by Curtis Hox
Joss stuck out his right forearm. “I’m branded, fuckhead. Cybercorps. So your masters can stick it up their digital asses.”
The man was smaller than Joss and looked weak, as if he hadn’t eaten a good meal in months. Joss believed he could knock the guy off the table with little difficulty. But he was a Rogueslave, which meant he could have any number of nasty little advantages.
“Brands can be erased. You know that.”
“What do you want?”
“You’re the one who tipped us off about this, aren’t you?”
Joss’s identity was anonymous, but people could guess, like this guy had, or the Consortium, if they inquired.
“What do you want?”
“The same thing you do: Power.”
Joss saw the whites of the man’s teeth glinting in the low light. “Yeah, so, don’t we all?”
“You think the Consortium is the way to go?”
“Better than being deformed or turned to goo. Your masters—”
“—have remade me several times. I know I don’t look like much, but you have to trust them. You were being tested.”
“The deformities?”
“What was it for you?”
“Head turned around backwards was the worst.”
The Rogueslave laughed, as if it were a performance.
All around them, the spectators seemed to be edging closer toward a rioting mass of violence. Joss had already seen two guys go down in a fight not far from him. He had been thinking it might be best to get out.
“And that freaked you out? You’re a child, little boy. My first deformity a tentacle grew out of my skull and snaked around my neck. Anytime I tried to loosen it, I got choked. Yeah, I had to hide for a month. No one knew where I was. It ruined my first career. You have no idea who I am, do you?”
Joss tried to get a better look at the old man, but it was dark. He looked like he should be sitting in some lawn chair on someone’s porch, or maybe tossing seeds to pigeons in a park. “No, I don’t.”
“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you were given a chance at supreme power, and you gave it up. But you’ve come sniffing around again, haven’t you?”
Joss hadn’t heard this before. No one had told him he was being tested or that the Rogues wanted him for anything other than making that fabricator. No chatter in Cyberspace had mentioned him. He had just thought he was being used.
“I don’t like having my head and my arms on backward.”
The older man waved the complaint away and stared out over the audience at the cage. “Watch, little boy, so you can see the future of the human race.”
Joss saw Simone’s competitor turn into a spiked blob of flesh. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah,” the Rogueslave said. “Welcome to the new world of human perfection.”
* * *
Hutto saw what was about to happen just as Simone’s opponent—
“Fuck!”
He pushed through the crowd, most of whom were natural human beings with nothing special about them. He was a kid, but he could handle himself well enough. When he saw the crowd surge back and heard his brother’s entity roar, his nervous system ramped up. The darkness hid his brother, but the people seemed to understand. They rushed away, while Hutto pushed through. He saw Nisson’s entity standing next to a huge, glittering alien-like creature with long arms and a long neck and ... glinting teeth. Her recognized the face ...
Simone’s mother!
The two morphed beings stood next to each other for a few seconds as they looked at Hutto. They recognized him. No matter what the cynics—like his father—said the creatures that stood before him were real. Agent Wellborn’s entity roared, turned, and sent a person flying through the air with a single swipe.
Hutto’s mind was too exhausted to try summoning again. He started throwing strikes to clear space. His elbow connected with some sorry guy’s jaw with a jarring impact. He grinned because his elbow had won. He saw his brother drive a short sword through the chest of an individual … with four arms.
Hutto’s enhanced adrenaline primers pumped his blood full of energy as he realized Rogueslaves were here. His body entered a zone of heightened martial activity. He looked up and saw the half-real manifestation of Simone’s entity inside the cage. It looked like a smaller version of her mother’s, but just as mean. It flew through the air at its opponent, arms splayed wide, and Hutto could swear it was smiling.
* * *
Simone felt herself fly through the air as Supertrans pounced. She felt its talons rip into her opponent, tearing through the spindly spikes as if they were match sticks. They punctured the chitinous-like armor, causing sticky gobbets to fly through the air. She even heard the hollow, air-filled interior rupture in a whoosh of gas. In seconds it was over. Supertrans floated in victory above the hideous thing now splattered on the canvas fight floor. She saw lights flashing and movement in the audience.
* * *
Skippard Wellborn had waited all day inside a storage locker in the sub-structure. He’d retreated into the wall twice to avoid being seen. There was plenty of space for him in the locker, but the villa’s hired help used it to store mops, brooms, and cleaning supplies. Most of the time he’d had to float in the center to avoid contact eruptions. Skippard was happy the help weren’t all that interested in prepping the place. So he’d waited in private, listening, imagining what was to come.
He hadn’t told his daughter about the possible interruption in her debut. She wasn’t in danger, not from these second-class Rogueslaves, but the other Alters could be—and Yancey, of course, although she could handle herself. Skippard had wanted to warn her, but she would have called in Consortium reinforcements and the event would have been cancelled.
No, better to teach the Rogues a lesson, he thought. Give them a taste of what is to come.
Skippard had relaxed even as the spectators poured in and the energy levels skyrocketed. When he sensed the first Alter’s transformation, the boy Hutto, an unmistakable change in the air occurred as if every molecule was electrified. When his daughter arrived, her pull was like a magnet’s. He resisted even as the crowd echoed their surprise at seeing a real, live Digi-Ghost.
The plan was to wait until the Rogueslaves did what their masters required. It was this sacrificing of human flesh that so bothered Skippard Wellborn. When he heard the first cries of horror from the unsuspecting spectators, he let the Rogueslaves begin their meatgrinder. He had seen this before. Five or six soldiers would allow their nanobots to trigger. They would become what their masters wanted them to become, no matter how debasing, how dehumanizing: vessels of the Blood Tricad. When the energy shifted to panic, he almost pushed forward. Yancey and Nisson Toth were in the crowd and had responded by summoning.
He enlarged himself so that he glowed as if lit by a thousand candles, incorporeal flares erupting as he touched the walls inside the locker.
He pushed forward through the door.
People fled in hysterics. Those who came too close he zapped—enough to cause the whites of their eyes to glow and the hair on their heads to stand straight.
He watched his wife’s beautiful entity Myrmidon protect the cage door as his daughter’s entity Supertrans attacked the spiked monster inside. Nisson’s Graucus was also laying waste to anyone who neared them. When he slew the first Rogueslave mutant, Skippard sighed in relief: The Rogues had underestimated them.
By now, the crowd was rushing for the exits in such a ruckus you couldn’t hear anything but screeching. Bodies lay on the ground. Some individuals had lost their footing in pools of blood. Unfortunate, Skippard admitted, but these losses were more evidence of the Rogues’ criminal pathology.
One drunkard, still grasping a bottle of beer, ran straight into Skippard. He tried to halt his progress, but he slipped on a patch of blood, and barreled head first. Skippard enlarged himself and deflected the man, who flew backward, trailing sparks. He was so electrified he spasmed on the ground.
>
Skippard watched Supertrans finish its opponent in the cage as if it were a large bird of prey pouncing on a little mouse. The Rogueslave’s spikes snapped off with a single swipe. Supertrans dug both taloned hands into the thing and eviscerated it as if it were a demon child ripping open the family dog instead of a Christmas present. He saw the entity smile with glee and remembered the dangers of anyone aligning themselves with these foreign allies.
Supertrans stepped aside from the bloody mess at its feet. The entity was a partial manifestation, and it flickered and stuttered as if the data had trouble streaming into reality. But it was real enough. Yes, it was, as was he. Skippard smiled with pride that his daughter had control.
He pushed through the cage with a minimal display of sparks. Supertrans and Simone, two beings in one, looked out at him through oddly shaped eyes and stepped back. He was the Maker Lord who had created the technology that had caused the Rupture.
Since the dark was no problem for him, even under the bright lights, he circled his gaze around the wide space and saw that the Rogueslave soldiers were all down. They had killed more than a handful of people, but Myrmidon and Graucus had handled the ill-prepared soldiers who had hoped to feast on spectators and, at the worst, deal with some juvenile Alters with no conception of what they were.
Skippard spotted the lieutenant.
Gramgadon.
He was standing near the Alter, Joss Beckwith. The Sterling student had complicated things by sneaking into the audience. He had come because all the Alters needed to see what was expected of them. Even though Joss and Wally and Kimberly weren’t there to fight, Skippard had made sure the entire team of Alters was present. They would all be on the front lines at some point; better for them to know the truth sooner rather than later.
Gramgadon, though, must have recognized the boy.
Worse, Gramgadon was no longer the frail old man he pretended to be in public. He had morphed into his Rogue entity. Its body was black and slick as an eel’s. The shark-like face and stream-lined edges made Skippard’s entities awaken, even though they had long ago grown tired and angry with him. Still, they would come now if he needed them.
“Gramgadon!” he yelled. “Let the boy go!”
The audience had finally cleared, except for the wounded who moaned on the floor, and the fallen dead.
Gramgadon shook his deformed head. “I think I’ll leave with him.” The voice was shrill. It echoed in the wide space. He jumped off the table with Joss, carrying him with one arm as if he were a child. “Well done, Wellborn Maker. My lords will be interested to know you showed up. It’s going to happen, isn’t it? The final contest? You in the arena, fighting your better?”
“Yes, tell them I said, yes.” He moved forward as if he might leave the cage.
Gramgadon stopped. “Don’t do it, or I’ll snap his little human neck, yank his head off, and run. Try rejuving him without a head. It’ll be the Real Death for him if I have his head.”
“Dammit, Gramgadon! Leave him out of this.”
“He’s in it.” Gramgadon inched closer to the exit, pulling Joss with him.
Skippard saw Graucus moving to intercept Gramgadon. Skippard raised his hand to signal that he stop. “What can I offer you?” Skippard asked.
Gramgadon froze. “The Protocols! Give me the Protocols’ decryption key. I’ll spare the boy.”
Skippard sensed the RAI presences that watched through the house’s cyber systems become alert. Their eyes and ears were always vigilant to any talk of the Protocols. It was as if God Himself had focused all attention on this time and place.
“No,” Skippard said. He saw fear in the boy’s eyes. “Tell your masters I’ll face them in the arena.”
Gramgadon cupped his mutant hand over the boy’s mouth and yanked him toward the double doors. “I will.”
Skippard glanced at Myrmidon moving through the darkness. He waved it off. The entity scanned the room once but paused as if it understood. It began its retreat. Those around Yancey witnessed her reverse transformation, as if every cell in her body were rapidly imploding on itself to reform into a woman. In just a few minutes, she was back, her Bodyglove whole. She pulled her Mirrorshades from a nifty, hidden pocket and put them back on. Skippard looked for Graucus but saw Nisson instead. Supertrans still stood in the cage. It was a new entity and unready to go so soon.
Skippard nodded at it, as if he had known it for years. In fact, he had, even though he had never communed with it one-on-one. He had spoken to its entire species on numerous occasions, the last time occurring when he’d chosen his last entity, and it recognized Skippard as would a people recognize their ruling deity. It left in an instant. Simone the ghost stood next to her father, looking no more distressed than if they’d been walking hand-in-hand in the park.
“They got Joss,” she said.
“It’s his own damn fault.”
Yancey stood by the cage wall, her fingers wound through the metal rings. “Skippard, what’re you doing here?” She was looking into the middle distance, no doubt using her shades to call in a search for Joss.
“You heard what I said. I’ll fight.”
“You came to make that announcement.”
“Yep.”
She shook her head at him. “You always were a sucker for drama.”
He lessened himself so that he wasn’t so large and bright. “That’s me: A show off.”
The younger Toth, Hutto, emerged out of the shadows. He looked sweaty and flustered, but unharmed. His brother, Nisson walked over to him. “You kick some teeth in?”
“Bunch of weak-assed drunks here.” Hutto saw a few bodies nearby. “Jesus, the Rogueslaves did that?”
“Some of them were prospects and sympathizers,” Nisson said. “So I did some of that.”
“And I did,” Agent Wellborn said.
Skippard saw the respect in the young boy’s eyes, which was what he wanted to see. “You won your fight.”
Hutto nodded.
Nisson patted him on the back. “It was easier than sneezing.”
Hutto laughed, and even Yancey smiled.
Simone floated over to the cage barrier. “Why was Joss here?”
“I have no idea,” Hutto said.
“My bet,” Skippard said, “he got curious and got in trouble. Those two go together.”
“I’ve called for our pick ups,” Yancey said. “We need to think about what to do about Joss.”
“Gramgadon wasn’t just using him to get out of the building?” Nisson asked.
“I doubt it,” Skippard said.
“What do you mean?” Yancey asked.
“How do you think the Rogues knew to send soldiers to this event?”
“Joss alerted them?” she asked.
“My guess.”
“Why?” Nisson asked.
Skippard waited to see if anyone could figure it out. He looked at his daughter who floated nearby. She was a perfect example, why. He also looked at Hutto, and Yancey, and Nisson, three more examples.
“Joss is jealous,” Yancey said.
“He was branded,” Skippard said, “and the one time he channeled, it was hijacked by the Rogues.”
“Right, and I shut him down.”
“You think Joss betrayed us?” Simone asked.
“Not really,” Skippard said. “My guess he made a trade of some sort. Just some info for ... who knows what they promised him.”
“He wants to summon,” Nisson said.
Skippard nodded. “Of course he does.”
Yancey waved everyone to the door. “The choppers are here. Time to go.” She stepped aside so Hutto and Nisson could begin walking for the exit. “I’ll get the others.” She waited a moment, looking at Simone. “I guess you’ll go back with your father?”
Simone glowed brighter. She stood there in her big boots and her flowing summer dress. Her hair hadn’t grown, of course, but she could change it at will, and now it flowed, long and full, as if in a strong breeze.
“If he’ll show me how.”
Skippard nodded. “It’s time you learned.”
Yancey turned and walked out.
“She’s pissed,” Simone said.
“That she is.”
“Jealous?”
“A little.”
“Dad, there are dead people in here.”
“You ignore that.” He solidified himself and blocked her view of a nearby pile of bodies. “The Rogues are the worst enemies the world has ever known.” He could see that she wanted him to explain what had happened in the audience. But she seemed to know. “Come on. Let me show you how to fly.”
* * *
Simone shut her eyes as the electric grasp of her father’s hand pulled her through the physical layers of the complex. His fingers connected to hers, as if they had melded. She ignored the intrusive contact with the concrete walls and rebar reinforcements. It felt as if she were being suffocated by the weight of the world itself …
When they broke free of the roof and floated above the building, she opened her eyes and saw headlights of vehicles fleeing in all directions. She even heard the beating of the helicopter rotors in the courtyard.
“Be careful,” her father said, “you don’t want to float away into the sky and never come back.” He paused between two large chimneys that jutted from the sides of a sloped roof. “This takes practice, so don’t do it on your own for a while. The idea is to think about where you want to go. That’s all it is. Keep an image of the place in your mind. Maybe Uncle Pic’s cabin, and you’ll go there. No need for GPS or maps or scribbled directions. No need to worry about the weather or the cardinal points. Or traffic.” He smiled and chuckled enough his torso shook.
“You love this, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Flying, too?”
“It’s great. You ready?”
She nodded.
He launched himself into the night sky, pulling her with him. She began to stretch, almost as if she might disintegrate. But she retained the core part of herself, and the rest caught up. She flew upward with increasing speed. In moments, she and her father, hand-in-hand, cut into the clouds like two cobalt knives. They twisted and twirled around each other, and soon Simone lost track of time and place; she shut her eyes and imagined the coolness of damp air through which she left a wake of sparks.