by Lee Bond
A short time later, a massive explosion of fire, smoke, gears and the thick liquid running through a King’s rugged steel veins filled the sky, but only briefly.
***
“Tell me again what you saw and heard.”
Deezy picked at a chunk of meat stuck between two teeth. The damned sliver of flesh was stuck in there good and tight and it was driving him mad. He started rooting around in one of his pockets for a pick. Barnabas sat across from him, staring curiously.
The others were arranged around the fire, feasting on the magnificent animal they’d brought down quite by accident; as they’d been hustling towards Barnabas, excited by the prospect of contact with a person who wasn’t out to kill them, they’d happened on this tremendous deer with shattered horns, also running. Moxy and Criss, rattled as everyone though better at hiding it, had each shot their pistols at it, bringing the beast down in seconds.
The sumptuous beast was one of the only reasons why Barnabas was allowing them the luxury of sitting around his campfire. That, and his strident demands that they relay everything they’d seen about the golden armed man fighting the King literally on his doorstep.
Barnabas took a patient breath. He’d felt the King’s violation, felt it’s barely-sentient shriek of horror rising up through the ever-present King’s Will as Garth Nickels had clambered, bruised, battered and bleeding into the control room, had felt his poor simulacra’s astonished fear as the man had laid hands on the panels. From there, Nickels had entered coding to alter the King’s commands, and the King knew he had no one to blame but his own self such foolishness had come to pass; in all the thousands of years of there being Big’Uns, not once had any lad or lass as climbed in to do for the brain known a single whit about programming, and so he’d left things sort of … untouched, considering it some kind of last minute IQ test or summat. Over time, e’en though none climbing in ever spared more of a second to look over the screens, he’d just … let it lie. With a ‘help’ menu and everything.
Which, in hindsight, had been purely moronic, for now Nickels knew some of how Will worked at the base code level, and would certainly find some way to use that to his advantage.
When he himself had heard the Big’Un’s voice replaced with the outsider’s brash, arrogant voice…
His brain had fairly popped inside his skull, hadn’t it just?
There’d never been any fear or concern over convicts and outsiders from risking their lives thusly; to a one, every single man or woman from Trinityspace became either a looker, a leader, a pusher or a puller. Not one chose crusher, thumper or basher. They lacked the intestinal fortitude.
They weren’t Arcadians.
Though, Barnabas thought moodily, them as are running about now can hardly call themselves that, now can they?
But Nickels … ahhh, he was different. Barnabas wanted to extend his senses to where the King had erupted in voluble fury, wanted desperately to see with his own eyes what’d transpired, but couldn’t take the risk that Nickels was out there somewhere.
The King of Arcade City was convinced –more than ever- that his traveling companion was more than just a man. In fact, he were willing to be … everything he possessed that Garth Nickels was in fact a product of Trinity’s science through and through, not simply a man full of fancy augments.
Nothing else made sense. He refused Offworlders entrance, and those as managed to sneak in through the Geared Doors along with the rest of the penitents never made it through to the other side. The sieve programs saw to that.
Garth Nickels was a blighted mystery. One he didn’t have time to solve properly, not with the end coming and yet … King Barnabas Blake knew deep in his weary old bones that if he simply chose to ignore what Nickels represented, all could quite easily turn to chaos, especially if the lad was a saboteur.
Barnabas repeated the question. Unable to keep the ire from his voice, he followed the repetition with a tilt to the head that had … Large Ronald, was his name … that had Large Ronald looking like he was ready to start trouble.
Barnabas smiled, then commanded his hidden weapons –all ‘Arcade City’ compliant- to begin cycling up.
“If …” A haggard voice came out of the darkness, followed by some huffing and puffing, “if that … fuck me … if that fucking smell I smell is roasted deer that had a broken thirty-point rack, I am going to be so … so … pissed.”
Moxy Molly yelped, leaped over the fire and ran behind a tent, Large Ronald in tow.
Barnabas plastered a friendly smile on his face, assessing everything. The world he lived in grew more complex and aggravating with every passing minute.
Garth trudged into view. Wrapped around his upper body was a DIY rope, hand-woven from tree branches, of all things! This trailed off past the illumination of the firelight, but Barnabas didn’t need to look to see what the man was towing.
The … whatever he was … was seriously injured, as any man without Dark Iron in his blood would be from doing battle, firstly with the King, and then against the internal defenses of that same King. It served the arrogant little prick right. If only he’d fought a King the right way, as he, King Barnabas Blake had decreed, well … there was little doubt in his mind that Nickels would’ve been torn to bits by that electric imperator.
From where he sat at the fire, Barnabas nearly shouted with glee when it became apparent Garth’s wondrous clockwork arms were nearly destroyed; the right arm, which Deezy Cue kept calling ‘God Fist’ for some inscrutable reason, was a mangled mess of cracked gears, popped springs and malfunctioning pistons and pumps. Joyously, with each step taken towards the fire, pulling his extremely heavy payload, that arm groaned and moaned with unpleasant sounds. The left was somewhat better off in that it moved without a terrible, high-pitched metal-on-metal squeal, but only by a bit; from his vantage point at the fire, Barnabas could easily see right into the guts of the machinery. That kind of structural damage called for a full rebuild, and e’en then, it were highly unlikely the arms would ever be the same again.
The younger man’s lower extremities were covered in burns, semi-healed gashes and …
“Why are you naked?” Barnabas asked.
Garth dropped the tree-rope and walked towards the fire, rubbing his chest. Well, he tried to rub his chest: his right arm had decided to crap out about an hour ago. It was to be expected. Lugging a fucking hundred gallon tub of Dark Iron across eight miles of grass and rock was a fucking bullshit task, and it’d already been done for after having to hammer down the triple-thick walls surrounding the King’s inner brain.
The Kingkiller plopped down beside Deezy Cue, who was staring wordlessly at him.
Garth grabbed the chunk of deer meat out of Cue’s hands and took a bite. “Burned off in the explosion.” He said this around a mouthful of delicious game, not caring if anyone understood him.
“You … you … you’re not dead.” This came from Obese Patterson, who was ecstatic he was on the other side of the fire.
“What was your first clue, Brainiac?” Garth jammed the rest of the meat into his mouth then snatched the flagon of water by Deezy’s feet with his left hand. He washed everything down and fixed the leader of the gearhead crew with his one good eye; DarkEye was currently offline once again, no doubt thanks to the Big’Un’s protection protocols. The moment he’d started hammering away at the big keys connected to the odd-looking ten foot square cube with wires and tubes and stuff going into the wiring ringing the inside of the skull, the lens had shut down.
Fortunately, DarkEye wasn’t completely broken. Every time Garth ‘focused’ on the damned thing, an hilarious picture of horses grazing stuttered into frame for a few seconds before shutting down again.
Garth took another mouthful of water, sighing in ecstasy. He hadn’t had such a long day in forever. Racking his brain in search of something similar, eventual deciding on that time when he’d fought with Chad. He wasn’t hurt nearly as badly as then, but in terms of sheer fucking monotonous bul
lshit?
Totally the same. “Now,” Garth jammed another mouthful of meat into his craw and motioned for everyone to sit where they were and to say nothing while he enjoyed himself, “now, first things first. Tell Moxy and Ronnie to shag their asses back into the light.”
Barnabas chuckled, eyes catching the firelight. To Deezy, “I’d do as the lad suggests, boyo.”
It took Deezy Cue a few seconds to find his voice. “R-r-Ronald, Moxy, be of good cheer and come back this way?”
“If they’ve been in my tents, laddie,” Barnabas spoke quietly, “things will end poorly for them.”
Garth nodded rapidly, adding, “Yeah, Barnabas doesn’t like people fucking with his shit. Ah, here they are!” The bedraggled, freshly christened solo-Kingkiller gestured grandly to the ground around the roaring fire.
He was in a piss poor mood. A very dark, very grim mood. With the exoskeleton at about thirty percent functionality, most of the Dark Iron was pooling under his skin once more. Under normal circumstances, everyone –including Barnabas- would be at dire risk of their safety.
It was a damn good thing he was tired and so badly hurt. Specter-him was running hot and heavy beneath his flesh, surging brighter as more Vicious Elixir leaked back in, naturally, but again. Too tired to fucking care.
When everyone was all seated at the fire once more, Garth started talking. He explained, in very simple terms and with very small words full of colorful adjectives and heartbreaking sincerity precisely what would happen if the Dark Iron-starved crew got it into their heads to try and steal even a single drippy-drop from the canister some ten feet behind him. Then, belly digesting the meat and returning some strength to his weary bones, Garth went on talking, suggesting that everyone in Deezy’s crew do their level best to refrain from mentioning to anyone how a man with no Iron in his blood had succeeded in killing a fully armored King.
“But …” Deezy motioned for his crew to shut their yaps. “That story alone …”
“I’d do as he suggests, my son.” Barnabas put as much fatherly warmth into his voice as he could. It wasn’t hard, not really; every man or woman who’d supped on Dark Iron was in a very literal sense his child. “My apprentice, Garth Nickels, is in no mood to lie.”
Garth shot Barnabas a flat look that screamed volumes about his displeasure in being identified, both by name and as an ‘apprentice blacksmith’, before dropping the matter. “And now, I suggest you all fuck off for the hills. It’s late, I’m hurt, and I’m naked and I suspect Barnabas here is going to charge an arm and a leg for a pair of his pants.”
“But…” Deezy rose from the fire, gesturing quickly, then more impatiently as his crew chose now to lollygag, “but the … we could charge admission fees for people to hear what we got to say ‘bout what we saw.”
“Deezy Cue,” Garth rose and confronted the smaller man, “think about this. Do you want a man who killed a King on his own come after you? Do you want me tracking you down?”
Barnabas roared with laughter at the crestfallen expression on Deezy’s face, and that laughter continued following the bedraggled crew into the darkness.
23. Of ‘Requisitioned’ Ships and Unwanted Visitors, an Officer and A Chairman, and Barbarians at the Gates
Aleksander stared uncomprehendingly at the list of updates from around Trinityspace. The data on his screens was, quite literally, one of the strangest and most implausible things he was being asked to believe, and these days, they were surrounded by the strange and nearly choking to death on the implausible.
The commander put in another request to talk to someone, anyone directly in contact with Trinity Itself, wondering –not for the first time- if their multi-systemic machine mind had finally shut down. Gone insane. Lost control. Something. Anything. There had to be some rational explanation for what It’s Enforcers were getting up to. There just had to be. If there wasn’t … Politoyov didn’t really know what to do, otherwise.
If Trinity had indeed lost either It’s mind or control of It’s own resources, oddly enough, the news wouldn’t surprise an aging Specter Commander in the least; as a student of History –inasmuch as anyone could be with Dark Ages popping up every few thousand years-, Politoyov was all too aware that things were at their worst right before the Universe-choking darkness fell. With one looming on the horizon combined with the fruitless war they ’waged’ against the Latelians?
Even the most intricate mind would struggle to stay sane, juggling all those variables.
So with entire solar systems –and presumably Galaxies- falling under the sway of Dark Age Ennui, Trinity, sworn Protector of Humanity, would of course find Itself duty-bound in It’s efforts to keep idiots from blowing themselves to smithereens the first chance they got. As It had valiantly done since time immemorial.
Doing so could’ve stretched their machine mind ruler incredibly thin. Easily. They would all be at risk if that were the case.
The updates drew Aleksander’s attention again. The gnawing worry in his gut –that what was happening out there was the first sign of Trinity’s dementia- wouldn’t go away.
Enforcers were stealing black hole ships from Specters, claiming as they did so they were acting under Trinity’s aegis. Or trying to steal those most precious vessels, because Specters were nothing if not ridiculously overconfident these days and so unhealthily attached to their gear that they would naturally think it perfectly acceptable to try and stop the Enforcers.
In the ‘grand scheme’ of things, the destructive collision of Enforcers versus Specters hadn’t yet risen to the point where Trinity Itself started hollering through speakers, but if those damnfool Specters didn’t stop trying to blow Enforcers up, things would go from bad to worse in a hurry.
“It doesn’t make any sense.” Aleks couldn’t wrap his mind around the why of it all. At all.
Oh, the loss of Specters was no great thing. There were always fools –there always would be- and criminals hungry for the risk and thrill of joining Special Services. Though SpecSer had moved up the rankings to a more officially recognized Trinity organization and were getting actual volunteers these days, they would always make room for men, women and Offworlders on the run from murderers, banks, thieves, solar systems, assassins. They would also make room for murderers, thieves, assassins, conmen and other varieties of criminal and the disreputable. Entities on the run made the best Specters.
It wasn’t even the loss of the black hole ships. Shipyards all across Trinityspace were capable of mass-producing as many as needed. He’d already put in requests for half a dozen replacements. The shipmasters of Arlex-12 were promising delivery by the end of the week.
Politoyov wanted to blame his Specters, but really, he couldn’t. They were doing as they’d been trained: they were protecting the gear they’d fought hard to acquire, as honor and duty demanded.
No, it was the Enforcers themselves. Why were they stealing ships? What possible reason could they have for them?
Oh, the reports littering his screens and desk contained all manner of anecdotal data on the issue; they claimed they had permission, but refused to show basic proof. To a Specter –many of whom were far too knowledgeable about what was and was not legal under Trinity’s Law- each damned display of arrogance was gas on fire.
Without blinking or flinching, Specters across the Universe were rising up, dying to protect what they owned –as they’d been trained- and all because they weren’t being shown the proper requisition forms.
What possible use could Enforcers have for black hole ships?
It was bothering Aleksander to the point where pulling Tendreel off her increasingly wide search for all things Nickels-related in favor of figuring this riddle out was a constant, nagging desire.
The why of it! And the manner they were undertaking to ‘acquire’ these unnecessary ships!
They were going about it in entirely the wrong fashion.
To put it grandiosely, Enforcers were the Right Hand of God. If they insisted on dema
nding the ships without following due process, all they had to do was call him on the Q-Comm and say something akin to ‘I am Enforcer Rob, I am in System X, tell your men to give me their ship’.
And he would. Naturally. And his Specters would toss the Enforcer the keys to said ship without hesitation. They’d take great pains to warn the titanic warrior in the process about repair costs being triple the blue book value and encouraging said Enforcer to be incredibly diligent in ship upkeep, but they’d do it.
Aleksander was no fool. As ‘mighty’ and ‘powerful’ as he was, Aleksander Politoyov knew that Trinity cared for his Enforcers above all else. They were It’s Omega Level Deterrents, after all. Without them, controlling the vast and unruly domain called Trinityspace would be impossible, because, honestly, Trinity Itself was a disembodied voice.
A disembodied voice with unlimited power and infinite resources, sure, but still. Just a voice. Without It’s fists … madness. Chaos. Pure and simple.
“It’s almost as if they don’t want anyone knowing what it is they’re doing.” Aleksander trailed off, musing on the sorts of things that an Enforcer might get up to on behalf of Trinity that required both a black hole ship and absolute secrecy, eventually coming back to the fact that, in all the stories he’d heard, never once had a single armor-clad soldier needed a ship.
They had personal Quantum Tunnels built right into their amazing Suits.
Aleksander scratched his head irritably with both hands. He didn’t like mysteries, but what he liked even less were his men being idiots.
Commander Aleksander Politoyov bent himself to the task of wording a communication to every single Specter in Trinityspace in such a way that that he was –keeping those armchair lawyers and barristers firmly in the forefront of his mind the whole time- very clearly and succinctly understood; he needed to make it understood that, should an Enforcer come knocking, each squad should just give their ship up without pause, delay or accidental gunfire. Moreover, that they should ignore displays of arrogance, dismissive temperament or anything that could cause twitchy Specters to feel like they were being made fun of.