The Goddess Gambit

by B Michael Stevens

  We got this! Jon felt a wave of exhilaration sweep over him, adding to the lift of the Hopper's boosters. Victory comes to him who takes the greatest risk! He repeated his oft-used favorite quote in his mind as he leaped from one edge of a factory building to another. They were closing in on Carbine's position rapidly, a blinking light in the HUD warning him of the proximity, and he called out, "Look alive, boys, we're coming up on it. Attack formation Omega; spread out, circle in, watch your crossfire."

  Jon gave his boosters one last, extended thrust, climbing in altitude, and then cut the power back to a hover, opening fire on the rooftop below him with everything he had. Twin streams of flaming hot death coupled with a volley from his mounted micro-missile launchers did the trick. The barrage completely obliterated the factory roof, replacing it with a thick cloud of smoke and dust. His men, using thermal optics in the HUD, locked onto the Harvester threat below and opened fire, their combined efforts quickly draining the alien demon's force shield.

  Trusting his men to distract if not destroy the Harvester, Jon ceased fire and dove his suit down through the blossoming dust cloud. He put all his trust into the suit's instruments as he plunged into the gray darkness, just as he had trained to do. Then, with an ecstatic blend of natural talent, reflexes, and learned skill, he pulled the suit up into a climb mere moment before colliding with the floor, before cutting the thrusters, landing almost gently on his feet a second later. As expected, the Harvester in the room had moved all its shields’ power to its upper hemisphere, protecting it from the above attack. Jon dropped to one knee, and without waiting for his HUD to give him the 'locked on' icon, he let fly his second and last volley of micro-missiles.

  Like rocket-powered spermatozoa, the missiles writhed and snaked across the room, inches off the ground, then up and under the Harvester's force shield. The inside of the Strange bubble became a roiling sea of fire and pain. Even over the noise of the battle, Jon could hear the Invasive beast roar its death call. When the flames subsided, the half-globe of energy blinked three times, then disappeared, revealing the remaining blasted chunks of the Harvester.

  That ought to make up for being knocked out and then some. Jon grinned with satisfaction.

  With the Harvester slain, the noise of the firefight quickly subsided and was replaced with a rising chorus of cheers from the men, both rescuer and rescuee.

  "We did it! We actually did it! We killed a Harvester!" the men cried. Hoppers beating a Harvester wasn't unheard of, but it was rare without Mech assistance.

  While thrilled, Jon knew the day was far from over. "No time to rest on our laurels, boys. Get down here and secure that transport." Jon strolled over to the men that had been pinned down before his arrival. They were now rising from behind a makeshift bunker of crates and machinery and greeting Jon with a wave.

  "Where's Carbine?" Jon asked before any greetings could be made or returned, letting slip his emotional investment in the situation.

  "He went downstairs, said that half the transport's load was missing. Was going to check it out," one of the men answered. That explains why his blip shows up here! Jon realized, cursing the limitations of the otherwise incredible technology.

  Opening the comm, Jon hailed his friend. "Carbine, Carbine you copy? Get up here, we smoked the Harvester, but more may be on the way. It's time to fly."

  When no reply came, Jon's pulse quickened, and he rechecked his friend's vitals in the HUD. He's still alive. Still in the game. Jon breathed a sigh of relief, but the aftertaste of concern overpowered any initial contentment.

  "How do I get down there?" Jon demanded, urgency in his voice.

  "There," the same soldier who had addressed him moments before pointed at where a concrete stairwell, framed on one side by the factory wall, a rusty handrail on the other, descended into the bowels of the building.

  "Hey! Half of you get that transport ready for lift and call in the Heavies. The rest of you come with me," Jon ordered, waving his arm to capture the attention of the men milling about the transport. They quickly fell in line, and Jon led the way downstairs. The way was narrow, and he instantly recalled his encounter earlier with the Harvester in the corridor. Running into a baddie in a bottleneck like this would be a disaster. At least they can't sneak up on me this time. Hang on, bud, I'm not going to finish this without you. I won't leave you behind.

  Obediently, the men followed Jon single file as they went down the stairs. The enclosed power armor prevented Jon from feeling the damp chill of the shadowy basement, and the hues of his holographic HUD shifted as the low-light setting took over his field of vision.

  "Carb? Ol' buddy?" Jon called out, the comm still open. No response. Fearing the worst, Jon raised his arms like he was entering an old-fashioned fist fight, getting the plasma launchers ready in case there was something other than just Carbine down here. Reaching the base of the stairs, Jon found not a room as tall or wide as the one above, which was a shipping dock of some kind and housed the stolen transport of foodstuffs, but instead another narrow hallway. He cursed his luck; in a place like this the men behind him would offer little help other than to step up and replace him when he fell if a serious threat came at him from the front.

  Just up ahead, the hall ended in an archway. A wall of darkness that the low-light settings could not penetrate lay beyond. A quick glance at the blip and overlay map told him that Carbine was most likely on the other side of that dark threshold. Jon stopped walking for a second, gestured to the archway ahead and whispered into the comm. "Just through there," he explained, his weighted silence saying the rest.

  Jon resumed walking, slower now, and approached the wall of darkness. As the light faded, the low-light settings automatically shifted to night-vision. Jon leaned to his right, butting his shoulder up against the cold, wet cinder block wall of the hallway. He checked Carbine's blip, literally on the other side. Vitals still good. But he wasn't moving. Something's wrong. Jon signaled his men with a silent hand gesture, took a deep breath, let it out and spun into the room beyond, launchers out and leading the way.

  Time seemed to slow down for Jon as he apprehended the scene before him. The room was circular and tall, reaching up the full length of the stairs they had descended, rising to the base of the floor of the docking chamber above. The interior walls were clad in metal, tinged greenish-blue from years of oxidation. In the center of the room was a pyramid-shaped stack of drums, all red, atop which stood Carbine, facing him, and another human, not in Hopper armor, with his back turned to Jon. Carbine seemed to be arrested somehow. His arms were stretched out straight above his head, as if trying to touch the ceiling. Not fully understanding the situation, Jon hesitated to take any action. Unfortunately for him, and everyone else, that also meant not moving, and not moving meant his team didn't, couldn't, follow him into the round room.

  "Carbine!" Jon exclaimed. Hearing the cry, the man next to Carbine slowly began to turn around. Jon raised his arms, preparing to let fly a salvo of plasma discs, when he realized the man was no man at all, but a woman.

  "What the—?" Jon stammered to himself and stared at the human female in confusion. She was dressed plainly, indicating that she wasn't attached to the transport. A farmer? A prisoner, perhaps?

  In his periphery, Jon spied a couple of his men, pushing their way around his Hopper's bulk and trying to enter the room. A cry came out of the comm, snapping Jon out of his ponderous thoughts; a warning.

  It was only then that Jon noticed what was in the woman's hands: an incendiary grenade.

  He raised his arms again and opened fire, pausing a second, taking care to miss Carbine.

  The plasma struck the intended target, tearing the woman into two glowing hunks of charred flesh, but not before she activated the device in her hand. The woman esoterrorist was dead, but the grenade fell limply through the air, striking the drums of proto-fuel the same time as her flaming torso.

  His night-vision setting still on, Jon's display became a blinding white light,
nearly searing his retinas with its intensity. The drums were going up, all at once. He didn't need to see it to know it. He felt his power armor lift off the ground, though he had not activated the boosters. He was traveling backward. A second later he felt the impact of the wall on his back, and then, like a tidal wave, the wall of fire hit him in the chest with amazing force. All at once, the sensations were gone. The blinding light in his HUD disappeared in a blink.

  In its place, red words flashed: Simulation Ended - FAILED

  Jon and Carbine filed out of the auditorium along with the hundreds of other graduating New Breed cadets. The crowd moved slowly, the bodies of all the immaculately dressed Academy graduates pressed close together as they compromised the bottleneck at the exit. It was just as well, for Jon was far away, eyes glazed with a hundred-yard stare. He aimlessly followed the herd, shuffling his feet occasionally and tuning out Carbine's incessant ramblings the entire time.

  "Jon? Jon?" He felt a hand shake his shoulder. "Are you even listening to me?"

  "Huh?" Jon looked back over his shoulder and was met by the face of his lifelong friend, Carbine. Carbine, known to the State as Rene 761-354, had a face of dark complexion topped with a mop of short black curls, and was presently sporting a look of exasperation.

  "I've been talking to you!" Carbine said. "I was telling you the purchase went through! We got front row seats to the Lily Sapphire concert tomorrow."

  "Oh, uh, sorry." Jon shrugged. The gridlocked mob of cadets, now soldiers, moved. Jon turned back around and walked with them. They passed through the large double doors, entering this floor’s commons and leaving behind the auditorium, the graduation ceremony, and their old lives.

  Once out in the commons, the herd of graduates spread out, allowing everyone to pick up the pace, which they did. Everyone except Jon. Carbine surged forward with a short burst of speed, catching up to Jon and pacing him.

  "Are you still upset about it?" he asked.

  Jon didn't have to answer with words. He tilted his head to the side and gazed into his friend’s face. His eyes said it all.

  "Come on. It’s not your fault. Throwing a human esoterrorist into the scenario was a dirty trick. And a female human, no less. But so what? It's not that bad, is it? You made lieutenant. And besides, we got assigned to the same squad! We'll be together!" Carbine offered a grin, inviting Jon to give one of his own—an offer that Jon declined.

  "I know, I know. It's just... not what I wanted." People began to surge past, and Jon quickly became aware of the fact that he was inconveniencing others. Wanting to get out of the way, he changed course and strolled crosswise through the crowd until he reached the waist-high barrier that skirted the diameter of the massive open-air courtyard running through the center of the Ziggurat's living floors.

  "What are we doing?" Carbine asked.

  "Let's just let the crowd go by," Jon said, gazing out across the open space and into the artificial sunlight above. He knew that just beyond that blue sky and yellow sun was a ceiling, and in that ceiling were machines that produced the beautiful day he was seeing. He knew that beyond that ceiling were more floors, floors that housed the military might of the Human Republic—hangars that housed transports, housed the Mecha, the Heavies. Hangars that housed the Hoppers.

  He knew that beyond those floors there were even more levels. Those lofty stories were claimed by the brains of the State. The command centers, the generals, the Ministry of Social Purity and all its Scrubbers. Above them, at the very top, sat Chairman Accoba Warbak himself, savior of humankind and the world.

  "All I ever wanted to do was make that man proud," Jon said, referring to Warbak. "The Republic is the only family I've ever known. The Chairman, well, I guess he is like our father."

  Jon, like Carbine and every other recent graduate, as well as those cadets still in Academy, were New Breed, created by and for the State. Born in a lab and trained to be the ultimate citizen soldiers since day one, the New Breed represented the realization of Chairman Warbak's dream: a pure earth, a return to the utopia of the past, before the Drops, before the Invasives. Jon had been born to serve the Republic, a cog in the machine built by Warbak. A machine built to save the world.

  "Come on, man," Carbine said, "all your life you have been the most gung-ho dude I've ever known. You never shut up about it. So, the State assigns you to the Easy-Riders instead of the Hoppers. That doesn't mean you still can't go out and rid the world of Invasives! Where is the State-knows-best guy that’s covered my six all my life?"

  "Yeah, yeah. I know. It's cool. I'll be fine. I just need some time to wrap my mind around it." Jon lowered his eyes from the blinding sun above and stared down into the open courtyard. He could see that many of the graduates had already reached the next level down and were being greeted by last-gen citizens. The graduates returned the applause with smiles and salutes. They moved on, past the various shops that provided goods and entertainment, past the fountains and ferns of the immaculate commons and towards their dormitories.

  "This city really is amazing, isn't it?" Jon asked and sucked in one corner of his mouth in a half-smile.

  "Yeah man, it is," Carbine said, grinning as Jon's old self slowly returned.

  And I'm going to be an officer in the fight to protect it. Hmm...

  "Come on. Let's get a bite to eat. Let's celebrate," Carbine offered.

  "Alright," Jon said with a nod, "why not?"

  Jon followed Carbine as they strolled through the idyllic streets of mid-level Zigg. Although each citizen of the Ziggurat was a soldier, trained to do battle if necessary, many had been assigned to perform supportive duties to those who had placed better in their Academy scores and finals. The supportive soldiers operated a variety of shops, stores, and diners, where other citizens of the Zigg, capital of Home, could spend their free time and allowances. In addition to these recreational outlets and their homes, the mid-levels of the Zigg also boasted several parks, overflowing with plants and ponds, all illuminated brilliantly by the better-than-the-real-thing artificial sunlight that filtered down through the open courtyard-like space that was the core of the mid-levels.

  The Zigg's engineers would change the 'weather' from time to time, to break up the monotony of too many good days, emulating a sense of nature without ever having to rely on what was happening outside. There were no windows in the Zigg that faced out; out was hell. Out was the Shanty and the haunted wastes of the Near and Far Roughs. Citizens were happier when they didn't have to see that reality; out of sight, out of mind. Besides aesthetics and morale, there was the issue of safety to consider. The outer shell of the Zigg city-state was heavily armored and nigh-impenetrable, perfectly protected from the bitter weather, the esoterrorists who hid in the slums of the Shanty, and the Invasives beyond.

  "You're right, bud," Jon announced as they walked along, approaching a stairwell, "this city is amazing, and we will make a difference out there. Even if we are on bikes and not in Hoppers. Someday, all humans will be able to live as we do."

  "That's my Jon!" Carbine exclaimed. "Or should I say, my Lieutenant?"

  Laughing, they continued down the stairs. They didn't live far from here and, when not in training, had spent most of their lives in these utopian levels. They drifted away from the herd, following a path that paralleled a handrail as it traced its way around the edge of the open space. Jon lazily glanced to the left as they walked along, admiring the pristine streets and colossal architecture of their neighborhood. Then Carbine pointed at a nearby eatery, one of many bistros that dotted the public corridors along this level. Soldiers in the Human Republic were given vouchers that served as currency to be used at whichever eatery they preferred. Jon wasn't particularly hungry, but this place had some damn fine food, and he thought a peaceful spell with Carbine would be nice before returning to the barracks for the night.

  "Here we are. Our favorite!" Carbine exclaimed.

  "Your favorite," Jon corrected.

  "Same thing." Carbine grinned an
d gestured for Jon to enter first.

  The duo entered and were met by a last-gen woman, her head crowned with a mop of strawberry-blond hair. She showed them to a window table that overlooked the public corridor. It was still thick with foot traffic exiting the auditorium where Chairman Warbak had given his speech—the same address which was now being replayed on the Bistro's wall-mounted holo-vids for the benefit of all the last-gen citizens who had not been present in the auditorium.

  "Pure. Pure human. That is what you all are," the image of Chairman Warbak on the screen said. Unseen, Jon could hear the audience cheering their leader. "The world is broken. The connections that once made it small have long been severed. The land that our nation occupies was, before the Great Storm, home to the greatest and most powerful civilization the world had ever known. We have inherited that legacy, and now stand to the rest of this world, shrouded in darkness, like a beacon, a lighthouse of hope, showing the way to all, shedding light on the threats, aliens and domestic terrorists who would see our lifeboats dashed upon the rocky shores of Strange. It is not only our birthright, but our duty, to rid the world of the threat of esoterrorists, Harvesters, and Invasives. We must protect our fragile civilization from the threat of Unpure and their wicked Strange shapings."

  A tight shot of the Chairman's stoic face filled the screen. Hearing it now for the second time, Jon appreciated it more and was already making peace with his assignment to a recon unit.

  "Each and every one of you represents the best of us. The best the State has to offer. The best our race has to offer. Gone is the anarchistic, flawed familial model. You are the next step in the evolution of the human race. Be proud of who and what you are. The world outside Home came at us with chaos, and we have answered with order!" Chairman Warbak raised a clenched fist to emphasize this last bit.

  "Created by and for the State, for the people. Pure. Strong. Untainted by the irrational, flawed models of the past. There is only one family, and that is the State! Hail the State! Hail the People!"