by S A Asthana
How could these ants produce such beautiful music? Does not compute. The machine stepped off the roof unceremoniously.
As it fell alongside the building, the sleek jetpack built into its back fired up. One-third of a second later the robot was flying, two thin wisps of blue plasma propelling it forward. The machine was an awesome sight—sleek metal and exposed cables, all encasing the latest technology and weaponry. It was like watching a spaceship fly.
Steel and glass buzzed past. Cube spied a small capsule hovering in its peripheral vision, next to a rooftop billboard advertising Casio watches. It was a single-passenger police craft, its white, sphere exterior sporting a small cockpit window on one end and the words Nissan Washi on the other. A navy blue uniformed keisatsukan, a Nipponese police officer, watched quietly from within, the rim of his hat resting a centimeter above his scrutinizing eyes. Flight for non-authorized personnel was against the law. But Cube and its digital markers were instantly recognizable. The police let the machine be, for they knew who it answered to.
Complete freedom.
> EMOTION = ecstacy.dat
This freedom, however, was fleeting. A task lay ahead. The capture of Bastien had to happen or there would be shutdown for Cube. It projected a ninety-five percent success rate for the capture. While this percentile drove confidence, Cube remained indexed on the remaining five percent.
> COMMAND = STOP. ecstacy.dat
> EMOTION = doubt.dat
CHAPTER 3: BASTIEN
Bastien was sure he would die. Every inch of his body remained tense in anticipation of a noose. He stood handcuffed at East district’s entrance, his eyes glued to the two corpses dangling just within the tunnel, iron chains wrapped tightly around their throats. Rotting feet drifted freely from left to right and back as if dancing a macabre tango. The stench of their decay was vomit-inducing, but the loup blocking the dark tunnel didn’t seem bothered by it. With a crooked grin, he said, “So, he’s the new meat.”
One of Bastien’s captors let out a hearty laugh. “Yup. Let’s see if he’ll be dead meat or fuck meat.”
A dozen soldiers littered the entrance’s arching iron gates, their eyes locked on Bastien. They wore New Paris’ all-black military uniform—a visor helmet with a built-in flashlight on the side and tights punctuated by thick, armored plates. The silhouette of a white wolf, New Paris’ emblem, was engraved across their chest plates. Each loup had a Howa Type 89 assault rifle slung over his shoulder, an import from Nippon One, and a locally forged saber sheathed within a pigskin scabbard. Armed to the teeth was an understatement.
Bastien was escorted past the group, a powerful grip on his right arm urging him through the gates. “Where are you taking me?”
“This piss-eyed freak has questions now,” a captor said.
Another taunted, “Can’t wait for the Queen to cut you up into little pieces and feed you to the wolves.”
“The Queen? You’re taking me to the – but why?” Bastien’s eyes were wide. No explanation. Only footsteps echoing against the tunnel’s black walls. Anxiety hid in the passage’s musty darkness, licking its chops and waiting for the right moment to attack. Onward and upward. Onward and upward. Got to keep that fence up. Damn that pit bull.
A speck of white grew larger by the second at the tunnel’s conclusion. It was light. Bright electric light, the kind the rest of New Paris wasn’t accustomed to. Not flames of a candle or some other torch. No, this was silvery, as if belonging to heaven itself. Ironic. Nothing about this place was that pleasant.
The tunnel ended in a large, rectangular chamber that was like a cut out of Château de Versailles itself—the words grand and luxurious didn’t do justice. Bastien took it all in with quick glances. The dirty brick walls from the bazaar were absent. Instead, the walls here stood clean and whitewashed in a gentle sky blue, their edges decorated with gold trim. The floor was polished concrete—Bastien’s blurred reflection stared back. Without context, no one would guess they were inside a vast sewer system. The opulence on display deceived; it shut away the suffering just outside.
This district was Marie’s dominion. It belonged to her and her loyalists. A pretend palace in a pretend city. All under watch of a pretend Queen.
A large crystal chandelier hung low, its sockets outfitted with luminous light bulbs. Electricity was a new arrival in some regions of New Paris, the Queen’s strong ties with Nippon One on display. Wires spread across the ceiling and connected the chandelier to generators bolted against the walls. They were powered by the solar farm on the surface, another gift from the Nipponese Emperor himself. It was progress in some strange way, even if only for a small portion of the city. Queen Marie, the harbinger of the electric age in New Paris, a twisted, despotic Thomas Edison.
The captors turned Bastien left into another tunnel, this one brighter than the last. Blood had stopped flowing to Bastien’s right arm by now—the loup’s grip was iron tight. They entered a circular chamber, one filled with loups either playfully sparring one another or laughing at jokes. Some were passed out, their fingers still curled around clay mugs filled with a dark liquid, probably whiskey. There must have been a hundred young men. The scene was chaotic, a military barrack but with none of the discipline. Soldiers only in name.
They stopped short their activities and stared Bastien down in amusement. A few whispered to one another, all the while eyeing him from the corner of their eyes.
“New dessert for the wolves?” one of them laughed. Others joined in, their fingers pointed at the new arrival. Bastien kept his mouth shut. He was in no position to engage.
A primal roar ripped through the chamber cutting short all laughter. Heads turned in unison as if part of a choreographed dance. Bastien’s jaws gaped at the unexpected sight. A pack of grey wolves was caged in the corner, each sizable enough to serve as a steed, the result of one century’s worth of breeding for mass, ferocity, and strength. They looked sturdy, their thick fur unable to cover bulging muscles underneath. The species would have gone extinct were it not for a select few famously kept alive and taken care of by Marie’s forefathers. Bastien had heard many tales of these massive beasts but never thought he’d see them in the flesh.
A caretaker stood outside the cage’s high metal fence dangling a slab of pig meat overhead with a makeshift fishing tackle. He tried hard to keep the pack appeased, shushing and persuading in high-pitched tones, but it didn’t work—the wolves wanted the new meat. They growled at Bastien, their sharp fangs exposed. Flesh wouldn’t stand a chance against those jaws. He swallowed hard.
“You see that?” One of the captors pointed at the swinging flesh. “That will be you.”
The urge to swivel on the right foot and knee the loup in his gut, a maneuver Bastien could execute with ease, got stronger. But he kept his cool. Even if the four captors were taken down, others would rush in. He’d be overwhelmed. And most likely fed to those wolves on the spot. Staying calm was the only option.
Now there was a third tunnel. The air, pungent with cleaning fluid, was much colder here. Gone was the sticky heat of passages and chambers crossed. Rotating fans decorated the low ceiling, and a loup stood guard under each. This tunnel was heavily enforced. The Queen couldn’t be too far off now.
Was a drum beating somewhere? Dum, dum, dum…
Nope. Dum, dum, dum…
Just his heart.
Scowls tracked Bastien under the light of shimmering light bulbs fixed to the ceiling. It was like walking under a starlit sky. Must have been over a hundred bulbs. What a waste. Marie outfitted her world with extravagant radiance while the poor suffered amongst candles.
A loup shouted at Bastien’s back, “Is he the new punching bag?” Cackles and hoots echoed up and down the tunnel. One of the captors shouted over his shoulder, “This tough guy is about to become the biggest bitch.”
More laughter.
Dum, dum, dum…
The tunnel concluded in a small foyer. The walls were freshly painted in a bright
white and they were decorated with paintings once kept in museums. Claude Monet’s works were recognizable from a book Bastien had devoured as an orphan—both The Woman in the Green Dress and Woman in a Garden hung to his right. These were originals. No doubt about that. The Dubois lineage was legendary. After all, they’d been famous art collectors before World War Three. Strange how even the most cultured could devolve into the most depraved. Queen Marie was an unfortunate and unexpected descendent of such a celebrated bloodline.
A broad, cast iron door ahead had been left ajar. One of the captors announced, “We are here.”
Bastien’s breathing became quick. He was about to meet Marie. She would finally be staring him down in the flesh. A throne hall, one reeking of decadence, was most likely on the other side of that door. Marie would be sitting atop a silver, no, make it a golden, throne. Nothing but the best for the mighty Queen herself. Most likely surrounded by mounds of jewels, of course—emeralds, diamonds, and so on. What could she possibly want from him? Perhaps she needed his bounty to fund debts. Or, maybe, she did in fact just want some new food for her wolves.
The rabid pit bull growled beyond Bastien’s white picket fence. Always around. Biding its time until the right moment. Onward and upward. Onward. And upward.
Pushed into a square chamber, one conspicuously devoid of any decoration, Bastien came face to face with an unexpected sight—a naked woman mounted atop a loup on the bricked floor. It was Queen Marie in the throes of passion. Loud moans echoed against grey, drab walls. Armed personnel stood guard while a swarm of white-robed priests lay prostrated around the couple, all chanting a prayer in unison. “Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâces, le Seigneur est avec vous; vous ętes bénie entre toutes les femmes. Amen.”
The Hail Mary prayer had been bastardized by the Queen for her own twisted use. What would Father Paul have thought? He’d recited the prayer to the orphans every night before bedtime. “All an orphan needs are Mary and Christ on their side,” he preached. Good thing he’d passed away before the Queen’s ascension. Having his most prized belief perverted in such a manner would have broken his heart.
“Say my name.” Her hips ground against the man’s bare pelvis. The smell of sex and sweat was heavy. His buttocks, wrinkled and pasty, scraped against bricks.
“G-goddess Marie,” he stammered, his eyes glassy as if in a drug-infused haze.
She appeared healthy, a rare trait for the fairer sex in this colony. No protruding ribcage, no spotty skin, no missing hair, nothing. Simply stunning. A goddess of looks. Petite, but full-figured with curves to weaken the most chaste. A sight to behold.
But the six metallic tentacles sticking out of her shoulder blades were terrifying. The extensions, each ten feet in length, curved and twisted as if alive—strange juxtapositions to her soft form. The rumors were true. Marie was a cyborg.
For a Parisian to become part-machine required connections with the heavens. The process of evolving one’s natural faculties to a mix of flesh, hardware, and software—cyborfication—was an expensive endeavor, even when conducted on the black market. It was barely within reach for those in Nippon One and Port Sydney, let alone those living in New Paris. But if anyone down here could afford it, it was Marie.
“Louder!” she screeched through gritted teeth all the while grabbing at her breasts.
“Goddess Marie!” the man shouted once more, his stare inadvertently locking with Bastien’s. Fear filled his eyes, and it betrayed his compliance with the strange ceremony.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Marie’s body climaxed, her many tentacles flailing like an octopus in heat. She stabbed their sharp tips into the man’s forehead with one swift motion, killing him instantly. Blood and brain matter burst onto her face, staining her white skin red.
Bastien jolted. He’d seen plenty gruesome sights in his storied military career, but few had shocked him like this. A knot tied itself within his stomach. Bile flooded his throat.
“I free you, my child,” the Queen shouted to the chamber’s high ceiling, her bosom heaving over the victim’s disfigured face. The priests continued praying as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired. No one seemed disturbed. The scene might have played a hundred times before.
The loups, including those who’d escorted Bastien, kneeled. A jab behind his knees forced him to the ground as well.
Marie licked brain matter off her robotic limbs one tentacle at a time, smiling with satisfaction. Turning to her audience, she instructed with a delicate chin held high, “Tonight we feast on this man, our sacrifice.”
The room broke into applause. Bastien’s jaw clenched. Am I next? Served on a platter like some human sandwich. Sliced white cheese.
Marie stood leisurely, her naked body glittering with sweat. All eyes were on her, each stare laced with equal parts lust and reverence. Despite being no more than five foot three, she cast a large shadow under the room’s recessed lights.
She noticed Bastien. “Prisonnier.”
The merriment ended abruptly and stares shifted to him, including the servants’ who were now dragging away the corpse to some human-meat kitchen. His muscles tightened. He remained kneeling, his eyes on the floor. Were the handcuffs tighter now somehow? Won’t be able to defend—oh, hell.
“The goddess speaks to you. Look up at her, filthy animal.” A loup pointed a pistol at Bastien.
“Hafiz, no. I need him alive.” Marie’s voice was raspy as if shredded by thorns on its way up her throat.
The loup stepped away.
“So… you’re the one I’ve been getting pinged about. That chatter from Crone.” Marie cleaned herself between the thighs with a towel, her left knee turned outward. She continued as if she was alone.
Bastien didn’t know how to respond. Too distracted. The General had reached out to her directly? God, those thighs were beautiful.
A few short breaths later, she walked over and circled Bastien like a tigress stalking her next meal. Her eyes roamed him, poking and prodding in places, peering into every crevice. It was a violating sensation. Her blood-soaked tentacles dragged behind, tails to a metallic skirt, their tips drawing six thin lines of red on the floor.
“Get up!” she roared, tying her messy black hair back into a bun.
Bastien stood and towered nearly a foot over his captor. A giant, but only in size when compared to Marie. She seemed to fill the room. He was studied up and down, from the top of his black locks all the way to the bottom of his black jeans, like a weapon being assessed. A sword, or perhaps a spear. Something to be wielded. His forearms were squeezed, then his pecs. Bastien shifted his weight from one foot to the other. A deer in the grip of a hellcat’s jaws.
“Yes… you’re the one that stupid General Crone couldn’t stop ordering me about.” Marie caressed his scruffy cleft chin. There was a seductive texture to her tone. “The one with fire in his eyes.”
One of her tentacles snaked around his right thigh. “He went on and on about you. Dangerous criminal. Murderer. Looney Lyons.”
She stopped circling and stood face to face with him. The tentacle was wound tight now, its tip dangerously close to Bastien’s crotch. One stab wound, or six, away from an excruciating death. He floated helplessly within her two blue orbs.
Marie propped herself on her toes, and brought her lips within inches of his. “The Martians want me to give you up,” she purred, “but you could be of immense use to me, monsieur. I like the strong, silent types.”
Her breath smelled of a sharp tinge like whiskey. Poisonous fumes from a pretty face. She pointed to a narrow door behind her and commanded, “Stay put in that room. I’ll meet you shortly.” Her tentacle slipped off his thigh unceremoniously as if having lost interest in its subject. The artificial limbs retracted into her bare back one by one while she walked into a hallway, her shoulder blades now displaying six small holes lined up in two evenly crafted rows.
Bastien released a breath, one he’d been holding all this time.
∆∆∆
The waiting room, a storage closet back when these sewers were still operational, had its brick walls decorated with antique French “AN IX” cavalry pistols and Grenadier a Cheval de la Garde swords, weapons from the early nineteenth century’s Napoleonic army. Bastien recalled the National Geographic book Generals, Arms, and Wars. It was an old-world book he’d lost himself in often during his teens.
“One has to keep the mind busy if an orphan,” Father Paul used to say. The lure of drugs and violence had always been a constant. The good Father had known such dangers well and served books to his children as a distraction. Thanks to him Bastien had had access to volumes of old-world military and art books, topics the Father had been interested in himself. The crisp, yellowed pages were still fresh to the fingertips. If not for them Bastien would have succumbed to the horrors of this city.
What a guiding light that man was. Brightening the darkest spaces.
The room’s single lightbulb flickered, plugged loosely into a socket in the ceiling. Shadows overwhelmed it for a second, but it glowed brightly once again, fighting off the darkness. An inanimate object, but to Bastien, a kindred spirit. The bulb waged war against gloom and Bastien waged war against anxiety, a childhood predator who never seemed to quit.
Slapping his chest, he commanded, “Onward and upward.” Muscles relaxed. Breathing became easier. He could focus. Bastien took a seat at the small, round table in the center of the room, his hands in his pockets. The handcuffs had been removed, thankfully. A silver lining if any.
The entrance door opened, and shockingly enough, Father Paul walked through. Bastien’s back straightened and his eyes widened. The good Father’s presence had always driven the shadows away. A star expanding into the blackest corner of space. He’d surely get Bastien out of this mess.
“Father, it’s you…”
The mirage disappeared as if it were a wave of light in a black hole. Two loups entered instead, and the self-proclaimed goddess trailed them. Marie was no longer the bloodthirsty cannibal who had greeted Bastien earlier. In her place walked someone regal. Wisps of smoky locks framed high cheekbones, and two full lips now gleamed with a black, glossy lipstick matching a loosely draped chemise a la reine, a three-layered muslin gown popular in late eighteenth-century France. A modern-day Marie Antoinette, right down to the proclivity for jewelry—a golden choker, the most extravagant of its kind, hugged her swanlike neck. It appeared real, not one of the fakes peddled out in the bazaar by the poor.