In the center of this simulacrum of an Eden-no-more sat a palace. While it was as far from humble as the floor it resided within was from sea-level, it was borderline utilitarian, lacking unnecessary decorations. Simple, clean, efficient. Luxurious, but not gaudy. The structure was styled after an Edo-period Japanese pagoda. A home fit for a Shogun, or Emperor. Or Chairman.
Matiaba, a government aide with top clearance, had just made his way from the elevator station on the edge of the forest, down the path through the garden grounds that surrounded the pagoda, and now approached its main entrance.
Nervously, his eyes flickered to the demonic metal skeleton robots that stood on either side of the large sliding wood panel doors.
Spartans. The Chairman's private sentries.
The aide was one of the few humans alive besides the Chairman himself that knew of their existence. Unlike the Scrubbers, both Sniffer and Handler, the Spartans were 100% robotic. Not a single human cell existed in their cold metallic frames—not muscle, not bone, certainly not heart.
No matter how many times Matiaba had come and gone, delivering the messages of such importance and secrecy that they could not be trusted to even the inter-Ziggurat comm channels, he would never feel comfortable around the sentries.
He always wondered just who they had been designed to frighten, being that no one but he and Accoba Warbak saw them. Regardless, the Spartans were frightening. Skeletal in nature and appearance, they were skinny yet menacing, their alloy bones designed to appear human, but different enough to look demonic. Chrome devils. Their lifeless red eyes scanned and scrutinized Matiaba as he approached. Neither of them moved their limbs in a menacing manner, yet Matiaba found himself staring at the razor claws on the tips of bony fingers and the smooth barrels of high-tech energy weapons that protruded from the radius and ulna region of each arm.
"I have an urgent message for Chairman Warbak," the aide stammered.
"Pass," a disembodied voice announced, seeming to come from the pagoda itself. A wooden panel slid aside on its own volition and offered up a hallway lined with paper walls beyond.
Matiaba cast one last glance at the Spartans, half expecting either one, or both, to malfunction and spring on him as he drew near. He knew they wouldn't act outside their programming and protocols but being near them was like being near a wild animal or Drop-Beastie. They weren't human, and were thus capable of unimaginable horrors.
It wasn't until the wooden panel slid shut behind him that he allowed himself to relax a bit. Not completely, for he knew that more awaited him at the top of the stairs.
The majority of the interior of the pagoda seemed uninhabited. Cold, immaculately clean and devoid of the common signs of occupation. But Matiaba knew better. Behind the sliding walls were rooms, and in the rooms Warbak kept more mechanical pets. Some still retained a small semblance of their humanity. More and more, it seemed as time went on, did not. Once his engineers had perfected the robot, Warbak had all but turned his back on the cyborg. He remembered all too well what had happened with his favorite one, his Holy Lady of Death...
This observation was still in the front of Matiaba's mind when he reached the top floor and stepped off the wooden stairs onto a long carpet that ran from the stairwell to the throne.
"It's because humans cannot be trusted, Matiaba." Warbak's voice was as chilly as the ambient temperature.
"Your Honor!" Matiaba nodded his head curtly and aggressively and thumped his fist to his chest.
"You were wondering why I prefer the Spartans now." Even from across the room Matiaba could see the flat granite color of Warbak's narrow eyes framed by his stark white temples and widow's peak. He looked business—serious business. Worse, he looked annoyed.
"Boss?" Matiaba was perplexed. He had long suspected that Warbak possessed the same abilities that the Ministers did, yet lacked the headgear. Furthermore, the Chairman's longevity puzzled Matiaba. The story, the one told to the citizens of Home, was that Warbak's body had been damaged beyond healing in the First Campaign against the Harvesters, specifically at the Rally of Texhoma, and that his engineers had built him a cybernetic body. This accounted for his long lifespan. Warbak was a man grown when the Earth broke and that was over eighty years ago. Today Warbak appeared to be in his fifties at most.
"Would you prefer I use the barbaric practice of flawed, physical speech? So be it. Let's play. But do hurry, I have much on my mind. The construction of the monuments is nearly done."
"Yes s-sir, boss," Matiaba stuttered.
The Chairman nodded for him to continue.
"I have a report from the Ministry of Social Purity, unit twelve, floor 147." The aide paused, causing Warbak to gesture impatiently with a spinning finger. Matiaba gulped, knowing that it would be so much easier for his boss to simply rape his mind. He knew that he’d better hurry. "Well, sir. They have received a reliable tip about an esoterrorist that has infiltrated the city."
"And I am to be bothered with every lead or arrest that the Scrubbers deal with?" His expression was one of mild boredom.
"N-no, Mr. Chairman. It's just... just that..."
"Spit it out, boy," Warbak hissed.
"The esoterrorist, sir. It's Lily Sapphire."
At this, the Chairman looked to be somewhere between shocked, interested, and amused.
“And you have the report of their probe?"
"Yes, Mr. Chairman." Matiaba bowed again and approached the Throne, head down, arms outreached, offering the N-Tab to his leader.
Warbak lifted his hand and took the tablet from his aide, who then backed away in a crouched posture.
The ruler of the free world looked at the pictures on the tablet with a quickened pulse and an intense look in his eye.
"You are dismissed," he said without lifting his gaze.
Smart enough not to argue, Matiaba bowed, saying nothing, and let himself out of the chambers.
As soon as the wooden panel at the base of the pagoda's stairs had sealed itself shut behind Matiaba, Accoba touched a button on the armrest of his throne.
A voice that sounded like rusty nails answered the hail.
"Yes?"
"Umbra. I have her."
005
"WHAT DO YOU SEE?" Carbine whispered as he finished belly-crawling alongside his trusted friend.
"A whole lot of nothing," Jon mumbled back. "Hang on." Despite the moonlight above, the miniature valley below lay in the shadow of the surrounding hills and its contents were difficult to make out.
Jon stretched his arms out before him and flipped up the protective cover on his suit’s control panel, mounted on his left forearm. A quick push of a button and his helmet’s HUD came alive and switched into night vision mode.
Out of the darkness beyond the hill, hues of green grew into shapes and outlines, revealing to Jon a farm and its environs. Now able to see, he took a quick inventory: two buildings—one large, one small; a barn and a house, presumably—some scattered machinery, pre-Storm from the look of it, a kind of primitive windmill and a large pond. Rolled bales of drying hay as big as Mechs decorated the field beyond, but other than that, all the trees and large bushes had been cleared away from the buildings for several hundred meters.
"It's a farm, I think," Jon announced. "No signs of life though. No moveme— wait! There!" Jon grabbed his Lawnmower and aimed its laser sight down toward the bigger of the two buildings to assist Carbine.
"Ugh. Never mind," Jon groaned. Below, a large door on the narrow side of the building swayed back and forth slowly in the cool night breeze, emitting a rusty whine as it did that chilled Jon's bones even more than frigid Holiday weather. It wasn't past midnight, yet the dew on the grass beneath their bodies had already formed a touch of frost.
"Just a barn door," Carbine seconded Jon's assessment. "I'm switching to thermal." Jon maintained his aim down the hill and continued to scan the depths of the shadows for any other sign of life, waiting for Carbine to report.
"Nothing. No heat sign
atures at all. It's all ambient. You sure this is the right spot?"
"Yeah, it has to be. I know there are a lot of knolls around here, but I'm sure this is where the flash came from. Max, you copy?"
"Yes, sir," the private replied.
"Come on up here and join us, stay low and keep it quiet. Leave your rider back with the others.”
"Yes sir, on the way."
Jon switched his HUD to thermal and confirmed what Carbine had already told him. Everything was cool. No animals in the barn, no humans in the house. At least not living ones, or recently dead... I'm sure this was where we saw it.
They had left the main camp shortly after dawn. They were given due south by the Colonel as their direction to search for any signs of the missing villagers. Despite having spent a sleepless night in camp the day before, thinking of the Drop-trash girl, Jon had insisted that they ride on when dusk came, instead of making camp. If the boys were upset about Jon's choice, they were smart enough to keep it to themselves. So they rode on, into the night. They hadn't been on the road more than an hour before they came across the farming village the Colonel had spoken of, now nothing more than a ghost town. Its empty structures had stood out like gravestones against the cemetery of the flat, moonlit prairie.
"Should we search it?" Carbine had inquired.
"The Colonel said it had been picked over, but it couldn’t hurt to double-check.”
They’d spent the next two hours combing the homes and lanes of the simple village, but to their perplexity had found no tracks, vehicular or foot, leading out of town. Even more peculiar was the noticeable absence of Mech footprints.
“I thought the 51st searched here already?” Carbine whispered to Jon.
Jon replied only with his eyes, letting his friend know that he too shared Carbine’s concern, but that he dared not vocalize it.
There were smalls signs of a struggle here and there: some broken door frames, some scattered tools, seemingly dropped mid-task, and in one case a burned-down homestead. It was clear to Jon the villagers had left in a hurry, or were surprised somehow, but the details of their plight continued to elude him, for there were no signs of standard combat engagements.
“Shouldn’t we make camp here?” Max asked. “It’s getting late.”
“No,” Jon said sternly, gazing off into the nearby hills on the edge of the fields surrounding the town. “Let’s continue to reconnoiter the outskirts. They couldn’t have gone far. All the vehicles are still here. All of them.”
Jon's tenacity possibly paid off for them, as only thirty minutes later they’d been cruising along in the cold darkness when from the black of the wild countryside to their left, dead east, not far away, had come a brilliant flash of lime green light. It had lit up the treeless skyline of gently rolling hills like a flashbang, then slowly faded down, sizzling and pulsing for a minute before leaving the hills in darkness once again.
They hadn’t been sure if the pulse of light signaled a Drop or not, but it had demanded investigation, and would have, even if it hadn’t occurred so close the abandoned village.
Presently, Max was belly-crawling up to the pair.
"Max, we aren't seeing anything down there, but I'm sure this was where the flash came from. Give me a scan. I want to know if it was a Drop," Jon ordered.
Max dug around in his suit’s dump pouch and fished out his N-Tab. He pointed the back of the device down the hill and slowly moved it horizontally as it scanned the dark vista.
"I am picking up some strange quantum signatures, but they aren't copacetic with any Drop ever registered."
Hmm.
"What should we do, boss?" Carbine asked.
"Let's go down there and check it out."
"Shouldn't we radio back to HQ?" Max asked, his voice laced with shock and irritation.
"I don't feel that is necessary, Private, thank you," Jon answered curtly. Then, switching on the open comm for all to hear, "Alright. Listen up. Max, take Lunk and Quiteke and your riders down the south slope of this hill. Circle wide and approach the house from the southeast. Carbine, come with me. We will come from the north and clear that outbuilding, and then approach the main building by cutting through that pond rather than take the driveway. Understood?"
"Sir!" they answered in unison, and although Jon could still register the nigh-insubordination in Max's voice, he ignored it. Once Max had left to meet back up with the others, Carbine made to head down the hill, but Jon made a stopping gesture. He flipped his helmet's face shield up and turned the comm off.
"Hang on bud. We go on foot. Give them a chance to get into position. We have a much shorter way to go, and I want them to approach first. If there is anything down there, I want them to flush it out towards us." This isn't going to go down like finals. I'm not going to screw up again.
They waited there for about a minute before silently making their way down the north side of the hill in the frosty silver moonlight. They stalked down the slope and approached the northern wall of the barn as slowly as the forming of ice crystals on the ground. Jon flashed Carbine a bit of sign language; a code that they had developed together in the Academy. Carbine registered the gesture’s meaning and started around the eastern side of the building, keeping low, moving in a controlled manner, the tip of his rifle following wherever his head moved, synchronized. Jon, likewise, made his way along the western wall and continued until he and Carbine found each other again, each coming around the corner of the southern end, where the swinging door was still beating itself against the barn whenever the cold wind gusted.
Their HUDs already set to night-vision, they readied their Lawnmowers and spun into the barn, one after the other. Each of them scanned the corners in an instant as they rushed out of the doorway and deeper into the barn, spreading out as they did so. The moment of breach was always the most dangerous part of searching a building for targets, and they knew it.
"Clear!" Carbine spoke only loud enough to ensure Jon heard him, but not loud enough to possibly alarm anyone in the nearby house.
Jon saw that he spoke true. There were no signs of inhabitants, just empty stalls, bits of hay and some tools scattered about.
"Possible signs of a struggle. Here, look." Jon pointed to a pair of broken planks near the top of one of the nearby stall walls and then to scuff marks in the hay-covered floor—hieroglyphics telling a dark tale.
"Uh-huh," Carbine muttered.
"Cover me," Jon announced, getting up from his crouched position. As he approached the site of the struggle, he systematically spun and checked each stall as he went.
A short minute later, Jon turned around and waved.
"There is nothing here, but there was." Jon glided his hand over the scuff marks on the floor, then glanced up past Carbine to carefully examine the broken planks above. "I'm no tracker, but it's pretty clear to me that there was either a rampaging bull in here that eventually fell over and disappeared, or there was a fight between someone and something large, like a Class Three."
Jon lowered his rifle in one hand and raised the other to re-open the comm between him and his other men.
"Max, come in," he whispered.
"Sir! Gotcha, loud and clear."
"SITREP," Jon ordered.
"We haven't seen any signs of life on our approach. Waiting to breach, sir."
"Okay. Go ahead; we are headed to the back of the house from the barn, by way of the pond. Be safe. Follow normal protocol."
Jon signaled Carbine, and they exited the barn and made for the duck pond that separated the two buildings. Jon studied the house intently as he crept towards it, wading into the water one slow, soft footstep at a time. He forced himself not to focus on one spot too much. Instead, he maintained a big picture of everything in his field of vision, tracking for signs of movement. Carbine performed well, executing a left-right sweep as he followed behind, making sure that they weren't going to be flanked or surprised by anyone or anything.
Jon had just taken his first drippin
g step out of the pond onto dry land when the thunderclap of gunfire erupted from within the farmhouse.
"Taking fire! Repeat, we are taking fire!" Jon heard Max scream into the com.
"Shit!" Jon blurted. But how?
More shots.
"We're coming!" Jon yelled back and burst into action, bolting towards the house. He and Carbine slowed their rush into a soft landing as they approached the back door and put their backs to either side of it. Jon paused for a split second and then nodded to Carbine. Keeping the lead, Jon rolled off his back and, turning, kicked the door in. Seconds later, they were both moving into the house, checking the corners as they had in the barn, bursts of continued small arms fire nearby their soundtrack.
They found themselves in a large sunroom-pantry of sorts. Drying laundry hung on racks, obscuring the windows that faced the duck pond. There was an archway at the far end of the big room that promised to lead deeper into the house and closer to the ambush.
"Come on!" Carbine urged as he rushed towards the archway.
"No, stop!" Jon hissed. Flashbacks of finals flew by like strafing bullets in his mind's eye. "We can't afford to make stupid mistakes. Observe protocol."
Carbine bit his lip but nodded. He then moved to the side, sweeping as he went, and waited for his Lieutenant and friend to move into position.
Together, they navigated easily through the house, despite not knowing the layout. Jon ignored the maddening sense of frustration that threatened to compromise his cautious approach and soon he and Carbine were upon the unknown enemy.
What the...?
Jon found himself paralyzed by what he saw. A person, apparently one of the farmers who lived in this house, based off his dress, was standing in the room, a kitchen, just beyond him and Carbine. The farmer had his back facing Jon and was using another archway as partial cover as he fired rounds into the room on the other side, presumably at Max and the others.
The Goddess Gambit Page 10