by C Bilici
“Is that—” Stacey wrinkled her nose catching a familiar scent and sniffed the glass. “Nail polish?”
Charlie nodded in response. “With a pinch of Umbra. Hold it up, pan around.”
Stacey did as instructed. As she turned, symbols appeared in the blank space at different sizes, presumably to denote distance, smaller Mhyrr symbols appearing beside them. Smirking, she turned to Jasper and the symbol took up most of the glass. She pointed it down. “I can totally see your hoo-hah.”
“You wish.”
Stacey handed the glass back to Charlie. “That’s pretty cool. Human would be nice, though.” Charlie rolled her eyes. “Preferably English. Did you just come up with that?”
“No. I’d had the idea some time ago but never really had the need to test it given the technology on Mhyrr. Here, well…”
“I get it. Us primitive humans. Look at you, being all Charlie MacGuyver! I don’t think he was a peeping tom, though,” Stacey said, winking at Jasper.
“Please, it’s not like I haven’t seen the two of you all over each other before.”
“How may we assist you, Lunia?” Jasper said, in Ward mode.
“You’re such a suck,” Stacey said, teasing.
“I actually could use your help testing something. That’s why I came.”
The two followed Charlie into the Nexus and looked at an odd sight. Charlie’s avatar, a glistening man in a gauzy loincloth that she’d told Stacey was a Mhyrr equivalent of a fictional Ward superhero, knelt to put down a pile of four white balls, stacking them in a pyramid with a respectful nod of his head. Each was approximately the size of a large basketball. Charlie hoisted one under each of her arms, returned the nod, and left the Nexus.
“Are these what I think they are?” Stacey said to Jasper, staring down at the spheres left for them at her feet. She glanced up and saw the exposed genitals of Charlie’s avatar through the ephemeral material. “You let kids read this?”
Jasper slapped her arm playfully. “They look like they’re made from the Nexus.”
Stacey picked one up and weighed it in her hands, approximating it to be something like a watermelon. She jumped after Charlie to find she had set the two she’d carried on the ground apart from each other. She indicated the ground a distance from those with a nod of her head when she saw Stacey and Jasper arrive.
“Put your balls mirroring mine.”
“There’s a joke in there somewhere,” Stacey said as she and Jasper complied, “but even I think it’s too obvious.” Placing her foot on the ball beside it, she rolled it into a better alignment.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“Maybe not, but why take chances.” She kicked it several times until the whole thing looked square. “There. My OCD gremlin is now happy.” She looked at the identical orbs, each one a perfect sphere that looked the exact same size. “What are we doing with these exactly?”
“These ones? I’m going to reverse engineer the Umbra power blockers so I can crack their shield. The bigger ones… Well, you’ll just have to see.”
“Bigger ones?” Stacey asked with a raised brow.
* * *
Fenton arrived with Vaya later that day from meetings in the Enclave. Stacey and Jasper had finished setting up the shed and house to be decent enough in an idle moment as Charlie went about her tests, then left the two elder Wards in the living space doing whatever it was they were doing.
Her back against a tree, Jasper in her arms, she thought back to the mornings events as they lazed in the sun. Fenton had looked panicked when she’d told him of Despina’s news regarding the hole in the Nexus, Stacey looking at him in what she hoped was clearly an expectant gaze.
“How… How did that—” he’d fumbled.
“Save it,” she’d said. “I was an unfortunate witness to the whole thing.”
He looked puzzled, then alarmed. “You were there? But I don’t reme—”
“No, I wasn’t there, dip-shit! Not there there anyway. I had another fucking vision. The pot, or your creature, or whatever… I don’t know what it is but I saw it.” He had sat in the dirt shaking his head and smoking as she described the events and the creature.
“That— That’s not—”
Despite that he’d clearly been having a hard time dealing with it all, she hadn’t had time for him to have a breakdown.
“I don’t know what the fuck that thing did to you or the Nexus, but I don’t trust it, and Despina is waiting. What are we going to do?”
“Do?” he’d said, looking at her with faraway eyes. “Why would we do anything?” His eyes had shifted about as if he were listening to something. “The Nexus is healed—”
“Yeah. By you fucking it closed with your infected cock!”
“—and that’s what everyone wanted, isn’t it?”
She hadn’t been able to argue with that, and even now couldn’t think of a rebuttal after giving it much thought. Whatever the Shadow Man had done, this thing had undone it. “Well I don’t trust her — it — any more than I trust the fucking Shadow Man. And you know how much that is.”
Fenton nodded, seeming more himself. “Nor I. But what choice do we have?”
“Better the Umbra you know?” Stacey said, then snorted a derisive laugh, shaking her head.
Fenton looked to her, eyes darting about, licking his lips. “We can’t—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret. For now. But you have to tell someone or I will.” His jumpiness seemed to increase at that. Stacey was certain the thing was hiding itself, instructing him to hide it.
“And another thing.” His panic rose. “I strongly suggest you don’t whip out Mr Grey to play hide the salami, because what you have in you… We could be talking apocalyptic level shit!”
He had nodded and agreed with her all the way back to the house where Despina had been impatiently waiting, and Stacey had pretended she knew nothing as promised. Then the two of them and Vaya were talking about leaving for the prison, and Jasper had been standing right there, and things had seemed so surreal in that moment.
“There I go playing mummy, again,” she muttered.
“What’s that?” Jasper asked in a lazy drawl.
Stacey blinked and looked down at her. “Nothing, babe.” She kissed the top of her head, and Jasper squeezed her knee.
Instead, she tried to concentrate on what Charlie was doing, who had rambled at length about the sigils and Wards about the property until even Jasper had zoned out.
* * *
“I’ve got it!”
Stacey started awake, the jerk of her arms waking the girl in her arms. She wiped her chin with the back of her hand, then smeared the gossamer trail on Jasper’s head. “The frig you on ‘bout?”
“Slavic mythology!” Charlie said, beaming over her tablet as she worked.
“Did you give her red cordial again?” Jasper said.
“No. Fucking. Way!”
“The dawn star and the day star,” Charlie said unabashed. “Danica and Zorica.”
“OK, A— How the fuck do you know so much?” Stacey said.
“It’s called reading. You should try it some time.” Stacey held her middle finger aloft, but Charlie just smiled. “There, done.”
“And, B— I repeat, twat you talkin’ bout, Bruce Willis?” Stacey turned to see what she’d been doing, ignoring her for the most part as she’d repeated the same actions countless times. “What the shit did you do?”
Stacey stared at four black puddles where the white balls had been.
“I added Umbra to them. Now it’s finally ready to test.”
“Test? I thought you said you had it, Lunia.” Jasper stood and stretched.
“Oh, that. No, I meant Stacey’s Avatars name. Danica.”
Stacey frowned. “Why Danica?”
“Didn’t you pay attention? Morning star. Your Avatars spiked weapons.”
Stacey shrugged. “Either way, sounds bad-ass. Cheers, big ears.”
“Yes, that.” Charlie swiped at the glass and the blackish grey pools leapt up silently to become a mass of deadly looking spikes.
Stacey didn’t feel anything different, in fact, where previously there had been a thrum of energy in the air, now there was a psychic blank.
“Okay, one of you try to jump. But make it subtle. We’re close to the emitters and I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“I got this,” Stacey said to Jasper with a wink that belied the sinking feeling she felt. An instant later, she was thrown violently back to the ground and Jasper was crouching by her. She was winded, but otherwise unharmed, though Charlie’s wide eyes and grin had her somewhat concerned.
* * *
“Did you see that? That was like some sci-fi shit!” Stacey said, unable to stand still, laughing as she shook her head and fell on the bed.
Jasper laughed, patting her on the shoulder. “Good job, hon.”
“You can both thank me later, or now,” Charlie said. “Both is also a valid option.”
Their laughter echoed through the shed.
A loud screech of metal followed by a calamitous boom that left Stacey’s ears ringing and her heart pounding rocked the shed. Her hand, as well as the other girls’, flew to the door. There was a crack of energy and the door gonged once more. Stacey’s hand shook, sigil at the centre of her palm glowing.
“What in the hell?” Fenton yelled from where he had ducked low in the doorway, his own hand out. He looked up at the new dent in the metal panelling near where his head had been, then looked at Stacey.
“Fuck, sorry!”
“False alarm, stand down.” Charlie spoke into a dark grey strap on her wrist. “I repeat, false alarm, stand down.”
All three of the girls had the same wide band, constructed by Charlie. The devices were roughly a hands length, each bearing a display of broken glass and sticky tape, one to accommodate the curve of the arm and the other to stop cuts and hold the first in place.
“Care to explain? Or did you want to take my head off first?” Fenton snapped, taking out his lighter to relight his extinguished smoke.
“Hey, Fenton,” Stacey said sheepishly. “You got your lighter back. Cool.”
He glowered back at her. “Yes. Someone rescued my belongings it seemed and gave them to Despina.”
“Yeah, umm. Sorry about that. Itchy trigger finger. My bad.” She held up her hand, still glowing brightly.
“You’ve got a new sigil.” His face seemed to soften.
“A couple, actually.” She said, still apologetic.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Charlie said with no little sarcasm, “but we didn’t want to let her go into this defenceless.”
“No. Of course not.” He frowned and took a deep drag. “I should have made the time and not left her that way.”
“It’s cool. Whatevs. But you gotta check these out. Charlie got the shield ass-kicker working!”
“She did?” Fenton frowned and looked about.
“I did,” Charlie said, walking back. “I’d been experimenting on and off for some time with using material from the Nexus as a construction medium. This,” she lifted her wrist and showed it to him, “is imbued with sigils to act as both a close range communication and scanning device similar to the scanners from Mhyrr, but in no way as advanced or powerful, and counters the effects of the shield.”
“I thought the scanners were electronic,” Fenton said, examining the thing. “It has Umbra in it?”
“Indeed it does. I took the Umbra and Nexus matter—”
“I like to call them Umbrium and Nexonium,” Stacey said proudly.
“I told you, I’m not calling them that.
“Whatever.”
Fenton ignored their banter. “May I?”
“I have a spare,” Charlie said, moving to a bench to retrieve one from beside Fenton’s tattoo gun, which had been retro-fitted with the same grey material. “All the guards on the property have one.”
“Umbra powers it?” Fenton asked, seeing the tattoo gun.
Charlie nodded her head, pulled an ampule of the ink-like stuff from a spare device. Sliding it back into place, she passed to him.
Fenton looked it over, jabbed at the screen. It lay dormant. “I appear to be having a spot of trouble with it.”
“You’ve got to wear it to power it up, dingus,” Stacey said, and raised her own wrist. “Here, let me,” she said, shaking her head.
Draping the thing over his forearm, she pressed the ends of the straps together and waited for it to activate. Still it would do nothing, the straps hanging loose.
“This one’s busted.” Stacey looked up at Charlie. “Great quality testing!” She tossed the thing to its inventor.
“That’s odd. I’ll take a look later.”
“Yeah, forget that, you have to come see this!” Stacey said, grabbing at Feton’s hand and pulling him toward the door. “Come on!”
“You’re like a child,” Fenton muttered.
“I’m so excited I’m not even going to tell you where to go.” Once outside in the dusk, she led him outside to a white statue. “There’s four of them,” she said, pointed to another at the opposite corner to the shed, standing out a ways from it.
“Yes, very pretty, if a little crude” he said, his voice without emotion.
“Oi!” Stacey said. “I made this one.”
He looked at her, stone-faced. “What are they for?”
“Protection totems,” Stacey said.
“Protection totems?”.
“In theory,” Charlie said. “They’re still untried. In order for them to be tested we would need an actual Umbra presence.”
“And if there were Umbra here, what would it do?”
“Once activated they form a protection barrier over the building. An extension of the protection grid over the planet in a focused formation. Our own shield, if you will.” She unhooked the glass tablet from her belt and swiped at it. A surge of energy filled the air. “Look,” Charlie said, her eyes darkening, and she pointed.
Fenton’s eyes took on that same haunting blackness, Stacey urged her power to do the same, enhancing her vision.
The two girls and the man around her lit up with markings that glowed the same colour, if of a lesser intensity, as the bright lines covering the shed in a clustered grid, warping down toward the ground, forming a dome.
“Very nice,” Fenton said with genuine appreciation. “The Cardinals will be most pleased.”
“That’s not even the best bit,” Stacey said, and jogged off for the copse.
When they caught up, she had two grey orbs the size and shape of mangoes in her hand. Stacey nodded at Charlie who tapped at her tablet. The elongated shaped snapped into perfect spheres.
“Watch,” she said, and tossed the things into the air.
The balls arced high, slowed at their apex.
And froze.
Fenton furrowed his brows, then raised them in surprise as the balls began to dart about of their own accord.
“You might want to stand back,” Jasper whispered, taking several big steps away. “She gets very excited.”
Smirking at Jasper before returning her focus to the sky, Stacey tracked the objects with her hands and then blasted at one of them, missing. She fired shot after shot, missing mostly but hitting every so often. The balls split like liquid where they were struck, grey plumes blossoming at their backs or forming a ragged valley where they were grazed before quickly reforming.
“Very impressive, indeed.” Fenton said after watching Stacey a while before she tired and the orbs fell to her hands. “Something from the Mhyrr academy?”
Charlie nodded.
“Hey, Fenton. Think fast!” Stacey yelled tossing one of the balls overarm high into the air above them.
Fenton reacted swiftly, lifting his hand and aiming it at the ball even as Charlie’s hand passed over the con
trols to activate it. The blast lit their faces with a bright light like a camera flash, the crack echoing in the night like a rifle.
“Holy shit,” Stacey said in surprise. “I think you disintegrated the ball!”
“He couldn’t have,” Charlie said, annoyed. “There, that’s it.”
“I don’t see it,” Jasper said.
Stacey squinted and, as her eyes continued to readjust, tried to make out dark shapes slowly raining down. They seemed to be growing in size and number and no longer fluttering but accelerating towards them.
“What’s that noise?” Fenton asked.
Stacey’s eyes went wide as she recognised bot the the sound and what she was seeing. “Run!” she yelled.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
IN THE THICK of the bushland surrounding the rural property, Douglas stopped what he was doing to look up, listening intently.
“Was that a shot?” he said. He wasn’t sure, the sound passing so quickly, though still reverberating in the night air.
“Could be a backfiring car?” His companion listened intently. “Probably another false alarm,” he said, annoyed.
Douglas shook his head.
“I don’t know what they’re doing exactly,” the figure in front of him said, “but I wish they would stop. I’m fucking cold and all I want to do is get back to our bed and warm up all night long.”
Douglas looked at Anthony’s buttocks lit by moonlight and grinned, whistling from his squatting position beside the bush he’d chosen as his toilet as the younger man urinated against a tree.
Anthony laughed. “You just keep your eyes to yourself, old man,” he said affectionately.
“As if you didn’t want me to look. I mean, who lowers the back of their pants to take a piss?”
Anthony had once been Doug’s young charge, but they’d quickly realised their mutual attraction and had never looked back. As luck would have it, they also worked well together and were always both posted to the same duty by design because of it. Luckily for them, they were always posted in pairs, but in the times they were separated, they always made time for one another, where time permitted. That was one of the only pleasures in being a Ward, the freedom to travel at will. It had brought with it some of the greatest times of their lives, along with the worst.