Cultwick: The Science of Faith

by J. Stone

  “I’m not sure how much longer this will work,” Kyra informed her.

  “That’s why we must finish,” Viola replied. “He’s my only chance.”

  Her attendant looked mournful. Before she could say anything else, however, a young woman entered.

  “The council has finished,” she informed them both.

  “Thank you,” Viola said.

  The empress, accompanied by Kyra, stood up from the table and descended to the council’s floor. She was quite eager to see how the first session of her newly constructed council had gone, so she made her way to Maynard’s new office, which was incidentally Crowley’s old one. She found the new councilor’s door open, and he was unboxing things, placing them on his desk and shelves.

  “How did things go?” she asked him, entering the room.

  “You sure picked an interesting lot,” Maynard replied, turning around and facing her. “They all certainly have their own ideas about what’s best for the empire.”

  “And you’re going to listen to them all,” Viola explained. “This will be a better empire than the one my mother left me with.”

  “Oh, I know,” he said. “I remember our deal. Speaking of which, there is a loose end in that regard. Maybe we need to renegotiate our contract.”

  “This is beginning to feel a bit like a deal with a demon,” Viola said.

  “You might just be right,” Maynard agreed with a sly smile. “Though I do wonder which of us the demon is in this arrangement.”

  “What are you insinuating?” she asked.

  “Remember, I know what it is you’re planning to build in that factory,” he explained. “Who knows what it is you’ll find at the end of that particular road.”

  “Just tell me what it is you want,” Viola insisted.

  “You sure you want to talk about that with her here?” he asked indicating to Viola’s handmaiden and looking uncomfortable with her presence.

  “Kyra?” the empress verified. “She’s fine. In fact, from now on, feel free to consider her your superior… in more ways than one.”

  Kyra smiled at the comment, while Maynard scowled. Viola was already growing quite tired of the man, and she looked forward to the day she could replace him as well.

  “The bounty hunter,” he continued. “Apparently he lived. Now he’s in the city. Killed Oscar Graham. Can only imagine he’ll be after me too.”

  “If you hadn’t felt the need to scorch the earth, this wouldn’t have even been a concern,” Viola said.

  “Well, it’s done, now what are you going to do about him?” Maynard asked. “Lest I need remind you, he knows I was working for you.”

  “I’m sure we can do something about it,” she said.

  “You’d better,” he warned.

  “Did you at least get my workforce initiative set up?” the empress asked.

  “It’s in the works,” he replied. “Saving all those lost souls from their poverty. The others loved it. Little do they know what you’re really planning for them.”

  A throbbing pain entered her hand, and she flexed it into a fist and back open several times. “Just get it done,” she said, turning to leave along with her handmaiden.

  Instead, she was greeted with a sight that she did not expect. There stood the barely stitched together body of a woman she recognized as an operative of the Reclamation Bureau. Though she had never had reason to speak with her, Viola knew her by name and what she stood for. She was everything her mother would’ve wanted her to be - a zealot, obedient, ridiculously bio-enhanced. Viola hated her instantly.

  “Operative… Page, was it?” she inquired.

  “Yes, Empress,” Alice replied.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked with a certain level of disdain.

  “I’ve come to talk to Councilor Crowley,” she explained. “Has something happened?”

  “Desmond was killed,” Viola said plainly. “Killed by an assassin from the look of things.”

  “It… can’t be,” Alice replied, barely over the sound of a whisper.

  “I’m afraid so, my dear,” the empress assured her, taking a bit more pleasure in delivering the news than her words conveyed. “Councilor Maynard, here has taken up his position. What was it you needed to see him in regards to?”

  “I… he…” Alice stuttered, seemingly unable to find the words.

  In no mood for the operative’s deception, Viola dug into the ever-depleting reservoir of her own energy. She used the energy to cast a silent charm on Alice. The woman revealed herself to be quite easy to control, having little independent will of her own. There was much less mess than when Viola had tried the same spell on Crowley.

  Eventually, Alice continued, “He gave me a mission.”

  “And what was that?” Viola asked.

  “Well…” the operative hesitated.

  “Come now, Operative Page, tell me what he had you doing,” the empress ordered.

  “Hazel Weaver,” she reluctantly answered.

  With a confused expression across her face, Viola inquired, “What about her?”

  “He tasked me with retrieving her after her escape, Empress,” Alice explained.

  “She didn’t escape,” Viola replied.

  “Of course she did,” Alice said, preventing the empress from finishing. “I found her at her father’s circus.”

  “She didn’t escape,” Viola repeated. “She was released. By me.”

  “You did what?” Alice asked.

  Ignoring the operative’s impudent question, Viola turned to her handmaiden. “Kyra.”

  “Yes, My Empress,” the handmaiden replied. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Kyra turned and left the councilor’s room, on her way to release Hazel from her captivity.

  “The scientists of the C.E.R. were experimenting on her against her will, and I saw fit to put an end to it,” she explained. “As I am now forced to do once again.”

  “But she has so much to offer us about her ability,” Alice angrily argued. “Why would you do that?”

  “Do not forget your place, Operative,” Viola warned. “You are a hound on a leash. You do the empire’s bidding, and the second I don’t see a need for you, I will put you down.”

  “Yes… Empress,” Alice barely managed to utter.

  Seeing the operative forced to visibly swallow her pride filled Viola with a sense of proper accomplishment. She certainly didn’t like keeping a woman like Alice around, but there were still things for her to do. Maynard’s problem in particular with the bounty hunter, Vincent, came to mind.

  “Speaking of which, I believe Councilor Crowley’s replacement has such an assignment for you,” the empress said on her way out. “A bounty hunter that has crossed the line, if I recall?”

  “Indeed,” Maynard agreed with an acknowledging nod. “Vincent Rourke. You’re going to kill him for me.”

  Chapter 20. Alice’s Insight

  During her time out west, Alice had been exposed to the bounty hunter, Vincent Rourke. He had been a part of the Ash Cloud bank robbery and had subsequently helped break Erynn Clover out from her prison cell on the train transporting her back to Cultwick. He had even shot at the operative during their escape from the train right before she met her end at the hands of Fiona under the rail car's wheels. Despite that, he hadn’t struck her as a particularly important member of the Chromework Confederacy, likely just working as a mercenary rather than one of its devoted followers, and the evidence she’d uncovered thus far supported that bit of supposition.

  Regardless, he had been a rebel, so it struck Alice as rather curious as to why the former confederacy leader and now council leader, Maynard, would want to have him hunted down and killed. She had pressed him for details on that account, but no adequate reason was given. Something was said about a rich mine owner from Chrome City, Oscar Graham, but his death was far from a sufficient reason to put an operative on the case. That was the work for an inspector or corpsman, so the circumstances were t
oo unusual for Alice to ignore. The bounty hunter had to know something more personal to Maynard that he shouldn’t, and she was determined to find out what that was.

  The first step was finding the man though, and his trail was not particularly difficult to follow. Subtlety did not seem to be a tool in the bounty hunter’s arsenal. The brothel on Hush Street that he had attacked was nearly burned to the ground, but there had been enough testimony to prove that it had been him and a female accomplice. The rampage had also proved Vincent to be a talented killer. Along with his unknown accomplice, he took out nearly a dozen armed men with hardly a scratch himself.

  Tracking him after the incident in the brothel did present a more difficult challenge, but it was not beyond Alice’s skills as an operative. Things may have begun to change in the city, but people no less feared the Reclamation Bureau. A flash of the unscathed tattoo on the back of her hand was all it took to get the answers she sought. The bounty hunter and the other woman had been staying in a downscale motel in the Brass District. The distract was a region where the brick of the main roads were replaced with large, uneven cobblestones, and the buildings were pressed ever closer together than in the rest of the city. Winding alleyways and narrow streets intersected around the old and dilapidated structures. The poor begged for coin, while waste was thrown from buckets out the windows of upper stories.

  With a little leverage, Alice acquired the room number from the manager. Prepared with nothing but her own genetic mutations and the Hart Serum vials strapped around her midsection, Alice ascended to the fourth floor and busted down the door of his room.

  Vincent sat in a cushioned chair cleaning a partially disassembled pistol and looking extremely surprised to see the operative. Tentacles already protruding from below the hem of her dress, Alice rushed the bounty hunter. He had another gun sitting on a table next to him and managed to grab it before she reached him. The act ultimately did him no service, as one of Alice’s tentacles lurched out, slithering around Vincent’s wrist and knocking it against the wall. Despite the restraint, he fired the trigger and blasted the ceiling of the motel room rather than her. With her other tentacles, she wrapped them around both his ankles, his other arm, and finally his neck, giving him just enough room to breathe.

  With the bounty hunter restrained, Alice casually walked up to him with a pleasant smile across her face. “Mr. Rourke. How are you?”

  “I’ve been better, lady,” he angrily replied.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Alice continued. “We met once before, you and I. Do you recall?”

  “I seem to… remember you being dismembered… by a train,” Vincent said, struggling to breathe.

  “Yes, there was a bit of unpleasantness, I’ll admit,” the operative agreed. “I come to you today on a different note, however.” Looking around the room, she realized that Vincent had been alone. “Where’s your little helper?” she asked.

  “Out,” he replied through gritted teeth.

  “Oh well,” Alice continued. “I suppose I only need you for this little interrogation. That’s new,” she said nodding toward his mechanical appendage, which she was restraining. “Where ever did you get it?”

  “I think you knew her as the heretic,” Vincent spat grudgingly.

  “Ms. Clover?” A look of disgust washed over her face. “And how is our little heretic?”

  “Oh, you know, she seemed--” he was cut off and started to choke, as Alice squeezed his neck.

  “I don’t actually care,” she interrupted. “That insolent thing will get what is coming to her soon enough, but let’s focus on you for now.” Leaning in close to him, she asked, “Why does Reginald Maynard want you dead?”

  Before he could answer, Alice heard a floorboard creak behind her at the doorway. Turning abruptly, she saw the bounty hunter’s accomplice pointing a high-powered rifle at her. Before Alice could react, she was blasted backward by a series of shots. Somehow, Vincent was uninjured by the gunfire, and Alice was weakened enough to release her grip on him.

  Falling to the ground and coughing, he managed to yell out, “Run, Cassie!” The bounty hunter grabbed the gun that was still in one piece and followed his accomplice out the door and out of the operative’s sight.

  The bullets had been well placed. One landed just near her heart, two in her right lung, and the last in her neck. She lay sprawled on the floor, as her tentacles retracted instinctively back inside her. Barely able to move, Alice worked a hand to the serum along her midsection. With enough effort, she worked her fingers to one of the vials. Fearing she didn’t have the precision to handle an injection of the liquid, Alice tried another strategy. Hovering the vial over one of the gunshot wounds in her chest, the operative crushed the glass in her own hand. Shards of glass painfully pierced her skin, but the serum dripped down into the bloodied wound in her chest as well as the new cuts in her hand. The consumption wasn’t a traditional method, but it had got the job done. She could feel the serum begin to do its work almost immediately.

  The bullets that hadn’t passed right through her were pushed out and plopped noisily to the wooden floor of the motel room, while the glass shards dug into her palm fell out as well. Her strength returned, and she found herself able to stand once again. She casually strolled into the room’s adjoining bathroom and rinsed her hands in the sink. A bit of blood had come up and dripped out from her mouth, so she filled her hands with water, sipping the water and rinsing the blood out. Grabbing a towel, she brushed clean the blood from her chest and neck before drying her hands and chin. She then neatly folded and hung the cloth back on the hoop, where she had found it. She then examined the bullet holes in her dress, eyeing them disapprovingly and slotting a finger through one.

  Leaving the bathroom and then the motel room, Alice walked down the hallway to the end of the corridor that was marked with a large window. Looking down at the street below, the operative could see Vincent and his accomplice, Cassie, making off down the road.

  After him! The echoing voice in her head shouted.

  Shaping her fist into a mallet of bone and muscle, Alice slammed it through the window, shattering the pane of glass easily. Scraping the mutated blob of flesh against the frame, she cleared the last bits of glass clinging onto the structure before leaping out and landing hard on the ground below. Despite the long fall, Alice was instantly up and running after the bounty hunter with her hand back to normal. Her mutations, along with the Hart Serum, had made her capable of enduring almost anything, especially so recently after having administered the treatment. Chasing after Vincent, Alice’s tendrils appeared out from below her dress, helping her move along faster and faster. They stretched out grabbing buildings, poles cemented in the walkways, and parked vehicles. They even tossed aside the horrified citizens walking along the street that got in her way.

  Vincent surely realized that she would easily catch up with him, and he modified his escape plans accordingly. Some distance ahead of her, the bounty hunter slammed his mechanical fist through a parked vehicle’s glass window. He and Cassie jumped inside the covered carriage, and he must have found a way to initiate its engine. With a puff of dark black smoke, the vehicle sputtered forward, screeching its rubber tires on the pavement below. The transport managed to gain some distance from her, and if Alice didn’t do something, she was at risk of losing them.

  Do not lose them! The voice only she could hear yelled in response. Inject yourself!

  The voice had a perfect suggestion. Her resolve strengthened, Alice grabbed yet another serum from her belt, sliding it into the injector. Not stopping to steady her hand, she slammed the needle into her arm. The operative had no idea what a second dose of the Hart Serum might do to her, but she had faith that it would bring her that which she needed. The mutating and regenerative substance did not let her down. Dozens of new tentacles spawned from beneath her dress’ hem, propelling her forward even faster than before. Each wrapped around anything they could, giving her increased leverage. Some began to
toss the cars she passed like they were ragdolls. The poles cracked the cement as they were bent back or outright broken. A wake of destruction followed behind her, and, soon, she had caught up with the vehicle. With a leap, she jumped onto the back of its trunk, willing the tentacles that had grown far more numerous and lengthier than she had ever deemed possible back inside her.

  Forming her arm into a blade, Alice slashed the bone weapon across the width of the car’s roof. Reforming it into a hand, she grabbed the ripped metal with both hands, peeling back the layer of metal with surprising ease. Cassie, who sat in the passenger’s seat angled back, firing a pistol-full of bullets into Alice. The operative laughed them off, the wounds healing back almost immediately and pushing the bullets out from her flesh. When Cassie had fired the last shot, Alice smacked the woman with the back of her hand, knocking her head through the side window’s glass and causing her to fall into unconsciousness.

  “Cassie!” Vincent shouted, swerving to miss another vehicle in the road.

  Alice switched her focus to the driver of the vehicle, bashing his head forward into the steering wheel and causing him to swerve off the road. The vehicle narrowly missed a small crowd of people and crashed into the side of a building. The operative would have been flung forward from the sudden stop, but a dozen or so tentacles rapidly expanded from her, grabbing onto anything they could and managing to hold her in place. Neither Vincent or Cassie was as lucky in the landing, as each smashed forward into the dashboard. Glass, blood, and metal went everywhere, and a honking noise was emitted from the vehicle, as a stream of smoke billowed up from the engine.