of you wish to accompany them, have your agents aboard within the hour.”

  “Before you start looking too far abroad you may want to turn your attention closer. The satellite brought us right here. It probably had a reason,” Mechos said.

  I’d already made my determination this was probably because of the hill being the right size. Still, as recent events had proved, I wasn’t always right.

  I dedicated a science drone to a full study of the hill and surrounding plains.

  13

  Now that we had safely relocated the city and things were stable for the moment, I had some decisions to make—choices that up until now I’d been leaving aside. Given that we were soon to be facing new threats I thought it best to make those choices now.

  First of all, I had three official positions in the city that needed to be filled. Civilian Ruler, Military Commander, and Diplomat.

  Civilian Ruler wasn’t difficult. She was unpowered, however Anna was the Queen of this city by our agreement.

  I went ahead and officially assigned her to that slot.

  You have assigned the role of Civilian Ruler

  Queen Anna Berasi

  Aefwal has gained the attribute

  Intelligence is a Weapon

  The civilian populace when brought into conflict will gain bonuses to their intelligence and resistance.

  I’d never thought of Anna as winning her fights by intelligence so much as by sheer determination. Still, she had originally activated me and often proved insightful. Perhaps I did not give her enough credit.

  I’d already chosen my Military Commander. I just needed to make it official.

  You have assigned the role of Military Commander

  Hot Stuff

  Aefwal has gained the attribute

  Raze

  If any force is reduced to ten percent of their original strength all survivors are instantly exterminated. Aefwal does not just win, Aefwal destroys those that stand against it.

  I didn’t actually like that very much. I often left a few members of an invading force alive because I wanted them as test subjects. Still, Hot Stuff as a weapon was kind of an all-consuming one.

  For the role of Diplomat there was only one option. It needed to be someone I trusted at least a bit, and the job would be helped by having a Compulsion core. Crystal met both those criteria.

  You have assigned the role of Diplomat

  Crystal

  Aefwal has gained the attribute

  Monstrous Diplomacy

  Those of monstrous nature are more likely to regard your city with favor.

  Great. I didn’t think Aefwal really needed any more monsters, but perhaps any new allies were worth having.

  The three positions weren’t the only decisions I had to make. Each District could receive a specialization, including my own. I started there.

  District Zero

  Emma

  You have the following options for specialization

  Research

  Administrative

  Manufacturing

  I’d played multiple roles in my life so far. As a laboratory and as an airship I’d been focused primarily on research, but as a city district—at Sylax’s demand—I’d been focused on manufacturing. As the ruler of a city Administration made a lot of sense.

  However, I wasn’t so much for running the perfect city, although in reality I was all for putting it back together again properly. SCIENCE was the key to that, SCIENCE was everything.

  I selected Research.

  District One

  Crash

  You have the following options for specialization

  Communications

  Espionage

  Research

  I wondered if I would get three choices for each of them. These three were different than the ones I’d had. Obviously each District Lord had their strengths. Crash had the ability to subvert complex systems. While his expertise with computers would be helpful with communications, his true strength was probably in Espionage.

  District Two

  Blank

  Military

  Agriculture

  Manufacturing

  Blank had been a military commander for the Righteous. Without question she was best at that, but was it where I needed her? Hot Stuff was likely to have the military specialization and I’d be selecting it for her. The Righteous also made some of the greatest arms and armor out there designed to contend with the Powered. I needed Blank more on the manufacturing side of things.

  District Three

  Crystal

  Research

  Trade

  Education

  It was interesting how I was getting choices I hadn’t seen before. Trade and Education were both new to me. Given what this city could produce I didn’t see a need for Trade, but Education was intriguing. Sylax was already training the Dust and our city would continue to need skilled workers. I assigned Education and moved on.

  District Four

  Jade

  Military

  Entertainment

  Construction

  Construction was another new option. Different than Manufacturing, obviously. Construction usually focused on the production of new buildings and structures. Manufacturing was all about material goods. I wouldn’t have identified it as a need, but in the long-term I expected Construction to be the most useful.

  District Five

  Zora

  Entertainment

  Finance

  Research

  I’d always thought of Zora as something of a heavy-hitter in a fight. Her forces had done well during the civil war. However, her real interests and capabilities were elsewhere. If Trade wasn’t going to be a major need of this city neither was Finance, but the morale of our people was, so I picked Entertainment.

  District Six

  Professor

  Research

  Agriculture

  Manufacturing

  The Professor would be wasted with Manufacturing. While Agriculture was an interesting thought, and Research was doubling up on something I’d already assigned to my own district, nothing suited him more. I assigned Research.

  District Seven

  Hot Stuff

  Military

  Red Light

  Energy

  More interesting options. Energy in particular intrigued me given our current deficit, but I’d already
assigned Hot Stuff as our Military Commander. I was keeping her there and to fulfill that role properly she needed resources to back her. I assigned her the Military option.

  District Eight

  Ophelia

  Medical

  Espionage

  Administration

  While these were all interesting options there was one area where Ophelia and her people clearly excelled above all others. Much like the Professor, I’d be a fool to assign anything but Medical.

  District Nine

  Flicker

  Espionage

  Research

  Administration

  I couldn’t think of how Administration properly applied to Flicker, who didn’t even wholly exist in our own reality. Espionage and Research both made far more sense. Then again, I’d already assigned both of those and, as absurd as it seemed, there must be some logic to offering the specialization if I was seeing the option.

  I assigned her Administration.

  With the housekeeping done it was time to focus again on the exploration of the new environment.

  14

  I was having trouble bringing our other ships to us. The Graven and the Whimsy were still out there—I had awareness of both through my drones crewing them. What I couldn’t do was get either airship to lock onto our current position with their jump drives. Both were getting errors attempting to use our coordinates.

  On the one level that made sense. Usually anything in this high a band did return that result as a precaution. That said, we were obviously here and, even more than that, the Scholarium had visited in the past. There was no doubt the coordinates existed. It suggested some secret into making the journey that I hadn’t yet figured out.

  I devoted a research team to the project of figuring out why. Neither the Graven or the Whimsy were in danger, I pulled both back from scavenging operations and had them pick up all scavenger teams.

  Our surroundings were a bounty in terms of supplies. My primary material to construct anything was Biomatter and the plains and forests nearby were filled with it. My District Lords, in need of more conventional building materials, would find these hills filled with stone and metals.

  I was working on construction of a new Biomatter harvester when one of my scout teams signaled that they were under attack.

  It was the first report of any trouble since our arrival. I switched my attention to them.

  It was a unit of four drones that I’d sent along the river. They were under assault from some sort of bird. The size of the creature was enormous, I estimated the wing span to be around four meters.

  I wanted to keep the specimen alive for study, but stunners wouldn’t be very effective against a target that size. Still, if I could just keep my people clear of its talons they would eventually overwhelm it.

  I waited until it swooped down and had one of my drones roll out of the way while I unleashed a series of stunner fire. The bird swerved at the last moment and a claw dug into one of my drones, pulling him into the air.

  That changed things. Losing one person, the odds were suddenly further against me being able to stun it at all, not to mention the bird was proving faster than I’d anticipated. I had my drones break out the beam weapons.

  The bird was soaring away with its prize when a beam lanced one wing, digging a burning furrow in the flesh. It dropped my drone who went tumbling into the river.

  He must have died on impact, my awareness fading the instant he hit the water.

  The bird was circling around for a second pass. The injury surely hurt it, but that wasn’t keeping it from flying. My best option was to further focus on the wings. If I could bring the bird to ground then I could use the stunners to subdue it. In captivity, I could set a medical drone to work repairing the damage while I made a study of its physiology.

  My drones opened fire as the bird swept in, fire lancing across its wings even as it reached them and talons disemboweled one drone with a clean swipe. It was strong, more durable than it should be.

  Strong wasn’t invincible though and it was definitely hurting as it came around for another pass. This time the blasts of fire sent it crashing to ground and tumbling forward in a spray of dust. I moved my remaining drones closer, still keeping some distance as they fired one stunner blast after another into its head.

  It took eight at close range for the bird to finally go still, sprawling unconscious. I dispatched a heavy ground vehicle and several workers from Aefwal to help transport it back.

  I had an unexpected mystery to solve. My drone that had been dropped in the river was making his way out onto shore and I still had no communication with him. He looked around with a blank gaze.

  I’d come up against things that could dampen my connection to my drones before, especially power-dampeners.

  Full submersion could very well have removed him from my connection. Interesting. I sent one of the remaining drones to get a sample of the water. The instant his hand touched the river I lost control as well as he stared at the sample tube, confused.

  Perhaps something more like the Ooze of the Oozelord then. Even a touch of that to Anna’s flesh cut my connection with her. They didn’t seem to be suffering under the effects of compulsion however. They were both just confused.

  Well, I had a short-term solution at least. My one drone still standing walked forward and put a stunner shot into both their heads. They went down soundlessly and without resistance.

  I needed to move them into a proper testing chamber.

  I was concerned. Not so much at the river itself, it would be easy enough for me to tell people to avoid it and I could determine other options for a water source.

  Rather I was troubled about other watery weather effects. What if a fog rose from the water? What about the next time it rained?

  For the time being I’d have to be alert to those kinds of weather conditions developing and make sure all citizens had adequate housing to keep them under cover. The city had an extensive underground series of maintenance tunnels. For now I could convert them for transit and when necessary put up roofed walkways. At least until I could study exactly what was happening.

  15

  When the transport arrived at the scene I had workers in environmental suits load the bird and my stunned drones, as well as gather an assortment of samples from the river. I took everything I could find, both water and local plant life, since you never knew what might be the cause of the effect.

  By the time they were finishing up I was getting a signal from another of the scout teams I’d sent in the other direction along the river. They’d found something.

  I switched over to one of their members. What they’d found was both impressive and gratifying.

  They’d discovered a city.

  It was ancient, with rusted bridges hanging haphazardly into the river and the skyline filled with collapsing skyscrapers. These ruins were big, larger than any others I’d found. Individual old world buildings still existed, of course—I’d once been one of them, but this was on a completely scale.

  That this place existed at all and hadn’t been completely picked clean spoke of how isolated it was.

  A bit of exploration revealed the buildings full of skeletons. Whoever was here had died in a hurry. The same had happened in my facility, way back when. The buildings weren’t showing any signs of combat—unarmored structures like this would be clearly marked by weapons fire.

  I sent visuals back to Aefwal. A comm from Mechos was quick in response.

  I told him, “I do hope you aren’t going to tell me again about how little you remember of the past.”

  “You’re in Cincinnati. I mean, the skyline looks a bit different, but it has been a long time,” Mechos said.

  “This would be the same Cincinnati you assured me was destroyed?”

  “It isn’t as absurd as you think. In the Breaking some cities wound up duplicated, while for some it was like they never existed at all,” Mechos said.

  Mechos was just ful
l of information when I wasn’t asking for it. Still, I had no reason to disbelieve him. If this was an alternate version of the Cincinnati it raised some questions.

  “You said it was your belief that the Sword of Light destroyed Cincinnati. Was Vattier involved?” I asked.

  “Not to my knowledge. It was after his time. I know, I know, it is a bit of a coincidence. I don’t have a good answer for you, Emma. I just thought you’d want to be aware”

  On that much he was correct.

  As soon as the report of something interesting had come in I’d called my science drones to the area. They were starting to give me reports on the city.

  The people here had died suddenly and analysis of the bones didn’t suggest any sort of chemical attack. If anything, it seemed they had died of some form of radiation bombardment. Whatever it was I wasn’t detecting any trace of it. My drones were fine and high-energy emissions would have been detectable.

  There weren’t any signs of post-Cataclysm activity. Nothing to suggest anyone survived that singular event.

  I could only draw one conclusion. It had to have been the Cataclysm itself that killed them. That was something else I hadn’t encountered. The cessation of electricity, disease, the Powered—all these had killed a lot of people in the aftermath of the Cataclysm, but for it to have wiped out an entire city something special must have happened here.

  I should be able to identify what. An energy source strong enough to kill everyone would have left residual traces everywhere. My science drones should discover something.