D'Arc

by Robert Repino

  She arrived at a small nest of branches and leaves, where her rifle sat mounted and ready to fire. D’Arc knelt in position as Orak rounded the bend. The fish-head’s camouflage adapted quickly, blending with the dirt. It would not save her—the trench was too narrow for D’Arc to miss. When Orak saw the barrel pointed at her, her eyelids blinked, first the inner transparent membrane, then the outer lid.

  D’Arc pulled the trigger. A fireball bloomed from the muzzle, sending out a shock wave that levitated the flowing water for a split second. The round pierced Orak’s chest plate and exploded from her shell, taking muscle and bone with it. The force of it lifted her from her feet and dropped her in the stream. The creek flowed green with her blood.

  D’Arc unsheathed her sword. Gripping it with both hands, she approached the wounded creature. A thin column of smoke rose from the bullet hole in Orak’s chest, giving off the charred stink of burnt skin. The gills flapped as she coughed up the blood-tinged water.

  D’Arc pressed the point of the blade under Orak’s chin.

  “How many of you are in that bunker?” D’Arc asked.

  Orak let out a high-pitched squeal. Definitely a fuck you.

  D’Arc swung the blade at the wounded tentacle, the one she cut during the flood. A pink gash split open, about a foot from the stump, nearly severing the limb entirely. Orak tried to lift it, only to find that the rest of the tentacle remained on the ground, attached by a few strands of flesh. D’Arc pressed the blade to Orak’s throat.

  “How many?”

  D’Arc considered the possibility that the fish-head simply could not understand her. But Orak’s eyes gave it away. She hissed at D’Arc, probably cursing the day the first mammals scurried about on the jungle floor, plucking scraps from the bodies of dead dinosaurs. For Orak, D’Arc was the monster, the abomination.

  D’Arc raised the sword and slashed the creature again and again, grunting each time. The blade chopped off another tentacle, along with chunks of armor and raw flesh. Orak let out a series of guttural clicks and groans, like Morse code in reverse. The sword grew heavy, and D’Arc’s fatigued muscles locked when she tried to lift it once more. By then, another severed tentacle spasmed on the ground, while Orak’s body leaked from multiple slash wounds. Her right claw hung by a few tendons at the joint.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” D’Arc said. “I just want to get my friend out of there.”

  Orak stopped clicking. “One,” she said.

  “One?”

  “First of Us. All . . . That is left.”

  D’Arc sheathed the sword and lifted the rifle from its nest. “I know you’re hurt. But you’re coming with me to the bunker.”

  Orak rolled painfully to one side. Once she stood erect, cradling her wounded arm, she stared at the debris lying about. Tentacles, patches of blood, chunks of carved flesh.

  “You make a noise, if you give them a signal, I’ll make you bleed,” D’Arc said. “And if anything happens on the inside, I use this.” She patted the nerve-gas canister on her belt.

  They marched through the woods to the unkempt lawn. Orak limped a few feet ahead, leaving a trail of smeared blood in the long stalks of grass.

  A musty odor wafted from the entrance of the bunker, where a long hallway sloped underground. When Orak hesitated, D’Arc poked her with the muzzle of the rifle, still hot from the bullet. They marched into the unnatural fluorescent light, the overheads reflected on Orak’s shiny skin. At the end of the tunnel stood an open door, where D’Arc could hear computers humming, and a steady pinging noise. D’Arc pinned Orak to the wall, keeping the barrel trained on her head. She peeked inside. Dozens of computer monitors gave off a strange aura. On the giant screen mounted to the front wall, numbers endlessly scrolled upward. D’Arc’s nose followed the ammonia vapors until she saw Taalik standing behind Mort(e) at the main computer terminal. Both of them were lost in some kind of trance. Mort(e) seemed to dangle from the monster’s claw fastened to his neck. Even the Warrior could be subdued, defeated, left gasping and shivering. Even he could become old and weak. Everything D’Arc believed in could fall apart if given enough time.

  From this angle, D’Arc could not get a clear shot without hitting the Old Man. Then again, the bullet would go right through him and hit Taalik. She heard the chief’s whisper in her ear. Might be worth it.

  The numbers on the screen came to a halt. Below them, an ellipsis blinked, one dot at a time, waiting for a new page to load. Or for a new command.

  D’Arc pulled her head away from the entrance and leaned on the wall. Across from her, Orak clutched the wound on her elbow joint.

  “Now,” D’Arc whispered, “whether we live or die depends entirely on you. Do what I say, and both you and your mate can walk out of here.”

  Orak blinked.

  With a nudge from D’Arc, the fish-head lumbered inside. D’Arc followed a few feet behind. The large screen went blank, darkening the room for a moment before lighting up again with an enormous image of the globe. Upon sensing the intruders, Taalik woke from his dream state. His tentacles tightened around Mort(e) and raised him from the floor.

  On the main screen, a rectangular box appeared, dividing the globe in half. The word initiate appeared inside.

  “Stop what you’re doing, or I kill everyone in this room,” D’Arc said. “Starting with her.” She jabbed Orak with her rifle. The fish-head sank to the ground, propping herself on her good claw. Her lone tentacle hung lifeless at her side.

  Taalik hissed. Mort(e) hissed along with him.

  “If I have to kill my friend, I’ll do it,” she said. “Then I kill her. Then I kill you. I have enough bullets.”

  The initiate box disappeared. Three red dots hovered around the globe. Beside each one, a set of numbers tracked their movement. The pinging sound increased its frequency, showing that the satellites had come to life. D’Arc considered opening fire on all the computers in the room, but figured it would take more bullets than she had. She needed to save them in case these fish-heads tried to attack. Or if they sent a brainwashed Mort(e) after her to see if she really had the guts to shoot him.

  Taalik chirped in his strange language. Mort(e) mimicked him like a ventriloquist’s doll.

  D’Arc tapped her foot on Orak’s armor. “Talk to him.” When Orak responded with clicks of her own, D’Arc aimed the rifle at the computers and pulled the trigger. One of the monitors exploded, sending debris to the ceiling.

  “No!” D’Arc said. “Talk to him in my language.”

  Kneeling, Orak reached out her claw to Taalik. “Asha,” she said. “Asha speaks truth.”

  Taalik did not respond.

  “Asha sees our people in the ice,” Orak said. “She sees them die. All of them. Yes?”

  “The Queen speaks to me,” Taalik and Mort(e) said.

  “Asha sees. Asha speaks truth! You know! The Queen knows!”

  Though Taalik remained silent, Mort(e) bared his fangs.

  “If you die, I die,” Orak said. “If I die, you die.”

  Taalik shuddered. And then something happened that D’Arc thought she would never live to see. Mort(e) covered his face with his hands and wept, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath. D’Arc did not recognize it at first, and mistook it for laughter—something she saw almost as rarely.

  “The Queen,” Taalik began.

  “The Queen . . . not here!” Orak said. She pounded her claw on her chest. “I here! I am here!”

  On the big screen, three red lines connected the satellites, forming an acute triangle above the North Pole. One by one, the monitors displayed the same image. Another box appeared, this time with the word halo and a clock counting down from five minutes. Below that, a message scrolled out: awaiting confirmation. A cursor flashed beside it.

  “She’s right in front of you,” D’Arc said. “Time’s up. You have to
decide.”

  Taalik growled. Mort(e) tried to squirm free of the tentacles, but they coiled around his throat. The Old Man was fighting to break the connection. Mort(e) struggled to turn his head so he could face Taalik.

  “Who will join you at this place?” the Old Man asked.

  Taalik looked at him. The creature’s face relaxed. The fangs slipped behind his lips. The tentacles uncoiled. Mort(e) fell to his knees, exhausted. Taalik shuffled toward Orak, still prone on the floor. The leader of the Sarcops knelt beside her. Her one tentacle lifted and intertwined with his. A clicking noise began in her throat. Maybe she told him the story of what happened to her, or perhaps it was a more primal message, a sign of recognition. I know you. Where have you been? Taalik clicked in response. His tail swished on the floor.

  Mort(e) walked over to the main computer. Uninterested in the reunion of two sea creatures, he began tapping on the keyboard like some office secretary. D’Arc stepped around the Sarcops to get closer to him. On the big screen, a new box materialized with the word coordinates inside. Beside it, a new series of numbers scrolled across as Mort(e) typed them out.

  “Mort(e), what are you doing? We need to leave.”

  He continued pecking away at the keyboard.

  “The Vesuvius is on its way,” she said. “They’re going to destroy this place.”

  Mort(e) remained fixated on the screen. “Are you still going on the expedition?”

  Her blood went cold. She wasn’t talking to the Old Man anymore. She was talking to some artificial version of him, a piece of software with bad coding.

  With the coordinates logged in, the screen returned to the image of the globe with the triangle floating above it. The halo countdown dropped below two minutes. Beneath it, a simple prompt appeared: commit? y/n.

  “I asked you a question,” Mort(e) said.

  “Mort(e), please. Let’s go.”

  He stared at her.

  “Mort(e), when you linked with the Sarcops, he must have infected your mind.”

  “No. I’ve infected his. Look.”

  D’Arc turned to Taalik. But the Sarcops were gone. A greasy puddle expanded in the middle of the floor, with a wet streak leading to the exit.

  “Now answer me,” Mort(e) said. “Are you joining the expedition?”

  His paw hovered over the keyboard. Still aiming at the ceiling, D’Arc felt her finger curl around the trigger. The countdown reached one minute.

  She swallowed. “Yes. I’m sorry.” The muscles in her arms tightened, ready to swing the rifle and fire.

  His eyes still locked on hers, Mort(e) pressed the button. D’Arc flinched, but kept the barrel pointed in the air. She let him do it. He knew she would.

  One of the three red blips winked out, its numbers freezing in place. Two of the lines connecting the halo vanished. A second satellite disappeared as well, breaking the halo. A single, lonely dot hovered over the pole, dead and cold in space.

  A box appeared with two words in all capital letters. system failure.

  The rifle became so heavy that D’Arc almost dropped it. The Old Man backed away from the computer. As he walked past her, he glanced at her trigger finger. The computers in the room switched off, several at a time. The main screen was the last to shut down. D’Arc listened as the Old Man padded up the sloped hallway. Soon he was gone, and only the hum of the overhead lights remained.

  D’Arc hoped that by the time she made it outside, she would find the words to say to Mort(e). Not sorry, but perhaps something about how she would miss him, how she would return, how grateful she was that he had rescued her from the dirt and helped her to become this new person. She could not make him understand, but she could say the words and hope they would take root.

  As she approached the door, she saw Mort(e) standing stiffly, his face washed in the late morning sun. His ears pointed straight to the sky. D’Arc stepped through the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

  Before she could finish her sentence, she smelled horse manure. And dog hair. And steel and leather. Her finger instinctively caught the trigger of the rifle, but it would make no difference. Standing in a row in the plaza were at least ten mounted riders. Wolves on horseback. They each carried handcrafted swords that curved like scimitars, along with leather armor fashioned from some unnameable beast—maybe some of their own. A few of them wore headdresses made of feathers and claws. Their horses could have stood upright, if they chose to. But as slaves of the Lupine Confederacy, they wore bridles around their heads, with thin bones fixed in their mouths. They kept their gaze squarely on the ground. Glyphs were branded on the horses’ sides, indicating them as property of the tribes.

  The ringleader tugged on the reins. As the horse clopped toward them, D’Arc noticed the red and orange war paint spattered on the wolf’s face, dribbling onto his neck and chest. The handle of a sawed-off shotgun hung over his right shoulder. Among the trinkets and war trophies that festooned his armor, D’Arc noticed a grayish white object dangling from a necklace: a tiny human skull, its jaw removed, the little teeth plucked out. This wolf resembled a demonic Falkirk.

  The rider stood over them for a while. The horse’s wet nostrils expanded with a snort, making D’Arc flinch. The rider did not notice. He seemed interested only in Mort(e), who watched the wolf with red-rimmed eyes.

  The wolf lifted his sword and pressed the hilt to his chest. D’Arc readied her rifle.

  “Mort(e) of the Red Sphinx,” he said. “Welcome to wolf country.”

  “Of course,” D’Arc whispered, lowering the rifle.

  “Hello, Grieve,” Mort(e) said.

  A wolf named Grieve. Falkirk once told her that the Confederates preferred one-syllable verbs, like Hack or Gnash. Perhaps this name referred to what people did after they crossed the wolf’s path.

  “I must ask what you’re doing here,” Grieve said.

  “This bunker is dangerous. The computers inside control a human weapon, from before the war. We disabled it.”

  “The humans were interested in this place during the occupation.”

  “They won’t be anymore. Neither will the fish-heads.”

  “You saw fish-heads?”

  Mort(e) explained that both species wanted to use the weapon. But it was all over, and now an airship was on its way to destroy the entire compound.

  “Yes, I figured,” the wolf said. “You’ll be happy to know that they lifted off before we could welcome them. Is it true that they have a dog for a captain?”

  “A husky, yes.”

  The wolf smiled, using his blade to pick at a chunk of dirt under his fingernail. “So you saved us,” Grieve said. “Is that it?”

  “That would be two that you owe me. Not that I’m counting.”

  Grieve wheeled the horse around so that he could face D’Arc. “You know this cat has a thing for canines, right? I guess he found another dog who likes a little catnip.” The wolf tilted his head as he ogled her. A line of spit dangled from one of his yellow fangs.

  “I’m the only one,” D’Arc said.

  Grieve looked at Mort(e). “Wait. Is this . . . ?”

  “I’m Sheba.”

  The Old Man nodded to confirm it. Even so, the wolf needed some time to believe it.

  “Well, this just warms my heart,” Grieve said. “I mean, I heard the rumors, but I thought it was a story the humans made up.”

  He gestured for D’Arc to come closer. It was pointless—the Old Man could still hear them—but she supposed that the wolf needed to look important.

  “You’re lucky to have this cat,” Grieve said, leaning forward. “That’s a special thing you two have, in this crazy world of ours.”

  Rather than grabbing the wolf by his baby-skull necklace and telling him to shut his mouth, D’Arc said yes, they did have something special.

  Grieve placed his sword into its s
cabbard. “I wish I could say you’re welcome here,” he said. “But all I can offer is safe passage.”

  “That’s all we ask,” Mort(e) said.

  The wolf pulled on the reins and led his horse to the row of cavalry riders. They exchanged some words. A younger wolf objected to letting them go. Grieve told him to shut his mouth, and then said something about the wolf being too young to remember the war. Another one made a joke about interspecies lovers that made his comrades laugh. When they finished, Grieve turned to the intruders and waved them on.

  “I’ll tell my mates about you two,” he said. “Maybe it will inspire them for once!”

  As the wolves laughed, Mort(e) started to walk through the courtyard. D’Arc trailed behind him, still brandishing her rifle. Even after they reached the highway ramp, he would not face her. She did not want him to. Not yet. Not until she was ready to say whatever it was she needed to say. Until then, she would have to be content with reaching out her hand, the one she was never meant to have, and placing it on his arm. He patted her knuckles with his palm, but would not take his attention from the road ahead. They walked like that for a while until she let go and allowed him to take the lead, exhausted but still moving forward, the only thing that mattered.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Water Flows

  Mort(e) and D’Arc leaned on the concrete barrier of the highway ramp and watched as the Vesuvius arrived. The great ship slowed to a hover above the Rama Corporation, its hull bisected by the reflection of the landscape. A puff of smoke burst from the gondola, and a rocket streaked through the air, leaving a comet trail. The missile hit the front of the building. The windows shattered and fell away. A few seconds later, the boom popped in Mort(e)’s ears. More rockets ejected from the ship, striking the building and bursting into columns of flame and smoke, lifting metal and glass into the sky. Another relic of the human age left in ruin.

  As he came down from the union with Taalik, the voices in his head grew quiet, but the echoes remained. His mind felt hollow without this burden, his body spent. He imagined himself as Sebastian again, with Sheba at his side, both hypnotized by the fiery spectacle. Two animals—two children, really—finally coming to accept the true beauty and terror of the world, and how small it rendered them. No matter how much they expanded their horizons, no matter how many lands they conquered, the world would always remind them of who they were, where they came from, how easily it could all be taken away.