The Skids

by Ian Donald Keeling

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Johnny scowled. “We know there are viruses in the Core. I mean, the cops are corrupt, right?”

  “Like dandelions,” Wobble agreed. His skin bristled with probes, his head slowly spinning to take in the entire plain. “There are no Teddy-Teddy Bears. The shields are down. Wobble.”

  “Right,” Johnny said. “And everything else is breaking down, so there have to be other parts of the Core that are infected or broken.”

  “All I said was that SecCore managed to get rid of the Vies on the plain. As for the Core . . .” Betty’s eye-stalks swayed as if she were remembering something too difficult to believe. “Well, you’ll just have to see it when we get there.”

  They rolled on, awed into silence by the vast space around and above. Johnny found himself glancing back at times with more than one eye, wondering which ghost he was trying to see.

  If you can’t find us out here, you panzer . . .

  They passed a long gouge in the plain, dark and jagged, hundreds of metres wide. If this whole place was a metaphor, then Johnny didn’t want to know what that represented. To take his mind off it, he said, “You know what else I don’t understand? You said to fix the Skidsphere we had to get inside it. So why are we going to the Core? Is the Skidsphere in the Core?” If the Thread was really as big as the space around them seemed to suggest, then that seemed a pretty ridiculous coincidence.

  “Physics are a little wacky here,” Betty explained. “The Core is the centre, but it’s also everywhere at once. So we’re going to the Core to enter the Skidsphere at its heart which is nowhere near the Core.”

  “We seem to be approaching that area of discourse where my skull hurts again,” Torg drawled. “Any idea what we’ll see, darling?”

  “Not a clue,” Betty replied, grinning. “But it will probably hurt everyone’s skull.”

  Gradually, the glow on the horizon got bigger. At some point, Johnny expected it to solidify into something he could understand: a tower, a fortress, some kind of symbol. But it remained a glowing light, reaching into the sky, growing brighter and brighter until it filled the space in front of them. A great, glowing pillar of light.

  “Aw, snakes,” Torg said suddenly. He looked at Johnny. “I just figured out what the Core is.”

  Johnny might have asked him what he meant, but at that moment, they ran out of plain.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Betty said. “Welcome to the Core.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Core didn’t rise up. It went down.

  Light spilled from the edge. It took Johnny a few seconds to realize that the cliff descending into the glow was concave: the space before them a perfect circle, several kilometers across. And below . . .

  Johnny was surprised to see so much black; he expected a sea of gold. Instead, most of the space below was the same deep darkness that made up the Thread, stretching down, seemingly forever. The brilliance that rose into the sky came from familiar golden lines threading through the dark, burning a thousand times brighter than any they’d seen before.

  He found it impossible to look at them directly. It wasn’t just the intensity—he couldn’t get a fix. The nearest might have been a few feet below the edge; it might have been kilometers away. It was easier to look into the darkness, beyond those first layers of gold, down to where . . .

  “What’s going on down there?” Far, far below, shadows danced across the threads and flashes of white sparkled in the black.

  “A war,” Betty said grimly.

  “It’s the Hole,” Torg whispered, his eyes fixed on the shadows.

  “What?”

  Torg’s trail-eye gaped at Johnny even as his other two stared into the abyss. “Look at it, Johnny,” he said, his voice tight with fear. “It’s the vaping Hole. It exists.” His eye closed. “Oh, snakes, we’re going in there.”

  Johnny suppressed a shudder as he glanced over the edge. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen Torg frightened. Torg was the calm one, the skid with the casual remark that soothed everyone’s nerves and stopped bar fights in the pit. Now, he sounded terrified.

  “Hey.” Extending an arm, he patted Torg’s stripes. “That isn’t the Hole. And even if it was, I’m the one going in. With Betty.” He forced a laugh. “You get to stay here, you old panzer.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said immediately.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Bian agreed softly.

  Johnny blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  Near the lip of the Core, glimmering in the glow, Betty sat and watched, one eye on Bian and another on Torg. With the third, she glanced over the edge and said: “Why don’t we back up a bit? I’m not expecting SecCore to notice us right away, but let’s not take any chances.”

  They rolled back from the edge, stopping thirty metres away.

  “So . . .” Betty said, her voice deceptively bright. “This is a good spot. We could fortify it, set up a bunker for you guys to hold until we return. The Antis probably wouldn’t find you; they’ll be fixated on Johnny, Wobble and me. Even if you did get attacked, it’s a good place to take a stand—you’d have first shot at anything coming out of the Core.” She paused. “That was the plan.” She paused again. “Why do I get the feeling we’re not doing that anymore?”

  “Because we’re not doing that anymore,” Bian said, looking to Shabaz and Torg. Shabaz bobbed an eye in support. Torg didn’t move. “We’re coming with you.”

  “You’re . . .” Johnny started to protest, then realized two things. One, he didn’t know where to start. Two, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  “We’re coming,” Bian said evenly. “Whatever plan you had isn’t going to be the plan anymore. Do you see Albert anywhere?” She looked at Betty. “You needed him, right?”

  “That was the plan,” Betty agreed, pursing her lips. If Johnny had been a betting skid, he’d have said she looked amused.

  “Well, he isn’t here,” Bian continued. “And that’s . . . that’s my fault.” She raised a hand to stop Johnny before he could protest. “Don’t. I know it isn’t all my responsibility. Albert . . . Albert has his own demons. But I didn’t help.” She sighed a long ragged sigh. “And I’m tired of not helping.”

  “But how . . . ?” He stopped before he got any further. How are you going to help? Really? If he said that he was a grade-A jackhole.

  Shabaz must have sensed where he was going anyway. “We don’t know exactly what we can do,” she said, rolling up beside Bian. “But we talked about this, all three of us. We’re tired of being baggage. We’re skids—you’re going to save the Skidsphere. So we’re coming.” Looking at Betty, she asked: “You said we need to go inside the Skidsphere to save it. Like Albert and Johnny did with me. Right?”

  Betty bobbed an eye.

  “Right,” Shabaz said. “Well, when they did that . . . I think I was part of it. I mean, I helped.” She glanced at Johnny. “I did, didn’t I?”

  That was it. That’s what had bothered him when Betty had laid all the praise on him and Albert alone. Shabaz had been part of saving her own life: she’d fought for it. From the inside. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you did.”

  Shabaz hesitated, her stripes quivering as if she hadn’t known whether or not he would confirm her belief. Then her gaze tightened and she settled into her treads like she could no longer be swayed. “Then maybe I can help here, too. Bian said it: Albert isn’t here. Maybe we can’t make up for that, but we mean to try.”

  A feeling trickled along Johnny’s skin, so alien that it took him a second to recognize it. It was pride: pride in another skid. His mind flashed back to the Combine, his surprise at how good helping another skid had felt.

  “Huh,” he said, swinging an eye towards Torg. “And you’re in on this?”

  Torg took a deep breath. “Didn’t get to Nine by sitting out the race, son. Besides
. . .” He hefted the rifle in his arms. “Someone’s got to watch your back. Recently, you can’t seem to remember what a trail-eye is for.”

  “This . . .” Betty said slowly, as if she were running calculations in her head, “. . . is not a bad idea. It lets Wobble and me focus on forward.” She grimaced. “Which is going to be bad enough.” Her eyes swept the group, stopping on each of them, holding the look, then moving on. “All right,” she said finally. “We all go. You’ve earned the right to make your own decisions. Who knows? It’s not like I really have any idea how this is going to go down.”

  She rolled over to the edge. “I go first. Wobble next: he’ll stay close to you, keep you supplied. Shabaz, you ride directly in front of Johnny in case Wobble gets overwhelmed.” That thought made them all flinch. “Johnny, you’re in behind Shabaz. Bian and Torg, you make sure nothing takes us from above.”

  Johnny grinned at Torg. “Look who’s baggage now.”

  “Just because we’re shielding you, doesn’t mean you’re not getting any action,” Betty said grimly. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on down there, but it’s bad. And I don’t know how long we’re going to have to fall and fight.”

  “What’s the Skidsphere going to look like?” Johnny asked. “What do we aim for?” Betty looked back at him, her lips pressed tightly together. “Right,” he sighed. “You don’t know that, either.”

  “I’m almost certain we’ll get a reading on it when we’re close,” Betty said, “but be ready to move quick. Any last questions?”

  “Just one thing,” Torg said. “Wobble? If I may?”

  The machine opened his side compartment. Reaching inside, Torg exchanged his rifle for the massive weapon he’d first admired back in the jungle.

  “It’s all down from here,” he said, hefting a barrel almost the size of Wobble. “Weight don’t matter, damage does.” He winked at the machine. “How’s that saying go? We bring the end?”

  A broken grin split Wobble’s face. “Like black holes and gravity,” he whirred. “Wobble.”

  “Like black holes and gravity,” Betty agreed. “All right, skids. Let’s go save the world.” She dropped over the edge.

  Johnny looked back across the plain a final time. Any time, jackhole, he thought. Now would be better. But the flatland was empty as, one by one, the skids followed Betty Crisp into the darkness and the light.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The first thing that struck Johnny was the absence of light.

  Nearly a minute passed before the first glimmering thread flashed by, zipping past at unbelievable speed. Before that, it was as if they fell through space, without any idea how far from the walls they were. The only gauge was a circular slice of dome, high above the plain, its already distant glow getting more distant by the second.

  Below them, beneath lines that rose up with increasing density, the war between the shadows and the slivers of white raged on.

  “Stay tight,” Betty said over the com. “We’ll start to hit strays any minute now.” As if on cue, a shadow peeled out from the darkness to their left. It was torn apart by three separate rounds of rifle fire.

  “Keep focused on your area!” Betty snapped. “Don’t waste ammo. If Wobble and I need help, we’ll tell you.”

  “Sorry,” Bian and Torg muttered together.

  Slowly, Johnny began to make out the walls: some threads running vertically and at the same distance, gaining in frequency.

  Another shadow and Betty’s gun barked again. Then an Anti, clear as day, emerging from the walls and met by one of Wobble’s fire-wheels. “Eyes open,” Betty said. “You might start getting trouble from above.”

  “Got one,” Torg said calmly. “Hold this,” he said to Johnny, handing him the huge gun like they were passing sugar on the top of the Pipe. Reaching into his treads, he removed a small pistol and lined the barrel up with a shadow that was almost invisible against the background above.

  “Where’d you get that?” Johnny asked, as Torg shot the Vie.

  “Figured I needed something for any one-on-ones. Stole the storing trick when I saw Betty whip out her BFG. May I?” Torg took the huge gun back and slung it under one arm, holding the pistol in the other. “Amazing how light this thing seems when you’re falling this fast.”

  The walls gained definition and the number of attacks increased. Another Anti appeared; Wobble dispatched it with a pinwheel. Shabaz took out a Vie on the other side. Down below, Betty was encountering the first serious pocket of trouble, her BFG barking destruction to clear a path.

  And below that . . .

  Look at that, Johnny thought, staring into a world of black, white and gold. The Core writhed as if it were a living thing, as wave after wave of Vies attacked the walls and lines of gold, with wave after wave of Antis counter-attacking in return. For a moment, Johnny’s senses were overwhelmed and he lost any sense of individual forms: the inner Core became a single entity—alive and at war with itself.

  And they were going into it.

  “Uh, Wobble?” Johnny said nervously, staring at the shifting mass. “Maybe you better give me a gun. Make it a big one.”

  His timing was good. Even as a rifle drifted up to Johnny, a threshold was passed. The walls became clear and distinct: the nearest a hundred metres away, curving around with layer upon layer of lines, tightly bunched. The attacks increased and increased again; they were all firing constantly now. Vies and Antis came from every conceivable angle.

  “I really wish these squids would pick a side,” Torg grunted, as an Anti disintegrated at the end of his gun.

  Johnny kept his eyes in constant motion, holding his fire unless something got through, usually from his immediate side. Bian and Torg each took half the Core above—Bian hurling curses at her targets along with her fire. Johnny didn’t remember her acting like that back in the Skidsphere, but whatever worked for her was good with him—the tip of her barrel was a blur, sweeping her half with chaos. Torg’s huge gun spat out projectiles that flew a short distance then burst, taking out dozens of Vies at a time.

  Just beneath Johnny, Shabaz fell—her eyes and Hasty-Arms split, a gun in each hand—picking off anything that got past Wobble. Meanwhile, the former Anti spun like a miniature version of the scene below: it seemed like every part of him was moving as he swept across the Core. A deluge of weapons streamed from his front, back and sides: wheels of fire, spikes, rockets, pulses of energy, clusters of plasma. At one point, Johnny swore he saw Wobble hit an Anti with a giant hammer.

  But Betty outshone them all.

  Maybe it was because she was one of them: a skid. Maybe that’s why she amazed Johnny even more than Wobble. As Johnny watched her clear a path through a maze of destruction dense enough that it seemed a wall, he got the sense he was watching a skid play every game at once. The Slope, the Pipe, the Skates, Tilt: they were all there. Plus a gun. Okay, half a dozen guns.

  Half a dozen Big-Vaping-Guns.

  What truly amazed him wasn’t the firepower, overwhelming though it was. It was what Betty did with her body. Johnny had pushed the boundaries of what a skid could do; he’d done things during the Drop he was pretty sure no one had done inside the Skidsphere in a long, long time.

  But they were outside the Skidsphere now and Betty Crisp—black, pink, and fierce with fifty-five years—was doing things that no skid had even dreamed.

  You couldn’t even call her round anymore. Her body was a fluid mass, shifting constantly as her stripe blazed like a comet. Jets popping in and out of her torso; she seemed to grow arms at need. She flattened into a knife and sliced through a wave of Vies. An Anti appeared out of nowhere and—unable to bring a weapon around in time—Betty snapped into a donut-shape, the Anti passing through the hole.

  Need to remember that one. Be good for mass points on the—

  “Johnny!”

  The Anti came from t
he side, fast and lean. Desperately, Johnny began to swing the rifle in his hands—a part of him tried the donut trick he’d just witnessed and failed miserably. Instinctively, he pulled his cells inward, packing them together. The Anti’s point gleamed . . .

  Bian plowed into the Anti, knocking it off target. Sliding under Johnny, the Anti turned to reacquire, but Shabaz took it out.

  “How did you do that?” Johnny breathed, staring at Bian. She’d come out of nowhere, hitting the Anti like a tank.

  “Bounced off another Anti,” Torg said. “Damndest thing I ever . . . Bian? You all right, sweetheart?”

  The red-yellow Seven’s face was pale. Grimacing in pain, she stabbed an eye up and off to their right. Still clutching the rifle in its hand, Bian’s Hasty-Arm floated about ten metres away, drifting farther behind as they fell.

  “Oh, snakes,” Johnny breathed. “Can you grow another?” He remembered what Betty had said about Albert’s scar.

  “I’m trying,” Bian said through clenched teeth. “I don’t think it works that way. I think I may owe Albert another apology. Crisp Betty, that hurt.”

  “Everything all right up there?” Betty said over the com, sounds of combat in the background.

  “We’re fine,” Bian growled. She levelled an eye at Johnny and said, “I think we’re even now. Try and keep at least one eye on the fight, maybe?”

  “Right,” Johnny said, appalled.

  “Need help on your side?” Torg asked.

  “Nope,” Bian said firmly. “Just another gun. Wobble?”

  They continued to fall and the onslaught continued to get worse. The group tightened up and, like a giant rolling snake, they blazed through the seething mass of black and white. Arms a-blur, Shabaz muttered, “You know, knowing where we’re going sometime soon might be nice.”