by Guillen, JM
I hadn’t even finished the thought before he was on the move. Wyatt opened the door, and then was creeping back towards the back of the car. Two more of the gigantic creatures took up the strange cry, and the world flickered around us again. It was be the desert for a moment, and then back to the deep darkness.
They'll hear me the moment I set off ol' Rosie. Wyatt was ducked behind the car. Tangler's reading that we're still at neg thirty one. I need to place about five spikes to get us back to Rationality.
It’s not just the spikes, Wyatt. You’ll need them spaced properly. I felt the small twitch as Anya sent a patch. This should help.
Five glowing green indicators settled within my field of vision.
Copy that, Anya. I could feel the grudging respect through my Crown.
What are they doing? I turned to look at the thick, powerful creatures. There were six of them with their heads thrown back, making the forlorn cry. Are they mourning?
I had just finished the thought when the corpse of the one I had killed caught my eye. There was a movement that made my skin crawl.
Involuntarily, I took one horrified step back.
Anya was concise as ever. We aren't truly stable at this level of Rationality. I have concerns that we need to act as quickly as possible.
Right. Wyatt moved a few feet around the side of the car. Let's just end this, Bishop, then we'll move on.
Wyatt? Do you see this? I took another step back from the corpse.
Anya cut in. Wyatt, I don't know how this topia was interspaced with ours, but it's extremely unstable .If we have any axiomatic drift, we’ll need more than the tangler to return.
Copy that. Wyatt looked around, trying to gauge the creature’s movements. Any kind of time frame regarding drift?
Wyatt, I strongly suggest you do whatever you must to place your spikes as quickly as possible.
That was the moment that the corpse exploded in a spray of warm, crimson viscera.
I cried out in surprise, leaping backwards as I was partially coated in the warm globs of thick wetness. I stumbled as I did, and it was probably only the Adept that kept me from landing on my ass.
What— Wyatt’s link went dead as he got a good look on what was happening.
I thought I might retch.
Bursting from the corpse were sinewy black tentacles, some thin strands and others as thick as my wrist. At first, I couldn’t make out any center body, only hooked and fanged feelers as they ripped their way free from the chest, or tore their way from the mouth and nostrils.
Vyriim! Class seven aberrations— Anya’s link hit my crown hard. Bishop you need—
I was already sprinting away from the mass of tentacles gathering above the corpse. There was a body, it seemed, but it was only a body of the individual lengths, twisting and forming together. Some had writhing hooks on the end, while others had tiny little maws, or pods that held ancient, mad eyes.
The stench of it was revolting, nauseous.
I was so focused on getting away from the Vyriim that it never occurred to me that I might be splattered with gore, and therefore slightly visible. As I ran towards the car, one of the first of the creatures I had seen swung at me with his maul, a great wooden thing the size of a tree.
Only the speed and grace of the Adept kept me from being killed with that single stroke. With no further concern for caution or subtlety, I began firing on the lumbering grey behemoths.
Then, I heard the keening, high pitched whirring of Wyatt's tangler. It built up power, and then made a loud WHUF as he set the first spike, shooting directly into the ground.
The world rippled around him.
The tangler's spikes were created from a tungsten alloy, yet were axiomatically programmed to disintegrate after a certain period of time. Until they did, the spike would subtly alter the axioms around it, in a given range. There was a lot of complexity and mathematics that I didn't understand, but Wyatt was an artist with the device.
That's negative eleven. I could almost hear relief in Anya's link. You need a larger range on the next one, Wyatt. The anomaly is wider than the car.
I know my business. Wyatt wasn't being gruff with Anya; he was simply intently focused on his readouts. I'm gonna have to step away from the car, hoss.
I grit my teeth. I don't know how wise that is. Two of the creatures had noticed him after he had placed the first spike. One of them was snarling at Wyatt with a huge maw full of long teeth.
I shot the creature between the shoulder blades, hurling it forward. This actually sent it slightly in Wyatt's direction, but it was injured and startled and began that high pitched keen again.
Bishop! I could hear the intense alarm in Anya’s link, and I spun. As I did, I saw the tentacles.
They were swimming right for me.
It was difficult to describe their movement through the air; it was beautiful, after a fashion. They were thickest in their center, where they all seemed to intertwine together. There were five— no, six— of them with maw apertures that were crowded together, snapping and hissing. Other tentacles reached for me as it came, reminding me of a nightmarish squid.
Panic spun me towards it, and I raised my displacer pistols. I fired and fired and fired and fired, squeezing of bolts of kinetic force that rippled through the air. The Vyriim— if that’s actually what they were— responded as a fish might to a strong current, sliding upwards or sideways, riding the force.
They simply slipped around my shots, with no apparent effect.
I turned and ran for the car. The trunk was still open, and I dodged one of the tentacles grasping for me as I reached inside.
For my katanas.
Wyatt… Anya’s link said many things, all at once, but the overwhelming message was one of haste.
Yes, ma'am. Wyatt stepped to the front of the car. Bishop, I need to place my next spike a few meters behind you. He sent a small patch, allowing my Crown to overlay which location the spike needed to be in.
Copy. I swung at one of the rubbery tentacles, and strike true, severing it from the rest. As I did, I heard, more felt a scream of inarticulate rage, fury that seemed to burn into my mind. Then, the sensation was replaced by Anya.
Bishop?
Yes. Sorry. There were two of the creatures between him and the location. I held a disrupter in one hand, and a blade in the other. I fired the disrupter three times, driving them back and away from the spot.
Bishop, I think— Anya's link was cut short as one of the creatures slammed back into the car. It moved the entire vehicle with its strike, spinning the car and knocking Wyatt backwards.
Its fist was through the window.
That was when Anya stabbed it with one of the injectables.
No matter which viral mecha one is using, their safety protocols are the same— they are not intended for use by anyone without a Soloman’s Crown. As a precaution, they tend to come equipped with all kinds of nasty safety protocols included.
Moments after she injected the behemoth, the viral mecha came online. Without a Crown to synch with, they initiated their defense variables.
As the tentacles swarmed around me again, I heard the unfortunate creature scream, as the viral mecha heated to two hundred fifty degrees centigrade.
The smell was atrocious, like seared rotten meat, but I scarcely noticed it. Another of the great creatures was lumbering towards me, and the knot of tentacle horror swam through the air around me, just waiting for a moment where I and my sword were caught unaware.
Apparently the thing learned, and quickly. It wasn’t going to tempt my blade again.
That was the moment that, dying from being cooked from within, the second Vyriim burst from a corpse, showering Anya and the car with gore.
Shit. I shot at it as Wyatt moved forward. He ran past the two behemoths I had just hit, and set the next spike right where he needed it. The moment I heard it WHUF, I felt a ripple of warmth across my body.
Wyatt’s eyes went wide.
Oh.
Oh no.
Moments before, it had only been truly possible to see the crimson and black fluids I had been splattered with— and there weren’t a lot of them. The Vyriim seemed to have some idea where I was standing, but their hulking hosts hadn’t had it so simple.
Fall back, Bishop! In line with me! Wyatt was scrambling, trying to get to me.
What he was trying to do was restore baseline Rationality. The spikes he was setting were strong anchors, beacons of normal, stable axioms to counter the strange physics of this small topia. The idea was that if he restored baseline physics, that we would be ejected back into the Rational world. The tangler’s spikes took priority over all else.
His calculations hadn't taken my emitter into account.
Suddenly, we were standing there, side by side, surrounded by aberrations. There was a moment of silence.
I was completely visible.
Shit. Wyatt's link was full of regret.
I turned the pistol on one of the creatures, and fired.
I shot two as Wyatt set another spike. With a muted WHUF he instantly and catastrophically changed the direction of gravity beneath one of the creatures, just for a few moments. It flew fifteen meters straight into the air, and then crashed back down. I spun and leapt back from the seeking tendrils of the second Vyriim, trying to wrap around my arm. One swipe from my blade, and I could feel that otherworldly scream again as I sliced one strand in two.
I turned towards another of the behemoths, just in time for one of its maul-like fists to crash into my chest. Pain exploded in my body.
Michael! Anya’s link was filled with dread.
I landed almost seven meters away, gasping. I could not breathe, and the world seemed to spin. The madly flickering sky did little to help me focus. I was nauseated, and my stomach felt like I had been hit by a truck.
My back hurt. Had I done something to my back?
I could hear some of the creatures screaming, amidst a flurry of muted WHUF sounds. It all seemed very far away, almost unreal.
Michael! It was a woman. She seemed insistent about something.
Then, a monstrosity filled my vision.
The creature was hanging in the air, as if it lightly swayed in the breeze. It was a mass of black and violet tentacles, with a gaping maw at one end. The way it writhed its appendages was almost hypnotic, soothing.
My disruptors. Where—
There. I saw one six feet away, glinting forlornly. I had lost it when I was hit.
I rolled and flipped up, not nearly as quickly as I should have, having the Adept. I scrambled for the pistol as I heard another WHUF somewhere in the distance.
I turned. The creature was reaching for me, its monstrous tentacles grasping. Some distant, logical part of my mind noted its truly awful scent.
It had me. My heart pounded in my chest, and I could taste sour adrenaline.
I fired.
Simultaneously, the creature grasped for me, wrapping one wet appendage around my arm. I discharged my disrupter, set on high, into its center mass. We were both knocked backwards. It hissed, and I could feel fury radiating from it.
WHUF.
I landed on my ass, sitting in desert dust and Nevada sandstone. Frantically, I looked around as the sky trembled and sang.
What—
It was knocked backwards, but I never saw how far. I heard one last WHUF, and the desert around me stopped wavering and flickering into another world.
Rationality negative six. Negative three. I could feel the smile in Anya's link. Rationality zero, gentlemen. All is well.
Her grin was almost smug.
Bet yer ass all is well. Wyatt stepped over to me, offering me a hand up. You broken, Bishop?
I gave him a friendly scowl. It'll take a lot more than one of your colossal fuck-ups to put me down. I took his hand, and he pulled me up.
He scoffed. Like I ever make mistakes with Rosie. It's not my fault that place was all bent out of shape. How could I have known?
If you had cleared your spikes with the Designate, the Facility systems would have double checked your algorithms, Wyatt.
He rolled his eyes. Not exactly possible, while in another topia, with Hugo the troll chasing you around the car—
Realization washed through us both.
The car.
Anya was getting out of the vehicle now, her face a blank mask. We all realized the truth at the exact same moment.
Yes, we were back in the Rational world. No longer were we plagued by otherworldly, tainted aberrations.
Time. The moment Wyatt sent the link, I checked the system time.
We had to be gone longer than 16 seconds. I looked at Anya. I know there is usually some dilation, but—
Dilation confirmed. She leveled a look at each of us. This is not our largest difficulty at present, Michael.
She was right, of course.
We were in the middle of the desert, near what we believed was an Irrational installation, with no vehicle. It had been smashed beyond use.
No conduit.
No extraction.
For a long moment, we looked at each other in silence, dread and despair settling into our bones.
Then, we began the long walk.
13
Wyatt, of course, had the heaviest load. The heat was oppressive, and he was being true to form.
I'm just saying those fancy swords don't look as heavy as the tangler.
Sixty-five pounds isn't that much. I gave him a sideways grin. Doesn't the Artisan packet give you the strength to carry that thing?
It's thirty-eight Celsius in the shade. Wyatt spat.
Forty. Anya looked at him. If you are having difficulty, Wyatt, I have the appropriate injectables—
Yes, Wyatt. I smiled. Let her shoot you up, and then you might be strong enough to carry your equipment.
You can go to hell.
We had been on the move for over an hour. After we had hit the snare, we decided it was best to stay away from marked roads. Between the events of the airport and the trap along the road, it was obvious.
They knew we were coming.
Anya was fascinated at the thought. Topiatic disturbances at this level have never been recorded in the Facility systems. They are precision events. It is interesting to consider how long it must have taken to prepare them.
It was a thought I had as well. It's more interesting, for me, to question how a cell of Irrats would know about us in the first place. The amount of planning here seems staggering.
Wyatt shifted the tangler on his back. I've never encountered ‘rats that expected I was coming.
This is more than expectation. I ground my teeth. There's something out here, something well hidden. Whoever is responsible has bound small topias in our way. They've left pocket dimensions as traps. I gave Anya a look. Has our updated report been received by Facility 17?
The packet was marked received twenty-seven minutes ago. It is still in process.
Figures. Wyatt was transitioning from faux-surly to actually surly. System time shows we've been walking for almost forty-five minutes. I'm glad we aren't under fire. Or, you know, baking alive in the closest thing to hell Earth has to offer.
At current rate of travel, we will be on site in less than an hour. Anya patched us a small red marker overlaying our site. If required, we can use viral mecha to assist in hydration and stamina augmentation.
I'll tell you what I requir— Wyatt's link was cut off in transmission.
Good afternoon, Assets. The cool sensation that always came with the Designate washed soothingly through our minds. I would like to apprise you on alterations to the dossier, given the intelligence that you have gathered.
Wyatt gave me a look. He mouthed, “About time.”
I grinned wryly.
Perceptor Petrova is correct in the assertion that these are, in fact topiatic disturbances. It would seem that a trigger of unknown composition specifically targets Facility neuralware and viral mecha. Currently, we are
analyzing all available data to determine if there is a method of detecting the triggers.
Wyatt's link was more than a touch sarcastic. Which in the meantime, means we're completely in the wind on this. He kicked at a stone as we walked.
Correct. The best method for combating this particular phenomenon is as of yet unknown to us. Therefore, it is best to remain as mentally prepared as possible. I will send to your Crowns a schedule of required viral mecha injections, based upon what Bishop and Anya have on hand. It is preferred for you to be over augmented, yet prepared, than caught unawares again.
That seems reasonable, Designate. I was cutting in before Wyatt got the chance to mouth off again. Given that we know so little, what are the current recommended protocols? I kicked the same stone Wyatt had, as now we had caught up to it. I put in square in his path and raised my eyebrows at him.
In both cases, Anya detected the triggers. The Designate paused. In the airport, she thought it was reading as an unknown type of aberration. On the highway, the changes came so quickly that the readings were unclear. Attempting to read the axiomatic changes at the speed of a moving car overloaded part of the axial base of her Crown, and caused pain.
I had not known that. That must have been why she screamed.
Recommended protocol is for Perceptor Petrova to axiomatically scan as you advance. While this will slow your advance by approximately thirty percent, it will guarantee that if you encounter another of these phenomena, you will have as much warning as possible.
My eyebrows rose at that. So did Wyatt's. Standard procedure did not allow Anya to axiomatically scan for longer than a ten minute burst, as processing that much data would be wearing on her Crown.
Wyatt had a different concern however. If we are slowed, then we cannot arrive at Locale One until dark. He kicked the stone back towards me. That is after the dossier protocols.
Correct. This is why you will immediately take the course of viral mecha patched to your Crown. Between what Asset Bishop and Preceptor Petrova have stowed, it will be more than enough for all of you to remain augmented through the rigors of the desert. These alterations will also allow the extraction effort more time.
My heart leapt. So there is an extraction plan? I had doubted seriously that we would be abandoned, but the lack of a conduit made things a touch dicey.