Player, looking for a way to save face, assisted Airy’s efforts, from some distance back, with his elemental magic, commanding the winds to blow the fog she was producing around the intended targets. The test subjects were rusting up from the reactions, or collapsing under their own weight, even as they were leaping savagely and ineffectively at the levitated entourage overhead.
Insects were rising up out of the woods next, in swarm numbers—and they would have no problem reaching Victor’s airborne forces.
Meanwhile, Aeros was taking in the fact that the creatures, though hobbled, seemed to be mending themselves.
He attacked next, using the same technology his wife had in her brain, but in his case, the paper-thin, porous, flexible computer chips lined every cell of his body. And they served to fabricate nanite swarms rather than chemical mixes.
His tiny robots, too small to see, flew out after the insects headed their way, even as they reinforced Airy’s chemical compounds being used against the ground troops.
The enemy forces were short-circuiting further. But the assessments Victor was making in his mind with that mathematical physics acumen of his—if Naomi could read anything of them from his face—suggested the prognosis for a desired outcome to this conflict wasn’t good.
He turned to Surf. “Find Soren now, and imprison him in that board.”
Surf darted off, his eyes closed, as if he could better attune to the source of the dark forces arrayed against him that way.
Superman saw that Surf was getting into trouble. A good distance off, Surf and his levi-board both seemed to be caught in a tractor beam. Suspecting Surf had found Soren, Superman flew off to assist Surf; he must have known Victor wouldn’t bother to mobilize an asset he considered useless to begin with. And he was right on both counts; Naomi could tell it was Soren’s way with nanites that was neutralizing the nanites of Surf’s hoverboard.
Naomi watched as Superman dove down, disappearing into the forest, then flew up with Soren in one hand, strangling him in midair. Naomi shouted, “No!” but she was too late. Soren’s body went limp in his hands. Superman threw him into the hoverboard where he was trapped inside, between dimensions.
The animal and insect resistance ceased.
The forest quickly returned to normal, the animals licking their wounds. Natura was already rushing to their sides to nurse them the rest of the way back to health.
“Get him back to our lab,” An instructed Surf as he flew back toward the group.
Ry, completing her thought for her, said, “We’ll try the hibernation chamber first. If that doesn’t work, we can try the cryogenics chamber next.”
Victor nodded. Reading Ry’s mind, he opened a portal to their lab, which Surf sailed through to deposit Soren in the tank.
The rest of Victor’s team was jumping through the portal, led by Airy and Aeros. Ry and An lingered only to assess the dead insects in their hands, scanning with bionic eyes for any information they could suck out of them, before the last of them turned back into ordinary insects. Then, there was no point in lingering further, and they were ready for the portal.
“A little help?” Ry said.
Player waved his hand and sent Ry and An sailing through the portal with his wind magic even before Victor could react.
Victor was busy redressing wrongs with Superman, who now hovered beside him. “So, you’re the real deal then, not just the closest approximation to Superman the transhumanists could pull off with their current technology?”
“You only bothered to scan me now?”
“It would take the real Superman to crush the beast’s throat, and you elected not to. Though at the time I was scanning you to decide what alternate reality to best dispatch you to.”
“The one who provided the mathematical physics underlying the true Superman to the engineering wizards of the Transhumanist district and the Superheroes district…. He believed he understood enough to allow me to do what the comic book hero does, minus the problem with kryptonite; and, well, I can’t fly so fast I can spin the world the other direction, or slip through time, and some of the sillier abilities you see in the movies, but….”
“It appears I owe you an apology.”
“No, you were right about me. It’s just that you needed some muscle just then, while your brainiacs come up with a more long-term solution.”
“Thank you, in any case.”
Superman smiled. “It pains you even to say that. You definitely have great affection for this Soren, even if you still have none for me, and can only fake it, poorly. I’m frightened to ask what you see in him that earns such loyalty. Though if he keeps going down the path he’s on, that may cease to be such a mystery.” Superman flew off—and not through the portal. Whatever was going on in that lab, he sensed he could contribute little there.
Victor turned to address the rest of the group. “The rest of you should come, learn what you can from my people. I’m curious to find out what the hell they’re up to myself.”
Naomi levitated herself through the portal with her telekinesis, and Player flew through with his swirling tornado about his person. Stealy managed to vault off the incline of one of the pyramids dotting the forest, the one closest to the portal, sailing through it on the motorbike.
Natura would not leave her animals.
“A little help!” Lar’s voice rang out from the forest floor.
Victor glared at him and growled. “That fool will likely find the one thing to trip over in that lab that will destroy every experiment.”
Naomi sucked Lar through the portal with her telekinesis. “He’s our one brainiac, Victor, and he needs to be here.”
Victor clamped down on his jaw and sailed through his own portal before shutting it down.
***
The lab the scientists from the Transhuman district were using had that ultra-modern look about it. Clean. Antiseptic. Spacious. If it was surreal it was in that Picasso looked to have a hand in things with its Cubist-inspired minimalism. High cathedral ceilings allowed plenty of light. Work stations were well spaced from one another to allow for concentrated study in a given area without interruption from the other projects underway.
The room seemed as much shaped by light and color as by the physical arrangement of objects. With a thought or the passing of a hand over a control, the room could easily be reshaped by how the play of light and shadow carved out different chunks of space.
Ry, one of the two transsexualists from the Transhumanist sector—where they now were—said, “Airy is already studying the cabbalistic patterns inscribed in the nanites I scanned for her.” She pointed to the work underway and the images on the big screen at Airy’s station. “Once we get our cues from her, An and I will start to manufacture nanites that might serve to weaken Soren enough for us to neutralize him, even as he grows more powerful.”
“She has a degree in archeological cabbalistic science?” Lar asked, picking up one of the runes inscribed with cabbalistic shapes adorning her desk, for now gathered together like candies in a glass bowl.
“The equivalent of several, though we don’t do PhDs in the Transhumanist sector. Since our children are born with the equivalent of hundreds of PhDs at birth, the degrees themselves became meaningless some time back. Our advanced access to the web—which cuts through most firewalls—makes data-mining anything short of the entire sum of human knowledge a bit of an aborted exercise, further invalidating the meaning of degrees.”
Lar gulped, dropped the rune back into the bowl as if it was suddenly a hot rock. He’d gotten defensive at someone making inroads in an area he considered to be his specialty, opened his mouth and voiced a remark that was meant as a rebuke, only to have it thrown back in his face with the force of a stone hurled by Goliath against David.
Naomi thought he was being silly in any case. Lar, as Cypher, could still do things these transhumanists could never do. He could access realms of magic, for one—and venture places the transhumanists would never go. Thei
r access to cabbalistic science would remain solely intellectual and analytical in nature—which was a far cry from wielding cabbalistic magic. Furthermore, Lar’s way with linguistic systems meant he might still decode the real language of the cabbalistic nanites being used to communicate back and forth with Soren’s mindchip and the beast, long before anyone else. She pumped these realizations into his head psychically, so he could stop downing himself. He smiled back at Naomi, perking up, and nodded back at her, sharing their little secret.
“What do you expect this thing to accomplish?” Victor asked, his face pressed up against the entirely transparent metal-glass of the hibernation chamber. Inside it, Soren was illuminated in a pale blue light. He floated in the clear liquid.
“It will slow the chemical reactions taking place inside him,” An explained. She was fussing with the controls on the tank, this area of expertise obviously falling to her more so than to Ry. “And in so doing, we hope, frustrate the beast’s ability to take control of Soren. If we’re successful, he should awaken and be able to communicate with us through the tank, which can read his brainwaves and translate them for us. We’ll be communicating with his mindchip, of course, where his synthetic consciousness is stored, but the beast will no longer be able to block Soren’s access to it, and hopefully to his body.”
“In theory, that’s what should happen,” Ry said. “If he doesn’t do well enough in there, we’ll move him to the cryogenics tank, freeze all biological activity entirely. It’ll shut down the beast, but it’ll also shut Soren down.”
“At least until we can modify his mindchip to work at those temperatures,” An added. “Another of my specialties, which I’ll get to working on as soon as I’m convinced I’ve got the settings right on this tank.”
Victor nodded, looking pleased. He turned to glare at Aeros. “You have anything more useful to contribute? Or are you as useless now as that flying muscle man?”
Aeros took a deep breath and crossed his arms defensively. He was no longer hovering off the ground, as was his baseline. Neither, of course, was his wife, who was too busy working the controls of her console. “I was hoping to take a backseat from here on out. But if it comes to it, I will be able to synthesize any cabbalistic nanite hybrids that Ry and An design, probably even faster than they can, if we have no other choice, in order to field the solution in time. You understand my hesitation to involve myself further.”
“Yes,” Victor mumbled, lowering his eyes, “though it’s still worth a try.” His tone was grave but earnest.
Aeros addressed the rest of the group, filling in the blanks Victor didn’t care to, “The beast might well turn my synthesizing abilities to its end and, releasing nanites in those kinds of numbers, could subsequently take control of all of you. Neither team of players would be able to field much resistance, except perhaps for you, Victor, who can manipulate space-time well enough to slip beyond the beast’s reach.”
“I really didn’t need the explanation, Aeros,” Victor bitched, “nor did I need the others appreciating the ends to which I’d go to restore my friend to health. Still, if you’re right, let’s hope I can act swiftly enough to save the rest of you as well.”
EIGHTEEN
Artemis tracked the invisible snakes with the two-foot girths and the twenty-foot lengths hunting the wizard that was on the run for his life. The snakes’ flicking tongues seemed to be attuned to this specific wizard. They ignored all other forms of prey. Were it not for Artemis’s huntress’s eyes, she would have been just as blind to them; but the snakes phosphoresced for her against the darkness of night, like soap bubbles in a tub. Still, it wasn’t just their supernatural size and invisibility that was a concern. They were genetic hybrids—meaning these things were created by spirit science—a weird hybrid of fringe science and magic that, customarily, only the Dr. Frankensteins of Shelley’s London messed with. And it was doubtful they’d created this; even the more deranged ones would have had little use for them.
Britomartis, her fellow huntress, tracking alongside her, was getting tired jumping rooftops—her huntress’s hardened body the only thing keeping her from getting shin splints on landing and providing the strength in the legs to make the otherwise impossible leaps from building to building to keep up with those snakes. That didn’t stop the curses from escaping her lips, however.
The wizard couldn’t keep this pace up for long, even if they could. “You do appreciate the irony,” Britomartis said. “That’s allegedly the most powerful wizard of this district. We don’t usually get called in to rescue his kind; put one down, maybe.”
Artemis grunted. Her friend was the deep thinker of the group, the fretter, the chatterer. Artemis supposed she’d chosen her because there just wasn’t enough going on in her own mind most nights to push out the loneliness. Their chosen profession meant few wanted their company, and few men felt safe around them, even if all they sought were carnal pleasures.
Artemis loosed an arrow, which flew straight to the snake’s head just as it was bringing its fangs—its mouth spread wide—down on Augustus. The arrow caught the snake in the brain and put a quick end to it. Once dead, it lost its invisibility. Perhaps because, that way, even dead it could still put the fear of God into people.
Britomartis put an end to the snake Augustus was running headlong into—the reptile’s mouth spread wide—as if Augustus was only too keen to see if that was a tunnel of love rather than a digestive tract.
The wizard stopped dead in his tracks from the shock of his mistake, losing more time against the rest of the encroaching snakes. He had no choice now but to turn around and face the music.
He swirled about on himself and tried his magic. He materialized a giant spider of pure energy, etched in an orange-gold. The hairs of the arachnid alone, bristling on what looked to be the prehistoric ancestor of a tarantula, were enough to give pause.
The spider quickly spun an energy web. The first two snakes bolted straight through it, the net slicing them to shreds.
The other snakes pulled up short. The spider didn’t wait for them to bypass the web. It jumped after them showing as much prowess for jumping as for web weaving. As it dove for the first snake, its venomous bite put an end to the snake’s invisibility. And the knife-like talons at the tips of the spider’s legs put an end to what was left of the snake’s life.
The spider hopped off the dead snake toward his next target, but was met mid-leap by a lunging snake that devoured him whole instead, gulping him down. Then the wizard watched impotently as the remaining snakes jutted through the spider web without being affected this time.
The wizard was on the run again.
“At least we know he isn’t a coward,” Britomartis said.
“I never imagined as much.”
“Yeah, I guess you don’t get to his level except by facing down a lot of nasty types. At least now I feel like he deserves our protection.”
“We’re killers for hire of anything supernatural. Since when are we so high-toned?” Artemis said, taking the leap off the latest rooftop in sync with her partner. Both women were communicating through panting breaths, puffing out the words like a chugging locomotive.
“Since that bitch Dracus got possessed by the Dark Matter Man, and suddenly bad ass women aren’t so much of a thing anymore. She’s robbing the brand of all sex appeal.”
Artemis smiled absently, her mind still too focused on the problem at hand to take Britomartis on.
They loosed their next arrows in sync as well—from mid-air, before landing back on the roofs. Both arrows caught their snakes and two more dropped away from the chase, dying on contact. The huntresses did a backflip next as they continued running forward to put an end to the snakes coming up behind them. “Is it me, or is everyone fighting a war on multiple fronts these days?” Britomartis bitched.
“Too many creatures that come out to kill in the darkness, not enough time to take them on one at a time.” Artemis glanced up at the full moon in the dead of night, wi
shing for once they could count on the werewolves doing more good than harm—perhaps by taking out some of these snakes.
“And when we run out of arrows?” Britomartis checked her satchel and found it empty. “A little late coming in on cue with that question.”
Artemis loosed her last arrow, glad to see it worked. One more snake down. “Good thing we thought to infuse each tip with a different magical potion, the way those snakes learn to neutralize the weapons of their attackers.”
“Still doesn’t address our latest dilemma.”
With both girls still sprinting side by side, Artemis said, “We’ll solve it the same we we’ve solved all the others.”
Both huntresses leapt off the latest building.
“You mean, impulsively and suicidally,” Britomartis replied.
They dove down onto the snakes below, straddling them, and riding them like bucking bulls as they reached for their knives. “Is there any other way?”
Artemis jabbed the knife in the snake’s skull and pulled back, then ripped the skull casing off, cutting out a piece of brain for herself and chewing down on it. “Well, that’s clearly not the part that does much,” she said, the snake not slowing significantly.
Shooting up the streets of the Victorian London sector of Syracuse, they were getting more than a few strange looks from the oil-lamp-illuminated windows where Victorians were putting on display their insufferably boorish parlor room dramas—until Artemis and Britomartis came along. Artemis did her best to smile at them as she skirted past their glass portals to the outside world.
Britomartis jabbed her two knives, one in each hand, into the eyes of her snake. That caused it to pull up so violently she got thrown. The snake following behind swallowed her whole without slowing. She in turn sliced her way through him from the inside, without missing a beat, then stepped out of the snake suit.
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