Miko turned pale.
“I’ve managed to ID her, Incarnator,” she said very quietly. “Stay cool and don’t betray yourself to her. Very slowly and very cautiously, get a Flash of Light ready for activation.”
Interlude. The Possessed
THE TRAILER WHICH HAD HOUSED Evyl’s lab had burned to a crisp. Gnarl watched gloomily as several Rogues carried the precious little they’d managed to salvage to the cargo cryptor on the other silvery trailer. The Possessed Ones had just lost an important mobile base which had been absolutely packed with hi-tech equipment.
As if in jest, Angel’s heatproof albeit broken wingsuit had survived the blaze. But virtually all of the lab’s electronic equipment, all the biocybernetic material, the cryo capsules containing spare bodies and all their Azure and genome stocks — everything that Evyl had been squirreling away for decades — had perished. All the cryptors and computers had melted, their contents lost. Terrible, irretrievable losses.
Gnarl gnashed his teeth, struggling to suppress the fury seething within him. As he well knew, the only irretrievable losses were always those of human bodies. The rest was perishable junk, dead pieces of metal.
He walked over to the long row of laid-out dead bodies and threw back the fabric covering them. Leaning over each and every one of the dead, he studied each body closely. The Rogues watched him with almost superstitious awe. Gnarl didn’t care. The most important thing now was to find a suitable body with a surviving Source while the bodies were still fresh. Otherwise, he’d have to use some of the living which was never a good idea. Rumors would begin to spread, he already knew this from experience. The Convoy’s loyalty kept plummeting as it was, after everything that had just happened.
Finally he found what he’d been looking for. A lanky young woman, her leather jumpsuit ripped apart, her body coated all over in flakes of dried blood. A complex tattoo pattern covered her shaven head and part of her face. A blow from Allys’ clawed paw had cleft her throat, almost decapitating her.
Gnarl chuckled, taking in the girl’s fancy piercings and her unnaturally pointy ears. A Shiva, an Azure-modified human: the likes of her made up a good two-thirds of the Convoy. She must have been quite popular with the Rogues. Not exactly what he’d had in mind, but at least she had a functioning Source and answered the gender requirements.
On his snapped command, two of the Rogues picked up the body, took it inside his own trailer and dumped it on the floor. Gnarl motioned them to get out. He walked over to the trailer’s door and closed it. What was about to happen wasn’t meant for prying eyes.
He stood over the dead body, opened his cryptor and produced a long metallic cylinder, its sides glistening with beryllium bronze. A diaphragm covering one of its ends clicked open.
A trickle of gooey black liquid slowly dribbled over the girl’s body.
That was all that was left of Evelynn Mail. That was all Gnarl had managed to retrieve from the trashed lab.
It didn't matter whether the victim was dead or alive. This techno-organic alien invader was capable of restructuring any substance at a molecular level, turning it into a new functioning organism. Even tamed by Gloom’s genius — and Gloom had been the first of and among the Possessed — Darkness was still deathly lethal. Having said that, death is a double-edged weapon...
The black blob of Darkness spread over the girl’s naked skin, seeping greedily inside. Gnarl had seen it plenty of times: the first changes in the infected bodies, their unnatural paleness, their skin veined with black as Darkness penetrated their organs and tissues in billions of microscopic particles, contaminating them within seconds.
The girl’s corpse jerked. Her hands began pawing the floor. Her whole body arched; she opened her mouth wide, taking a big gasp of air, and opened her eyes. Her eyeballs were flooded with blackness: both pupils and retinas were gone. The wound on her neck was still visible, healing at an unnatural rate and turning into a many-branched bluish scar.
She convulsed and rolled onto her side, her arms and legs twitching. The first moments of integration were always like this. It always took a while to finetune the energy information exchange between the infected body and the entity which Utopian Azurologists had dubbed “anima”. Gnarl remembered only too well how unpleasant the ordeal was.
The resurrected girl climbed to all fours and rattled, grabbing at her throat. Clutching at the nearby table, she scrambled to her feet and felt herself all over: her body, her arms, her face. She cussed, staring at her skinny bronze arms covered in tattoos and her hands with red-taloned fingers. The voice was unfamiliar but its intonations were unmistakingly Evyl’s.
“Hi babe. Feelin’ any better?” Gnarl allowed himself a faint smile.
“What... what’s this for a body?” she slurred. “What have you given me? Dammit! A Shiva? A Dao Source? Holy shit! What d’you want me to do with it?”
“Sorry, babe, I didn't have much choice,” Gnarl raised his hands sarcastically. “This isn’t the Monolith, you know. All your spare Anubises went up in smoke with the rest of your lab.”
“Oh shit!” Evyl groaned, clutching at her head. “You don’t mean it! Those motherfuckers! What did you manage to save?”
“Precious little, I’m afraid. I was too late. Now tell me. What on earth happened?”
“He was an Inca, wasn’t he? By the time I worked that out, it was too late. He attacked me with Ra,” Evyl cringed as if suffering from toothache. “He had Azuric damage! My Enyo structure was compromised. Some of my implants shut down temporarily. I went into shock.”
“Are you sure he was an Inca?” Gnarl asked grimly. “And not an advanced Enchanter?”
“One hundred percent. He resurrected twice right before me, rebooting his host. Is there a mirror in this place?”
What she’d seen in the mirror hadn’t exactly boosted her spirits: a skinny girl with a mask-like face replete with tattoos. The shaven head and pointy ears hung with metalware completed the look.
Evyl cussed as she rubbed her eyes and washed the caked blood off her face. Her skin and eyeballs looked perfectly normal now as she’d finally taken full control over her transformed body.
“You should have contacted me at once!” Gnarl said.
“I couldn’t! He attacked me with an EMI which killed all communications. He used a Flash of Light — and a very powerful one, too.”
“We should have killed him straight away,” Gnarl grumbled. “What happened then?”
“While I was in shock, he somehow managed to set himself free. Then he let Alice out. I had to fight off both of them. I always made sure I kept the bitch empty — but this time she somehow managed to restock! While I was busy with her, that bastard managed to bring my shield down with some A-artifact and used another Flash, but this time he activated it inside me! That motherfucker! My implants went dead, my body got burned, all the neuron chains were compromised. I barely managed to escape. I’m surprised they hadn’t finished me off. They had plenty of opportunity.”
“By then, they might have run out of Azure,” Gnarl said. “They escaped, but not before they’d killed a whole truckful or Rogues. So you think he’s an Inca? Anything more precise?”
“He’s a cunning little shit! He played it really well. Pretended he was just a tribute...” Evyl stopped feeling her new face and spat on the floor. “His Source is Ra. He hasn’t even had his first Evolution yet. No traces of genetic modifications. The only thing I got out of him was his name. Sven Greyholm. Could be fake too though. I’d say he’s an undercover saboteur in a fresh body.”
Gnarl paused. “It certainly looks like it,” he finally said. “But who would he work for?”
“Stellar, judging by the mark on his filthy face.”
“Nah,” Gnarl winced. “That would be too primitive even for them. You know very well, babe, there’re plenty of other options.”
“In any case, if the Legion finds out about us, they’ll declare Blue alert,” Evyl shuddered. “Consequently they might
employ the Absolute weapon.”
“No, they won’t. According to my sources, their arsenals are virtually empty. Every Absolute is priceless to them now. Because if the Shea raise their ugly heads now, what are the City’s valiant archons supposed to do? Or if they discover another hotbed of Darkness? Or if a new Frame begins to grow, for instance? I don’t think so! It’s not like the good old days. They won’t waste an Absolute on petty prey like us, babe. But a raid, that’s something the Legion is quite capable of launching. So we need to find and exterminate those two before they can get to a transmission tower.”
“Have you managed to track them down? Have you been following them?”
“I have and I haven’t. It’s a funny thing, really. I was right on their heels. I was receiving their signal loud and clear. And then it just disappeared.”
“What do you mean, disappeared? Were they gone from all frequencies?”
“Yep. It’s either some Azuric ability they have, something like Chameleon or Impermeability — or they simply crawled underground. I tend to think it’s the latter.”
“How strange,” Evyl said pensively. “Did they travel together? He and Alice?”
“At least initially, yes. That’s how we managed to detect them, searching for a double signal. And after that — you tell me. It’s been several hours now but we only know the approximate area where they might be now. They can’t have gone very far, anyway.”
“Have you dispatched rangers looking for them?”
“No. Sending human groups against Incas is a waste of a valuable resource. I sent some Rattuses there, complete with their King.”
“Well, they’re flesh and bone too, aren’t they? Having said that, if their King’s with them, it just might work,” Evyl murmured pensively. “If those two decided to escape through the old utility tunnels, the rats are obliged to find them. Their King caught her once before, didn't he? But even though he gives me the creeps, he’s against two of them now, isn’t he? A Warrior and an Enchanter, almost a combat group — and we still have no idea who he really is.”
“Exactly. That’s why I’d like you to go with them too. Take your wargs and a team of Rogues, they’re itching to wreak revenge. See how the rats are doing and mop the place up if needs be.”
“Who, me? Don’t get me wrong, I’d have loved to rip his balls off. But not in this brand new body. It has the chance of a snowflake in hell.”
Gnarl turned to the black cube of an extradimensional cryptor, took out several items and laid them out on the table. Several sharp anthracite-black rocks streaked with glowing blue veins: the Fragments of the Black Moon. Next to them, the long cylinders of Azure capacitors enveloped in the radiant glow of concentrated A-energy.
“Your artifacts,” Gnarl said slowly. “They survived. Take them. I’ll also share my Azure stocks with you. Get your ass in gear and upgrade your host to Evolution (1). Now. Then off you go.”
Evyl sniffed. “You also need genomes to do that.”
“I know. That’s why there’s also something else I’m gonna give you.”
“You what? Whip of the Void? You can’t be serious,” Evyl said, peering at the item that her mentor had just produced out of the cryptor.
It looked like a dainty ribbed metallic handle, about a foot long, which resembled a sword’s hilt without the crossguard. The place where a sword’s blade was supposed to sit glowed with a sinister purple glow. The hilt was engraved with an unlocked circle which symbolized the cold power of the Void and the dark energies of the interstellar vacuum.
The weapon was legendary. The Azuric artifact crafted by Gnarl himself back in the days when the City had only begun to rise to its glory, when Incarnators had been many, and when the Possessed hadn’t yet come about. Evyl had witnessed the first lashes of this terrible whip equally lethal for both physical matter and ethereal bodies — and each one of its blows had become fatal.
“Sure. Take it. There’s no one else I can send there, you understand, don’t you, babe?”
“Yes. I do. I’m coming,” Evyl replied slowly, accepting the Azuric weapon in silent awe. “What’s going on in the fort?”
“They’re stuck there with no energy, aren’t they? They shut down the main nucleus and blocked all the gates and accesses manually. Basically, they’ve painted themselves into a corner. We’ll see how long they’re gonna last without their voxes and replicators — and without light. What we’re gonna do now, we’ll move the Convoy’s guns to the dominant terrain and start bombarding their top diaphragm. It might take us a few days to break through their top defenses, then we’ll attack them again.”
“How about Avenger?”
“Zac has moved it in antiphase to the Star’s orbit because he’s afraid of being detected by the orbitals’ sensors. He doesn’t want to get another dose of Arrows. So he won’t be back for another twenty-four hours.”
“Did you speak to him about Angel?”
“Pointless. A complete and utter waste of time,” Gnarl’s voice rang with annoyance. “He was one of those that Angel’s group had saved from the Well, wasn’t he? Anyway, it’s irrelevant.”
“Very well. What else?”
“I have a few questions regarding our little foxy lady. Judging by the state of the bodies outside, she was quite angry. I haven’t seen anything that bad for a long time. Did you manage to work out what the Zealots had done to her?”
“Not really. I’d just started to sound her out. A very difficult specimen, extremely hard to study. Highly aggressive, immune to tranquilizers, and heals instantly. Still, I’ve conducted some very interesting experiments.... oh shiiiiit! All the paperwork has perished with my old body, hasn’t it?”
“So what were your main conclusions?”
Evyl heaved a sigh. “My main conclusions were nothing good, sweetheart. As you probably know, Renegades lose the ability to control their host’s development. Their Azuric mutations become spontaneous and unpredictable. A bit like with the Orcuses. But her case is different again. She ended up in the hands of the Black Rose who must have subjected her to some tailored modifications, seeing as they had plenty of experience working with A-creatures — way more than we have, anyway. Judging by the genes they implanted her with, they wanted to take a renegade Incarnator and turn him or her into something entirely different. Possibly, trying to build a biologically immortal creature. She also has very prominent swings in her behavioral patterns, similar to the behavior of Elunetropic morphs. It seems to point at the presence of a parasitic entity. No idea what all those loony Zealots could have done to her. I wouldn’t put anything past them. You remember who used to be behind the Black Rose, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Lilith. One of the Princesses,” Gnarl said through clenched teeth. “Or so the rumors had it.”
“That we will never find out,” Evyl went on. “You’ve got Castor and his team to thank for the Black Rose massacre. What a bunch of idiots! All that knowledge lost!”
“We really should have spent a dose of Umbra on her,” Gnarl said pensively. “That was our mistake. We should have contaminated her straight away.”
“Absolutely not,” Evyl snapped. “Don’t even think about it! You have any idea what she might be capable of if she gets her interface and her genomod control back? I dread to even think. The only thing that might stop her then would be a fully equipped combat squad. Our little runaway fox is quite unique, you know. The Zealots’ geneticists did a great job. And if our young tribute friend is with her... I don’t envy him, haha! He’s in for quite a few surprises.”
Chapter 7
A NEW SYSTEM MESSAGE, framed in a sinister crimson, told me a few more things about the weregirl:
Alice “Allys” van der Heiden.
Provenance of the data: Stellar’s Archives, 57.5% match.
A-woman
Incarnator
Renegade
Evidence of unidentified genetic and Azuric modifications detected.
Source type: Qi
Warning level: Red (lethal)
WARNING! Alice “Allys” van der Heiden was denoted!
STATUS: TOP THREAT!
A fat red inscription ran across the message like an indelible rubber stamp:
Wanted Dead or Alive!
“Incarnator, according to Stellar, Alice is on the list of its most dangerous criminals. Although our low clearance prevents me from accessing her bio, she must have hundreds of murders to her name. Our duty is to either arrest or eliminate her. I’m issuing you a mission...”
New mission available: Dead or Alive
Alert! This is a combat order!
Task: Using any means available, arrest or eliminate Alice “Allys” van der Heiden who was denoted for the numerous crimes she’d committed
Optional: Take the subject as prisoner to the nearest Stellar terminal and contact your superiors.
The Enchanter (Project Stellar Book 2): LitRPG Series Page 9