by J. Stone
“She told me not to…” Erynn began, seeing that Alice was still up and moving. “But I’ve never been very good at doing what I’m told.” The chromesmith swiveled the gear at the handle of the gun once again and prepared to fire one more time.
For Alice, everything seemed to stop. To cease. Everything was blackness. She thought she had died again. Her memory started to piece itself back together eventually, trying to make sense of what had happened. The bullet that the heretic had fired into her chest was full of nothingness. Tearing through her, the bullet just stopped and stuck there. A void opened inside her chest. Everything ripped, cracked, and split apart. All that was left of her was a mass of flesh, bone, and blood on the floor of the mansion entryway.
Her mind, however, was still active. Still cognizant. Alice realized that she was not dead. Things began to take form in the world around her. She could still see and hear, though that was not in the strictest sense what she was accomplishing, since she had neither working eyes nor ears. Rather, she was simply aware. Alice’s remains were still sitting on that hardwood floor, mere inches from accomplishing her goal of acquiring Erynn Clover. Whatever the Hart Serum had done to the operative, it would not allow her to die. Either that or it was god keeping her alive. The voice in her head was still with her.
Get up! It demanded.
Was that even possible? Her body seemed to be completely useless now. All that was left were the raw parts. The components. There was nothing left that she could threaten them with. She couldn’t even stand or talk or see. She was nothing but consciousness amidst a mass of flesh and broken bones. But then it dawned on her. She had been given a chance to rebuild herself in any form she desired. No longer was she bound by the form she had been given from birth. Alice had evolved beyond any mortal human and their weak limitations of the flesh. She would create herself anew.
The lumps of flesh scattered throughout the entryway slowly began to move toward each other and mold themselves into something new. The blood pushed through what remained and ensured everything was connected. Each piece began to work in conjunction simultaneously to rebuild her system. Her bones were regrown from the minutia of white dust left behind after the gun’s blast. Organs regenerated from single cells left splattered somewhere within what was left of the operative. Her skin wrapped around everything, but it wasn’t quite skin. The material was something new. Something thicker, but more flexible, and altogether better than that which she had been given at birth.
While she resurrected herself, Alice could hear Erynn and the others discuss what they were going to do. Alice knew that they had reached the end of their technological means. There was no device that the chromesmith had left that could possibly threaten her. That didn’t stop them from thinking that they could somehow best an immortal though.
“What are we gonna do?” Pearl asked.
“I’m out of ideas,” Erynn replied. “Max?”
“Hmm?” he murmured.
“Can you do something to stop her regeneration, Max?” she asked.
“Not before she… hardens again,” he said, ladling a bit of her soupy remains with a kitchen spoon and letting it drip over the side.
“What about containment?” Germ suggested. “Though I don’t like the place, maybe we could send her into the Pocket.”
“What about it, Max?” Erynn asked.
“What Pocket?” he replied. “I destroyed it, like you and Germ said I should.”
“Already?” she asked. “How did you manage that so quickly?”
“I had some free time,” Rowland said.
Rolling her eyes, Erynn continued, “Well, we have to do something. She’s just going to keep regenerating.”
“Well, I should say that I mostly destroyed it,” Rowland corrected himself.
“What does that mean?” Erynn asked.
“I cannot exactly destroy the universe itself,” he explained vaguely. “When Henry and I created it, we simply carved it out of an existing universe and rebuilt what we needed.”
“That’s supposed to make more sense, sir?” Germ asked.
“I think what he means is, that he could still transport things into this other dimension, but we would have no idea where that is exactly,” Brodie clarified.
“Quite,” Rowland agreed. “But I think I liked the way I said it better.”
By this point, Alice was truly beginning to regain control over her new body. She attempted to lunge out at those surrounding her, but she was still too weak. All it managed to do was cause them to back up into the kitchen once more. The limb she’d manufactured fell back with a splash into her liquefied remains.
“If you send her through, at least she won’t be here anymore,” Erynn said. “Do it.”
“As you wish,” Rowland replied.
Alice’s head was now formed, and she looked up at her attackers with such disdain in her eyes. The professor raised his mechanical gauntlet toward the congealing operative and opened his palm. A colorless mist surrounded her body, as she was just beginning to stand up on the legs that she had crafted with her own mind. Alice found herself unable to move forward on them, however, as the mist clung to her and held her down.
It began to tear and bite at her flesh, stripping it away faster than she could regenerate. Many of the physical injuries she had sustained since taking the Hart Serum had been dulled, but Alice had never felt anything so painful as the mist that now enshrouded her body. She screamed in agony, as Erynn and the others looked on.
As her body was shredded by the mist and being transported to some unknown location, Alice lashed out and attacked the heretic, grabbing her leg with a tentacle. The scene was much like the last time she had seen Erynn, when she was pushed from the moving train. This time, Fiona wouldn’t be there to save her. This time, she would have her revenge. The chromesmith, however, turned out to not need assistance. Over her left hand, Erynn was wearing a mechanical device of some sort. She grabbed Alice’s tentacle with that hand, as it lit up with some sort of power, pushed out an exhaust of steam, and managed to crush the limb in her grip. Prying it off her leg, the heretic released Alice’s tentacle, and the operative slipped completely through the void.
Instantly upon arriving in the foreign place, Alice knew that she was not alone. The ashy landscape looked to be barren of all life, but she still felt something out there. The ground was composed of cracked and distressed earth, while in the distance, fierce storms raged. Overhead, comets scorched the sky with their unnatural light.
Alice turned her attention to herself. Her body was fully whole. She had regenerated, but whatever process had sent her here didn’t seem to carry her clothes along with it. She could see that the scars that had previously lined her skin were gone. Any proof of injury she’d had was gone. This place didn’t make sense, she thought to herself. Where had Professor Rowland sent her?
Having no idea where she was or where she should be going, she walked. Time seemed distorted and wrong in that place. She simultaneously felt like she had been there for years and seconds, and she couldn’t tell which was correct. Perhaps neither. Maybe both. The one thing she knew for certain in that foreign place was that she would do anything to get back to Cultwick and get the revenge she felt herself owed.
Epilogue
While she had been truthful when saying that she would change the empire since her mother’s rule, Viola had also caused a great deal of friction within a certain population of Cultwick. Because of her progressive agenda, Alice was inspired to actively work against the empress in an attempt to restore what she saw as proper order to the empire. Guided by a voice only she could hear, she had discovered a great deal about Viola that could be used against her. Delivering both information and the empress’ unknown brother to former Councilor Crowley, after he faked his death, Alice was tasked with one final assignment. Ultimately, she wound up being trapped in another dimension. Unwilling to accept this fate, the operative sought to understand where she was and actively work t
o escape it. She would do whatever she needed to, if it would get her back home.
Meanwhile, the work she had accomplished within Cultwick would serve Crowley well in his endeavors to take back power. He set his schemes into motion. Under the guise of doing god’s work, he was able to convince others to secretly follow him. Before long, he would develop an underground group of biosynthesists who wished to return to the way things were before Viola ascended the throne. With Cullen as the secret ace in his pocket, he believed he could change things to suit his own preferences.
The bounty hunter, Vincent, had accomplished a task which he was certain would prove impossible. Cassie had her revenge after both Oscar Graham and Reginald Maynard died at her hands. Having carried the regret of failing Cassie all his life, he was finally allowed a small bit of peace knowing that he helped her get justice for her enslavement and her husband’s murder. Councilor Maynard’s body was discovered splattered on the concrete at the base of the Sovereign Tower, and Vincent was discovered and identified by the corpsmen. There was no word of his accomplice, and she appeared to have escaped the tower and evaded the corps.
Erynn Clover and her unorthodox family were, for the first time since her name had been selected in the lottery, all together and safe. Germ had been returned from the Pocket, she was in good health, Pearl was at her side, Rowland was no longer tasked with making the impossible happen, and no one was hunting them down now that Alice had been thrown into an alternate world. They were once again able to strive for the semblance of a normal life. There was one stitch that did have her concerned, however. When he’d been pulled back, Germ had spoken of Erynn’s brother, Simon, who she had long since thought dead. If there was even a chance that he was still living, she would not hesitate to do everything in her power to see him again. She had lost too much to give up on him.
After the realization of what she was capable of, Pearl still had some unanswered questions about her potential. Viola had opened the door to the possibilities, but Pearl still felt she had a long journey ahead of her to discover the truth. With Erynn at her side though, the couple felt that nothing was insurmountable.
Germ had a bit of trouble returning to life on the other side of the Pocket after what he had seen within. Nightmares of the amalgamations inside haunted his sleep, but he was reassured by the fact that the professor had destroyed what remained of the pocket universe and had even promised to tone down his experimentations.
The professor was reunited with a colleague that he did not expect to ever see again. Having to trap his associate within the world that they had built cost him a great deal. After they failed to save Brodie from his darker side, Rowland had great difficulty moving forward. He was hopeful that the man’s return would restore something within him, allowing him to progress.
The empress herself was now bridled with holding up a deal that had been struck with something entirely not of her world. Either unwilling or unable to remember the exact bargain that she had struck with the otherworldly entity, Viola struggled to come to terms with what he expected of her. Though the wound she had suffered when ridding the city of the infected was now healed, she would have to begin to understand what was happening with the portal that they had opened, while simultaneously maintaining control of the city.
Cultwick had evolved a great deal since Viola had taken over the empire, but there were many more changes looming. Government policies had shifted, knowledge of the formerly forgotten hekta was growing throughout the city, biosynthesis was losing favor in the capital city, and beings from another plane of existence were now dabbling in the affairs of the citizens of Cultwick, threatening to irrevocably change the nature of the world. Though it had just begun, the golden age of the empire was nearly at an end.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1. Alice’s Resurrection
Chapter 2. Crowley’s Power
Chapter 3. Vincent’s Recovery
Chapter 4. Viola’s Mother
Chapter 5. Pearl’s Home
Chapter 6. Germ’s Orientation
Chapter 7. Viola’s Coronation
Chapter 8. Alice’s Orders
Chapter 9. Ryn’s Gift
Chapter 10. Rowland’s Research
Chapter 11. Vincent’s Arm
Chapter 12. Alice’s Quarry
Chapter 13. Crowley’s Death
Chapter 14. Germ’s Guide
Chapter 15. Ryn’s Skill
Chapter 16. Rowland’s Serum
Chapter 17. Vincent’s Rampage
Chapter 18. Pearl’s Assistance
Chapter 19. Viola’s Council
Chapter 20. Alice’s Insight
Chapter 21. Germ’s Cage
Chapter 22. Pearl’s Consultation
Chapter 23. Alice’s Dilemma
Chapter 24. Ryn’s Birthday
Chapter 25. Rowland’s Pocket
Chapter 26. Vincent’s Bounty
Chapter 27. Germ’s Escape
Chapter 28. Alice’s Search
Chapter 29. Viola’s Inspection
Chapter 30. Rowland’s Friends
Chapter 31. Crowley’s Deception
Chapter 32. Pearl’s Painting
Chapter 33. Viola’s Portal
Chapter 34. Ryn’s Nemesis
Chapter 35. Vincent’s Commitment
Chapter 36. Alice’s Grudge
Epilogue