by Isaac Hooke
She darted past the refugees. Two of the lightning wielders noticed her, but they reacted too late. She swung the sword as she ran, cutting a fiery swathe of death before her. Three of the attackers went down burning in that first strike.
The fourth man unleashed a stream of electricity at her. Ari ducked behind an apple cart, which was promptly incinerated. She dove into the adjacent building. The entrance splintered behind her.
She swung the weapon toward the open door and released a fireball. It struck the lightning wielder outside squarely in the chest, sending him hurtling backward, screaming as the flames devoured him.
She crawled to her feet, dusted off her blue outfit, and removed the cape. She was in an abandoned clothing store of some kind. She sheathed her sword and pulled on an inconspicuous dun shirt and matching breeches. The human lightning wielders didn't have the ability to see her as a gol, so there was no point in broadcasting that fact: she might as well use the element of surprise to her advantage.
She made her way to Avian square. Pandemonium reigned as lightning wielders terrorized the populace, killing, pillaging, and destroying buildings indiscriminately. She took out as many lightning wielders as she could, though she avoided groups that were bigger than five. She had yet to meet any of the Keepers or Users she had ordered Stanson to install in the city. Maybe they were concentrated around the transit centers.
She finally arrived at Avian square. Statues of cranes dominated the central area, most of them damaged in some way, with three destroyed outright. Around them were the fallen tents and destroyed stalls that belonged to the hawkers who once frequented the square.
Ari ducked under one of the intact bird statues and waited.
"There you are," Tanner said from behind, startling her.
Ari spun. "Where were you hiding?"
"Behind the base. What took you so long?"
"I took out every lightning wielder I saw along the way," she said accusingly. That was a slight lie, of course; she didn't mention the overwhelming groups she had avoided.
"So did I," Tanner said. "So don't give me that accusing look. Nice outfit by the way."
Ari glanced at the silk robe he wore, which made him look like a rich merchant. "You too. Not exactly inconspicuous. Seen any Keepers yet?"
"No," Tanner said. "Best guess: they're holed up at the transit center, probably trapped."
"There's only one transit center in this city?" Ari asked him.
"Only one," Tanner answered.
"All right," Ari said. "Let's get ourselves to this transit center."
They retreated, following the signs. It wasn't hard to locate the transit center. The massive vitra use lit up their vision like a beacon. There were at least a hundred lightning wielders in the area.
Ari and Tanner slowly crept toward the attackers, whose backs were to them. The enemy was ducked behind upturned carts, or the sides of buildings, or the brims of rooftops, and concentrated fire on the terminal building. A few of them occasionally looked back, but since Ari and Tanner moved in spurts, ducking behind whatever objects were nearest them, so far the attackers hadn't spotted them.
Keepers were definitely holed up inside the building, as well as Users, judging from the fireballs and lightning bolts that alternately issued from the place. For every fireball or bolt of lightning, the attackers launched four times as many strikes in return.
Ari pointed at a nearby rooftop and indicated the lightning wielders crouched there. Tanner nodded. He dashed across the street to enter the building and take them out. Ari meanwhile dropped to the cobblestone and crawled toward a group of attackers who sheltered behind an upturned cart.
She heard a yelp of surprise from the rooftop beside her and knew that Tanner had eliminated his targets, or was in the process of doing so.
The city shook as several massive explosions abruptly rocked the area.
One of the men she stalked suddenly turned around to look at her. He was the first to die. Ari swung her blade rapidly, extending flames with each strike, until all that was left of the four men were burning and flailing bodies. She crawled the rest of the way to them and finished the four off.
She and Tanner fought like that for the better part of an hour, stealthily eliminating pockets of attackers, sometimes drawing unwanted attention to themselves so that they were forced to flee, only to return and finish the job. Together with the trapped Keepers and Users, they managed to eliminate most of the lightning wielders in the area, and routed the rest. How much time they had actually saved by killing versus collaring was debatable, at least to Ari.
When it was over, a Keeper came running up. "The Forever Gate has been breached in multiple places! People are fleeing in droves!"
That explained the massive explosions she had heard earlier.
"Has anyone spotted Amoch yet?" Ari asked her.
"No," the Keeper responded.
Ari glanced at Tanner. "Looks like we're on the tail end of the attack."
"Maybe he didn't come," Tanner said. "For all we know, he might be staging a simultaneous attack in a different city."
Ari ordered most of the Keepers and Users to disperse throughout the city to eliminate the pockets of lightning wielders that remained. She took the remaining defenders with her and Tanner as she headed toward the gaps in the Forever Gate. When she reached the first one, she assigned a Keeper there to prevent more people from passing into the barren land beyond. She instructed a sizable portion of the Users to go out there and round up the citizens who had fled into the desert. She told them to eliminate any lightning wielders they encountered.
She went to the remaining four gaping holes and set up a watch in front of each.
"What now?" Tanner asked when that was done.
"I want to make a final run through the city," Ari said. "And see if we can find this Amoch."
She turned around to begin that last run when a figure leaped down from a nearby rooftop and onto the street.
Crouching low, the newcomer was dressed in body-fitting silver armor covered in swirls and curlicues. The tight fit accentuated the figure of a woman.
In her hands she held an unsheathed samurai sword: a curved, single-edged katana with a square guard.
Her face was hidden behind a silver dragon mask.
thirteen
Ari gazed uncertainly at the Dragon Lady. The eyes of her foe were completely hidden behind that silver mask
"What do you want?" Ari said.
In answer, the Dragon Lady tilted her head very slightly, almost mockingly, and then rushed her.
Ari barely raised her own blade to defend.
The woman moved in a blur of steel, her curved katana darting in and out, slicing and thrusting. Ari was completely taken aback by the unexpected speed and ferocity of the attack, and she was forced to give ground. She had no time to launch any counteroffensives and instead parried constantly.
Tanner abruptly joined in, his blade a deadly blur beside her.
The opponent immediately switched to the defensive and Ari pressed the advantage. Her blade struck the curlicued armor in the rib area, but the sword deflected. A few moments later another opening presented itself and Ari thrust the tip forward, aiming for the heart. Her blade connected with a loud clang but didn't penetrate. The resultant reverberations passed up the sword into her arms.
The Dragon Lady batted Ari's weapon away and Tanner scored a similar blow, this time to the neck. Again the weapon didn't pierce the collar guard she wore.
"What the shit is this?" Tanner said.
Ari was reminded of the invulnerability of another AI, one that had called itself Brute. And she wondered if the Dragon Lady was an AI, too.
The opponent batted Tanner's weapon aside and retreated a pace, appearing uncertain.
Ari used the momentary respite to fan the spark of vitra in the blade, letting her weapon become molten hot. Then she pulled ahead of Tanner and resumed the attack, striking hard and fast with her red sword.
&n
bsp; The woman retreated under the onslaught, struggling to counter the blows. Ari hit the armor several times, but still her superheated blade failed to penetrate. When the proper opening appeared, Ari jabbed her weapon once more toward the heart, unleashing all the fury of the sword's pent-up flames at the same time.
The fire tore into the Dragon Lady upon impact, engulfing her and sending her hurtling backward. She skidded along the cobblestone before coming to a halt beside the collapsed ruin of a lute shop.
Ari and Tanner approached, treading through the lutes that strewed the street in front of the shop.
The Dragon Lady lay there motionless, her armor smoking. The central portion of the breast plate glowed a blue hot color. Her katana protruded from the strings of a nearby lute, just out of reach.
"I'm going to unmask her," Ari told Tanner.
"Careful," Tanner responded. "She might have a dagger or something. And how do you know that's even a mask? It could be the gol's face."
Sword at the ready, Ari crunched through the lutes and approached. She hesitated above the body, but still the Dragon Lady had not moved.
Keeping her sword in front of her torso, Ari slowly knelt, then extended her free hand toward the mask. She heard the opponent's breath behind that silver dragon, the respirations deep and measured, as of one asleep. Or unconscious.
The instant Ari's fingers touched the edge of the mask, the breathing ceased.
Without warning the Dragon Lady's hand shot up. Ari caught a glimpse of something metallic in her palm. A disk?
Ari reacted too late and the object struck her forehead as she pulled away.
The Dragon Lady removed her hand. The disk was gone.
Ari staggered back, frantically scrubbing her forehead. She felt only bare flesh. The disk had absorbed itself into her skin.
Ari was filled with a sudden fright. She remembered another disk that had touched her forehead in what seemed a lifetime ago. She had blacked out immediately and only learned afterward that the disk had drained her consciousness, moving it to a machine. She shuddered at the thought, and the hell that Hoodwink had gone through to save her.
The Dragon Lady abruptly rose to her feet, retrieved the katana, and fled.
"Get her!" Ari erupted into a sprint. "She did something to me!"
Ari and Tanner pursued the Dragon Lady. Their foe ran with gol speed, and though Ari summoned all the reserves available to her enhanced body, she could not close the gap.
With her sword, she instead hurled fireballs and streams of flame at the woman, but the Dragon Lady glanced back often to avoid the incoming attacks.
The woman leaped onto a shed and then hauled herself onto the roof of one of the shops.
"I'll follow her on the rooftops!" Tanner said, breaking away. "You stick to the ground. See if you can head her off!"
Ari was about to contest him but it was a reasonable plan. Tanner leaped onto the roof while Ari continued the pursuit from street level. She occasionally lost sight of the woman thanks to chimneys and other rooftop structures that got in the way.
A building had partially collapsed up ahead, and Ari was forced to slow down to navigate the stone bricks that had spilled onto the street.
The Dragon Lady was about five houses ahead of her by then, with Tanner three house-lengths behind her.
The woman abruptly leaped off the rooftop, zip-lining across a rope that had been strung across the street in front of Ari. Decorative lamps hung from it, but the Dragon Lady's silver mask easily broke through each one, hardly interfering with her flight.
Ari unleashed a stream of flame toward the far side of the rope, severing it, and the woman plunged sideways into a nearby shop.
Tanner leaped down, beating Ari inside by a few paces.
Within, the Dragon Lady was pulling herself from the wreckage of a glass case she had fallen through. Tanner threw himself at her.
The woman parried his blows and managed to trip him. She sidestepped his body and hurried toward the entrance.
Ari intercepted her. "What did you do to me?"
In answer the woman threw herself at Ari in a flurry of steel. The Dragon Lady forced her backward and before Tanner could join in, the woman dove through the gap between Ari and the door.
Outside, the Dragon Lady scrambled to her feet and made to retreat.
Ari launched a fireball, striking the woman in the back and sending her hurtling across the street into the opposite building. The Dragon Lady slid down and landed chest-first on the cobblestone.
Ari and Tanner rushed toward her. When they were halfway there, forks of lightning abruptly erupted to their right.
The next thing Ari knew, she was flying above the cobblestone. She felt an intense pain in her side. She landed rolling on the street. Tanner sprawled beside her, his ribcage blackened and smoking.
"Tanner," she started.
"I'm fine," he groaned.
Ari got up in time to counter the next lightning attack. She positioned herself between the two figures at the far end of the street and poured vitra into the blade, using all of her focus to make the steel act like a lightning rod. The sword absorbed the incoming tines of electricity.
Tanner joined her and together they advanced in that way, making their way toward the attackers, using their blades to absorb the relentless attacks.
Ari momentarily glanced toward the spot where the Dragon Lady had fallen. The woman was gone.
When they were thirty feet from the two lightning wielders, Ari and Tanner released their pent-up flames, choosing one target each. The men screamed as the flames devoured them.
She checked the overhead map. Unsurprisingly, neither gols nor Keepers were depicted. Still not working.
Ari hurried to the location where the Dragon Lady last lay and she dashed into the adjacent shop.
"Check this floor," she ordered Tanner as she ran upstairs.
She searched the bedroom on the second floor, tossing aside the mattress and cutting open the closet. She went to the window and scanned the surrounding rooftops. No one.
Tanner joined her a moment later. "The downstairs area was empty. I checked the back room and the shared courtyard. If we get to the roof, there's a chance—"
"Forget her," Ari said. "She's gone. We won't find her, not now."
"What the hell did she do to you back there?"
Ari rubbed her forehead. "I don't know. But whatever she did, I doubt it was anything good."
fourteen
When Ari and Tanner returned to the first floor and reached the shop entrance, they were met by a Keeper.
"Another city was attacked at the same time as this one," the Keeper told them. "Red Mesa. There were sightings of a hooded man with a staff."
Ari shook her head angrily. "Wraylor lied to us."
Tanner nodded. "Or perhaps Amoch lied to her. It's possible she didn't know."
"Damn it." To the Keeper: "Gather up as many of the other Users and Keepers as you can and go to Red Mesa. We'll meet you there."
"Understood." The Keeper sprinted down the street.
Red Mesa was three portal hops away. It was slightly faster for Ari and Tanner to disbelieve reality than to run all the way to the transit center and then hop between three different cities.
As such, Ari retrieved the handmirror from the pouch that hung from her utility belt and began the process of disbelieving reality. She could usually do it somewhere between thirty seconds and three minutes. Tanner was a little faster, averaging around forty-five seconds.
Tanner retrieved his own mirror and vanished after fifteen seconds. Nice.
Ari focused all her being onto that mirror. She concentrated on her features. I am the illusion. The reflection is real. I am the illusion.
Beyond the mirror frame, the world at the periphery of her vision began to liquefy and swirl: her return was imminent.
The world abruptly flickered but refused to wink out.
That had never happened before.
She tri
ed again.
Once more, right at the point when reality should have returned, her surroundings merely flickered and she remained on the Inside.
She sighed, stowing the mirror, and waited for Tanner to bring her out manually.
The fabric of reality swirled and flickered before becoming stable again. That would have been Tanner's attempt. Several more such flickers came, spaced out over the next few minutes.
It was at that point Ari realized she wasn't going to be returning to the Outside. She thought of the disk the Dragon Lady had touched to her forehead. Apparently one of its effects was to trap her there.
She had neglected to bring a tracker with her on her last inject into the system, so Tanner wouldn't be able to teleport to her position. As such, Ari began to make her way to the transit center. When Tanner returned to the Inside, that would be the most likely location where he would meet her.
Not in the mood for fighting, she avoided a pocket of lightning wielders as she made her way through the streets. She joined up with a group of Users and they escorted her the rest of the way to the transit center.
Sure enough, Tanner was waiting there. His face was set in grim lines.
"We can't get you out," Tanner told her.
"I know," Ari said. "It's the disk she touched to my head."
Tanner rubbed his forehead as if imagining what it must be like to have the small metallic object embedded there. "Someone must have sneaked in a patch somewhere along the line, appending rogue code to prevent an avatar from returning when a certain disk was present in the inventory. Stanson has assigned two Children the task of reviewing the code check-ins for the past year."
"I wish them luck," Ari told him. That could be tens of thousands of lines of code.
"I sent a few medics down to the relearning center in the meantime," Tanner continued. "They'll be connecting you to a total parenteral intravenous. It has dextrose, lipids, vitamins, the works. So you can stay Inside as long as you need. You won't starve. Plus they're also hooking up an excretion collection device, so you're covered in every department."